A study in 1957 showed that animals lose weight at high altitudes, and weight loss has long been known for people at high altitudes, but the subjects were all extremely fit and active mountaineers and skiers.

Obese and overweight people tend to suffer altitude sickness and resultant nausea, dizziness and heart attacks, when at very high altitudes, so the research team from the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich decided to find out what would happen if overweight people spent some time at a moderately high altitude of 8,700 feet.

Their 20 subjects, all male, were of average age 56, obese (average BMI of 34), and with risk factors for diabetes, strokes and heart disease. They were all from Munich, which is around 1,740 feet above sea level, and were housed for a week in a research station 1,000 feet below the peak of Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain. They were encouraged to eat and drink as much as they wished, and apart from leisurely walks around the station, were not allowed to do any exercise. The research team monitored their subjects’ weight, calorie intake, metabolic rate, and hormone levels before their stay, during the week, and a month afterwards.

Leader of the team, Dr Florian J. Lippl, said that during the week the subjects ate around an average of 730 calories less than they had before their stay, and they lost 3.5 lb on average. During the month after their stay they regained an average of 1.5 lb, but they were still burning slightly more calories than they had before their alpine stay.

Dr Lippl said the levels of the hormone leptin, which suppresses appetite, rose during their week at high altitude, while the hunger hormone grehlin was unchanged, and this meant they were less hungry during their stay. Their metabolic rate was also higher at altitude, which meant they burned more calories and this, combined with the lower calorie intake, caused the weight loss.

The research is in a preliminary stage; no data was collected on whether the weight loss was fat tissue, water, or muscle weight, and there was no control group. The researchers plan to use a higher mountain in Italy for the next stage of the research.

One drawback to the mountain retreat for weight loss idea is the finding that after only a month the subjects had re-gained one third of their lost weight. Other studies have shown that appetites return to normal if people are living at high altitude for around six months. Another drawback is the potential for adverse health effects for overweight people at high altitudes, since they can be more prone to heart attacks and other conditions.

Professor Richard N. Bergman of the University of Southern California said the study was preliminary but interesting, and noted that in the U.S. the state of Colorado, which has the highest mean elevation, also has the lowest rate of obesity rate, while the highest rates of obesity tend to occur in states with low mean elevations.

The research paper was published in the journal Obesity on 4th February.

Healthy routine helps to minimize the risk of developing complications of diabetes. One can keep blood glucose levels normal by a healthy diet and maintaining physical fitness.

Eating right, controlling your weight and exercising regularly will help you to control sugar level.
Excess consumption of alcohol is harmful as it may lower blood glucose levels and cause weight gain. Smoking is very harmful to diabetes patients, because it increases the risk of long-term complications.

Foot care is important because diabetes can increase the risk of skin infections and ulcers on the feet. You must clean your feet daily and if a sore develop on your feet, consult the doctor promptly. Diabetes patients have an increased risk of high blood pressure, so regular monitoring is important.

Low-fat, vegetarian diets are ideal for diabetics. In most cases, diabetics can manage their disease much better with a food plan that gets most of its calories from complex carbohydrates while minimizing fats.

Diet for Diabetes :

With a near-vegetarian diet and exercise program, one can maintain their sugar levels with out taking any medications. Ideal diet program for a diabetic is a low fat vegetarian diet, reducing meats, high-fat dairy products, and oils. At the same time increasing grains, legumes, and vegetables.

• Have your meals at regular timings and limit your overall intake.
• Eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Soluble fibers mainly found in fruits, vegetables and some seeds are good for diabetics. They reduce or slow down the absorption of glucose from the intestines.
  Diabetes patients should include leafy vegetables, vegetable soups and juices in their diet. Vegetables like tomato, cucumber, bitter gourd, carrot, cooked kidney beans, pumpkin, snake gourd, beans,  cabbage, lady finger, brinjal, onion, spinach, inner part of banana stem, drum sticks etc. are good for diabetes.   Fruits and fruit juices of  apple, guava, lemon etc. are good. Avoid fruits like banana, mango, grapes, papaya, jack fruit etc. and vegetables like potato, tapioca, sweet potato etc. containing lot of carbohydrates.
• Eat more starches such as bread, cereal, and starchy vegetables. Aim for six servings a day or more.
• Eat sugars, sweets and fat and fat-fried items in moderation.
  It is better to avoid cakes, jaggery, honey, ghee, butter, cool drinks, biscuits, dried fruits like badam and excess use of oil while cooking.

Home Remedies

Some home remedies help to regulate the blood sugar level. You can try out some of these remedies which compliment along with the diet for diabetics and regular exercises to lower blood sugar levels and protect from diabetes related damages.

Have

• 1 litre of cinnamon water daily. Cinnamon contains a chemical to help utilize blood sugar naturally in your body. Add 3 table spoon of cinnamon to 1 litre of boiling water. Simmer for 20 minutes in a low flame, then strain the mixture.
• Fresh or dried bitter gourd (bitter melon) or 2 ounces of its juice every day. Bitter melon increases the insulin secreting cells in the pancreas and daily intake of juice reduces the risk of developing diabetic retinopathy.
• Wild (Black) cumin boiled in water regularly.
• Equal quantities of turmeric powder and dried gooseberry powder with honey or drink equal quantities of gooseberry juice and fresh turmeric juice in an empty stomach regularly.
• Regularly, the juice of crushed ‘touch me not’ with its roots.
• First thing in the morning, have the juice of crushed fish-berry (amruth) soaked in water for a day.
• Make coffee with powdered fried fenugreek and wheat, taken in equal quantities.
• Garlic every day early in the morning in an empty stomach.
• Tender curry leaves (fresh) twice a day.
• Crush guava leaves, a handful and 3 grams of cumin together. Boil with one glass of water and make it half.
• Drink 8 glass of water in the morning and walk for one hour.
• The leaves of gymnema sylvestre (Gurmur- a climbing vine), a traditional Ayurvedic medicine for diabetics,  significantly reduces the metabolic effects of sugar by preventing the intestines from absorbing the sugar molecules during the process of digestion. Add 3 quarters of gymnema powder to one glass of boiling water, strain and drink it warm twice a day, 1 hour before breakfast and 1 hour before dinner for best results. The leaves can also be ground and had. It has the property of blocking sugary taste and thus curbs the craving for sweet things.

Age: More than 83% of people who die from coronary heart disease are 65 or older. Older women are more likely to die of heart attacks within a few weeks of the attack than older men.Being male: Men have a greater risk of heart attack than women do, and they have attacks earlier in life. Even after menopause, when women’s death rate from heart disease increases, it’s not as great as men’s.
Family history. Those with parents or close relatives with heart disease are more likely to develop it themselves.
Race: Heart disease risk is higher among African Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians, native Hawaiians, and some Asian Americans compared to Caucasians.
Smoking: Cigarette smoking increases your risk of developing heart disease by two to four times.
High cholesterol: As blood cholesterol rises, so does risk of coronary heart disease.
High blood pressure: High blood pressure increases the heart’s workload, causing the heart to thicken and become stiffer. It also increases your risk of stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, and congestive heart failure. When high blood pressure exists with obesity, smoking, high blood cholesterol levels, or diabetes, the risk of heart attack or stroke increases several times.
Sedentary lifestyle. Inactivity is a risk factor for coronary heart disease.
Excess weight: People who have excess body fat—especially if a lot of it is at the waist—are more likely to develop heart disease and stroke even if they have no other risk factors.
Diabetes: Having diabetes seriously increases your risk of developing cardiovascular disease. About three-quarters of people with diabetes die from some form of heart or blood vessel disease.

And the protection may not be down to caffeine since decaf coffee has the greatest effect, say researchers in Archives of Internal Medicine.

They looked at 18 separate studies involving nearly 500,000 people.

This analysis revealed that people who drink three or four cups of coffee or tea a day cut their risk by a fifth or more, say researchers.

The same amount of decaffeinated coffee had an even bigger effect, lowering risk by a third.

Type 2 diabetes usually starts after the age of 40 and develops when the body can still make some insulin, but not enough, or when the insulin that is produced does not work properly. Type 2 diabetes is treated with a healthy diet and increased physical activity. In addition to this, medication and/or insulin is often required.

If the findings prove true, doctors may well start advising people to put the kettle on as well as take more exercise and watch their weight, say the researchers.

When the authors combined and analysed the data, they found that each additional cup of coffee consumed in a day cut diabetes risk by 7%.

Lead researcher Dr Rachel Huxley, from the University of Sydney in Australia, said because of the finding with decaffeinated coffee, the link is unlikely to be solely related to caffeine.

Instead, other compounds in coffee and tea – including magnesium and antioxidants known as lignans or chlorogenic acids – may be involved.

Special brew

“The identification of the active components of these beverages would open up new therapeutic pathways for the primary prevention of diabetes mellitus.

“If such beneficial effects were observed in interventional trials to be real, the implications for the millions of individuals who have diabetes mellitus, or who are at future risk of developing it, would be substantial.”

Dr Victoria King, of Diabetes UK, said: “Without full information about what other factors may be influencing the type 2 diabetes risk of the studies’ participants – such as their physical activity levels and diet – as well as what the active ingredient in tea or coffee appears to be, we cannot be sure what, if anything, this observed effect is down to.

“What we can be sure of is that the development of type 2 diabetes is strongly linked to lifestyle, which means that many cases could be prevented by keeping active and eating a healthy balanced diet that is low in fat, salt and sugar with plenty of fruit and vegetables.”

A study found in The Lancet discovered that by adding an exercise regimen and developing a healthy eating lifestyle could cut the risk of diabetes by more than one-third for susceptible people.

Usnews.com reports that diabetes natural remedies such as dieting and exercising are also more effective than pharmaceutical drugs.

The study took 3,234 individuals with a high blood sugar and split them into three groups, those who made lifestyle changes, those who were given metformin to control their blood sugar, and those who were given a placebo.

It was found that after 10 years, 34 percent of those who made the lifestyle change reduced their risk of developing the disease as opposed to the placebo. These findings also nearly doubled the 18 percent who reduced their risk by taking metformin.

“Lifestyle intervention, even when provided later, also seemed to lower diabetes incidence rate,” said author Dr. William Knowler.

Diet and exercise may also be beneficial for other health concerns, and may even improve one’s overall wellbeing.

You’ll find carbohydrates in the healthiest foods you eat, and in the least healthy. Check the food label to find out exactly how much is in your favorite foods.

How you eat can affect blood sugar
Choosing the right kind of carbohydrates and spacing them out evenly throughout the day can keep blood sugar from rising too high, too fast (90% of the carbohydrate calories you digest end up as glucose, so they have a much bigger impact on blood sugar than fat or protein).

“The goal … is to take in enough carbohydrates to nourish ourselves, but never so much that it causes high blood sugars,” says Linda Sartor, a diabetes nutrition specialist at the Penn Rodebaugh Diabetes Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Up until about the mid-1990s experts believed that people with diabetes should never eat foods that contain so-called “simple” sugars—those found in cakes and candy—and instead eat “complex” carbohydrates, or those with longer chains of sugar molecules such as potatoes, fruit, vegetables, and grains.

We now know that all carbohydrates can cause a rise in blood sugar. Pasta and potatoes, for example, may cause a rapid rise in blood sugar, as can pastries (although other beneficial ingredients in food, such as fiber, cause blood sugar to rise more slowly).

Some carbs are better than others
The goal is now to maximize intake of the good stuff—vitamins, minerals, and fiber—and minimize carbohydrates that boost blood sugar too much, offer few nutritional benefits, or are packed with fat and calories.

A dietitian or diabetes educator will help you develop a meal plan to get a good balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fat, and an appropriate amount of calories. They’ll teach you how to manage carbohydrate intake, usually by carbohydrate counting, but sometimes using the exchange diet, the plate method, the modified food guide, or other meal plans.

You’ll need to fine-tune your meal plan by testing blood sugar before and after meals. Specific foods that cause blood sugar to rise too high can vary from person to person (for example, you may find you can only have small portions of orange juice or pasta due to a big rise in blood sugar).

Carbohydrates generally have their peak effect on blood sugar about an hour to two hours after they are eaten, and are gone within three hours.

And while there is no cure for the disease, it can be managed by eating healthy foods, exercising, maintaining a healthy weight and, if needed, medications or insulin therapy to regulate blood sugar levels.

But researchers say these same healthy lifestyle choices can also significantly delay or perhaps even prevent type 2 diabetes, even for those who are at high risk for the disease.The latest evidence comes from a follow-up study on 3,234 overweight or obese adults with elevated blood glucose levels who participated in the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), a three-year randomized trial completed in 2001.

Initial DPP results showed that the program, which consisted of reducing fat and calories, increasing physical activity to 150 minutes a week, and frequent interaction with health-care professionals who provided training in diet, exercise and behavior modification, reduced the development of type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. Those assigned to two daily doses of metformin, an oral diabetes medication, but no lifestyle changes reduced the development of the disease by 31 percent over the same period, compared to those assigned a placebo.

Results from the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study (DPPOS), which included 2,766 of the DPP participants, shows that the diet and exercise group not only cut their risk of developing diabetes by 34 percent over a 10-year period, but also sustained a moderate weight loss and had lower blood pressure and triglyceride levels. People over 60 got even more dramatic results, cutting their risk of diabetes during the study period by about half.

The group initially assigned metformin and later added in the lifestyle program had an 18 percent lower risk of developing diabetes. “Interventions that result in weight loss lower the risk of diabetes, and that lower risk appears to persist for a long period of time,” said study author Dr. William C. Knowler of the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Knowler acknowledges that losing weight is a difficult task and can’t be accomplished simply by telling people to slim down. “To make things like this happen on a large scale, we have to do more than simply tell people to lose weight,” he said, adding that people need access to weight loss clinics that can teach them about diet and exercise.

“When you consider the devastating medical complications that go with type 2 diabetes, these are very significant findings,” said Dr. Ronald Goldberg, principal investigator of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine arm of the study. “It demonstrates that lifestyle changes can last as long as 10 years in preventing or slowing diabetes in people who are at risk.” Dr. Griffin Rodgers, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, agrees, saying that “millions of people could delay diabetes for years and possibly prevent the disease altogether if they lost a modest amount of weight through diet and increased physical activity.”

Dr. Anoop Misra, director of the department of diabetes and metabolic diseases at Fortis Hospitals in New Delhi, India, and author of an accompanying journal editorial, says the study shows that lifestyle intervention is “the best bet” for effectively preventing diabetes. “Diet and exercise remain the most important modalities to prevent diabetes, and any drugs are less important.”

Misra says all nations should take steps to help curb the diabetes epidemic, such as regulating the advertisement and sale of “energy-dense junk food to children” and encouraging regular physical activity starting at an early age. “Spreading awareness about proper lifestyle and adverse consequences of obesity and diabetes should be at the top of health agenda of all nations.”

For those that are much like me and love their cup of coffee whenever they can get it, there are many positive benefits of drinking that cup of what I like to call, pure “awesomeness.”

1. Helps prevent brain illnesses such as, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. Numerous studies have shown that caffeine helps in the protection from brain diseases. A study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health showed that the moderate consumption of caffeine cut the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease in half!

2. Protects against diabetes. That’s right, drinking coffee helps prevent diabetes type 2, the type of diabetes where the body tissues actually become resistant to insulin. A study from the Archives of Internal Medicine found that women who drank 6 or more cups of coffee a day were 22% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than women who drank no coffee at all.

3. Coffee contains antioxidants. Antioxidants help prevent cell damage, which is related to the process of aging. However, this cell damage is also tied to many forms of cancer. German researchers found a potent antioxidant compound in coffee that appears to boost phase 2 enzymes, which are believed to prevent colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States.

4. Coffee reduces the risk of eye spasms that lead to blindness. A study published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry showed that coffee may reduce the risk of the eye disorder blepharospasm, which can lead to blindness. Current treatments for the disorder are botox injections, or the surgical removal of eyelid nerves. However, the study found that patients who drank two or more cups of coffee a day could prevent the onset of the eye disorder by 1.7 years for every extra cup they drank.

5. Coffee reduces muscle pain. A study published in the Journal of Pain, showed that drinking coffee can reduced muscle pain after a workout quite significantly. In fact, two cups of coffee were found to reduce muscle pain by up to 48%!

Ninety-three percent of participants consumed more calories from fat than they should, 85 percent consumed too much saturated fat, and 92 percent took in too much sodium.

Researchers compared what study participants reported eating to the recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Institute of Medicine’s Dietary Reference Intakes.

These guidelines call for no more than 30 percent of a person’s daily calories to come from fat, for example, and no more than 10 percent from saturated fat.

“You displace other healthy foods if you consume high levels of fat, [and] fat is high in calories,” cautions Mara Vitolins, the study’s lead author. Vitolins is an associate professor and vice chair of the department of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University’s School of Medicine.

The research serves as a heads-up to all type 2 diabetics—not just the newly diagnosed—since it found that people who had lived with diabetes for the longest periods of time were no more likely to maintain a healthy diet than people who’d had the disease for shorter periods. Whether you were diagnosed many years ago or only recently, here are seven tips for starting and maintaining a healthy type 2 diabetes diet:

Figure out what you’re eating. To replace high-fat foods in your diet with low-fat foods, first write down everything you eat and then analyze your list, advises Sue McLaughlin, president for healthcare and education at the American Diabetes Association. Some online tools, such as the ADA’s My Food Advisor, can help you determine what your actual intake is and where you are lacking in nutrients. As you analyze your food intake, “choose one or two of the highest fat-content foods and replace them with a colorful serving of fresh fruit or vegetables,” says McLaughlin. By doing this, she says, “you have decreased your fat and calorie intake and increased your intake of fiber and vitamins and minerals and moved one step closer to improving blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and overall health.”

Get serious about your fruits and vegetables. Strive for two servings of fruits and three servings of vegetables per day, Vitolins suggests, and two servings of dairy and six servings of grains. And try to stick with low-fat dairy products and grains. The study showed that less than half of study participants took in the minimum recommended daily servings of fruits, vegetables, dairy, and grains.

Plan your meals. Careful planning can prevent mindless eating. Adults should get 45 to 65 percent of their calories from carbohydrates, 10 to 35 percent from protein, and 20 to 30 percent from fat, Vitolins says. For some people, diabetic diet planning tools, such as counting carbohydrates and the create-your-plate method (which involves drawing imaginary lines on your plate to divide it into three sections, then putting nonstarchy vegetables in one section and starchy foods and meat/protein in the other sections), may be useful for meal planning.

Don’t assume you know everything. Just because you’ve been diabetic for a long time doesn’t mean that nutrition education won’t help you. “In my opinion, people with type 2 diabetes may not be getting the amount of nutrition education they need to consume a healthful diet,” Vitolins says. “I think people with type 2 diabetes need nutrition education ‘boosters’ or continual re-evaluations of their food intake over time.” Ask your doctor for a referral to a dietitian or nutritionist if you think you could use a refresher.

Develop a support system. Identifying a person who McLaughlin calls a “champion”—someone who will listen and provide support for the healthy changes that you are trying to make—can be beneficial for diabetics. Ask this person to encourage you to consume healthy foods and engage in physical activity as a part of your daily life.

Be picky about where you eat. Select restaurants that specialize in healthy foods or that are willing to substitute high-fat foods for healthier ones.

Along with refining your dietary habits, it’s important to take stock of your physical activity. You should “do something that requires you to move the large muscles in the body [arms and legs] for a goal of 30 minutes or more, five days a week or more,” McLaughlin recommends. Research shows that restricting calories alone will result in loss of lean muscle mass and body fat, while a program of both exercise and calorie restriction should lead to a loss that is primarily body fat.

Sources: health.usnews.com

Low-GI foods can help gradually increase your blood sugar without spiking it out of control like high-GI foods. By adding the healthy indexed staples and snacks to your recipes you can help avoid diabetes-related illness such as heart disease, vision disorders, kidney failure, obesity and joint problems.

Here’s a list of some healthy low-GI foods to enjoy:

Here’s some food to be sure to try to avoid! They can raise your blood sugar too fast: