How should diabetics control their diet? Doctor: If you do these 4 things, your blood sugar will go down instead of up

Diabetes is a metabolic disease characterized by high blood sugar levels caused by insufficient insulin secretion or defective action, or both. If not treated in time, patients will inevitably suffer from various complications.

The treatment of diabetes mainly includes diet and medication, both of which are indispensable. Drug treatment is easy to understand, so why can diet also improve symptoms?

An article in the "Basic Medicine Forum" explains this problem as follows: Through a scientific and reasonable diet, patients can prevent excessive nutrient intake, gradually reach an ideal weight, maintain blood sugar at normal levels as much as possible, and maintain a normal blood lipid range, thereby preventing and controlling the occurrence and development of diabetes, improving overall health, and improving the quality of life of diabetic patients.

Blood sugar can increase with the increase of diet. The more calories you eat, the higher the blood sugar level will rise, and the more insulin is needed to counteract it. Because type 2 diabetes is caused by insufficient insulin secretion or insulin not working well, the purpose of restricting diet is also to reduce the burden of insulin, so that it can get a good rest and facilitate functional recovery.

If patients do not want to control their diet and only try to control their blood sugar by taking more hypoglycemic drugs, the result will only accelerate the progression of the disease and even completely exhaust the pancreas. It is for this reason that patients must control their diet if they want to get rid of the troubles of diabetes.

So, how should diabetic patients control their diet?

The purpose of controlling diet is to control total calories, which includes not only staple food, but also side dishes and snacks. Generally, you can eat until you are 70% to 80% full. This method can be gradual. The daily staple food intake is more suitable between 200g and 400g, and it should be eaten in 3 or 4 times, with no more than 100g per meal. You should also eat a reasonable combination of coarse and fine grains, with coarse grains as the main food. Do not cook porridge or congee for eating, as it will be absorbed quickly and blood sugar will rise quickly. This practice should be avoided.

Patients should ensure that the proportion of various nutrients is appropriate, including 250g of milk, 1 egg and 100-150g of lean meat throughout the day. The calories provided by fat should not exceed 30% of the total calories, and the calories provided by animal oil should not exceed 10% of the total calories. In addition, patients should eat less fried food and more vegetables, which will help lower blood sugar and reduce weight at the same time.

In terms of fruits, patients can choose fruits with relatively low sugar content, such as apples, pears (sugar content 10-14%), bananas (sugar content 20%), watermelons (sugar content 40%), etc. Although fruits can be eaten, they should be eaten in moderation. For patients with postprandial blood sugar below 10mmol/L, they can eat one apple or pear a day, but it is best to eat it between meals and calculate the calories of the fruit into the total calories (i.e. reduce the amount of staple food).

Regarding meat, patients can choose white meat such as fish, shrimp, chicken, and rabbit as their first choice, and eat less red meat such as pork, beef, lamb, and animal offal to avoid increased blood lipids.

Regarding snacks, the author mentioned that foods like peanuts, melon seeds, walnuts, and almonds have high fat content and calories. 100g of these foods can produce the same amount of calories as 100g of staple food. The fat will eventually be converted into glucose in the body, so patients should limit their intake of such snacks.

A reasonable diet does not mean that patients should eat less. After all, people also need to survive and need to take in enough nutrients from food. Therefore, a correct and reasonable diet should be adjusted according to one's own physical condition. Only by arranging three meals a day and combining them with drug treatment can various complications of diabetes be delayed and the patient's quality of life be improved.

References:

Jiang Chunmei. A brief discussion on dietary care for diabetic patients[J]. Primary Medicine Forum, 15(33):2.