PEOPLE living with diabetes are encouraged to share their experiences in order to help others who have been diagnosed with the disease.
The charity behind Diabetes Week, which runs through June 20, wants them to tell their personal stories through art, music, poetry, or even film
Nutrition therapist Caroline Peyton, who runs clinics in Swindon, the Cotswolds and online, helps people change their lifestyle to bring type 2 diabetes into remission, keep blood sugar levels at healthy levels, and avoid the need for medication .
She said, “Make no mistake, this is a serious condition in which the pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin to transport glucose to cells where it is used for energy.
“This leads to dangerously high blood sugar levels and, if left untreated, can seriously damage parts of your body.”
More and more people are being told they have “pre-diabetes” – when their blood glucose levels are higher than enough for a diagnosis of diabetes.
Caroline said, “There is a myth that prediabetes is directly related to weight – it is not. Thinner people can still have the disease, but obese people are more likely to be affected, so this is a risk factor. ”
There are around 4.7 million people with diabetes in the UK, and those with type 2 make up the majority. Often referred to as a lifestyle disease, it cannot be cured.
She recommends following ten lifestyle steps to help people avoid diabetes or to help diabetics deal with it.
These include reducing your consumption of stimulants like tea and coffee to three a day, staying well hydrated with water, and exercising.
She also suggests limiting refined white grains, eating only two pieces of fruit a day, avoiding snacks and eating starchy carbohydrates with no protein foods and some fat, increasing servings of non-starchy vegetables, and reducing the size of starchy carbohydrate servings to only 20 per cent of the plate and eat protein and fate with a fruit.
The week is organized by the Diabetes UK charity. A statement on their website states: “We look back on an extraordinary year and look forward to what’s to come – and above all to celebrate the incredible diabetes community.”
The week started with a DiabetesStories movie and includes social media events as well as live question-and-answer sessions. For information, visit diabetes.org.uk
