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Hemoglobin A1C test. This test measures how much sugar is stuck to your red blood cells, which generally have a lifespan of three months. Therefore, this test gauges how high your blood sugar has been in recent months.
Normal result for nondiabetics:
4% to 6%. Normal result for diabetics:
7% or lower (some groups suggest aiming for 6.5% or lower)
If a hemoglobin A1C test result is 8% or higher, it’s a sign that blood sugar is not under control. However, making lifestyle changes can reduce your A1C.
If you’re tired of all the conflicting nutritional advice, you can rest assured that there is one rock solid recommendation: Reduce consumption of ANY added sugar. I’m not 100 percent sure, but I bet that the only ones who would tell you anything different are the companies that add sugar to their products. Added sweeteners quickly boost calorie intake while providing little nutrient value. Those calories can stack up very quickly if you’re eating too many highly sweetened foods. If you’re consuming more calories than your body needs, the evidence will appear quickly in the form of added pounds. Here are 10 tips to help you avoid unwanted sugar. To read the complete article titled – How To Reduce Sugar in Your Diet
Diabetes is a chronic condition in which blood sugar levels rise higher than normal. There are two types of diabetes, and each presents its own challenges. The most common form, type 2, represents over 90 percent of diagnosed patients and presents itself most frequently in overweight adults with a family history of diabetes.
In type 2 diabetics, the body’s insulin can be ineffective. This malfunction initially causes the pancreas to create a surplus of insulin. Over time, the pancreas cannot make enough effective insulin to keep blood glucose levels normal.
Conversely, type 1 diabetes is typically diagnosed in children and young adults and occurs when the body does not produce a sufficient supply of insulin. Only 5 to 10 percent of diabetics are type 1.
Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can have long-term health consequences. The good news is, diabetes — especially type 2 — is a disease that can be controlled by lifestyle modifications
The beneficial effect of exercise on glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes is related to improved cardiorespiratory fitness and a shrinking waistline, a new study suggests. Other effects of exercise — such as improved VO2 max, muscle mass, or fat distribution — were not linked with better HbA1c levels.
The results have clinical implications for the design of exercise training programs used to treat individuals with type 2 diabetes and provide further evidence that combining aerobic exercise with resistance training is the best approach, something guidelines already stress, says senior author Timothy S. Church, MD, from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The new findings come from a secondary analysis of the Health Benefits of Aerobic and Resistance Training in Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes (HART-D) trial in individuals with complete follow-up data; the original results, published in the Journal of the American Medical Society in 2010 (JAMA. 2010;304:2253-2262), showed that 9 months of supervised aerobic training, resistance training, or both had a similar, favorable impact on HbA1c levels.
According to the authors, previous studies probing how body fat distribution, muscle strength, and fitness influenced long-term glucose control either had small, homogeneous samples or lacked a control group.
The HART-D trial “created a unique opportunity to really look at what [aspect of exercise] was creating a positive change in HbA1c,” Dr. Church told Medscape Medical News.
The trial randomized 262 sedentary patients to a control group or to 3 types of exercise for 9 months. They all had type 2 diabetes that was not optimally controlled: 20% had heart disease, and 20% had neuropathy. “These were high-risk individuals with diabetes…what you see in the clinic,” Dr. Church said.
The current analysis examined data from 201 of these participants with complete follow-up data. These patients were diverse: 39% were African American and 64% were women, and they ranged in age from 30 to 75 years. Overall, they were obese (mean body mass index [BMI], about 35) and middle-aged (mean age, 58 years) with relatively poor baseline fitness.
The aerobic exercise consisted of brisk walking on an inclined treadmill, at 50% to 80% of maximal cardiorespiratory fitness. The resistance training consisted of standard weight-bearing exercises in the gym.
On average, patients in the weight-lifting group or the aerobic group spent 140 minutes per week in the gym, and patients in the combined exercise group spent 110 minutes a week doing aerobic exercise and 30 minutes a week doing resistance training, Dr. Church said.
The researchers looked for changes from baseline to 9 months in HbA1c levels, weight, BMI, waist circumference, body fat, measures of fat mass, VO2, and leg muscle strength and estimated effort expended during exercise, or estimated metabolic equivalents of task (METs). Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) was used to determine the participants’ body fat composition.
Participants with increased estimated METs and reduced waist circumference were 2.81 times more likely to have lower HbA1c levels and a reduction in the use of medication for type 2 diabetes compared with those without improved fitness and central adiposity.
In the current study, “we didn’t see things like changes in muscle mass or change in fat mass,” said Dr. Church. “It was surprising to see fitness — measured by how long you stay on a treadmill — and belly fat as the big drivers” behind better glucose control.
Combined Aerobic and Resistance Training Is Best
Much like a drug-dosing study, this trial was designed to determine the optimal exercise regimen, not to find out how to get people to exercise, Dr. Church explained.
The original HART-D study involved more than 20,000 supervised exercise sessions, he noted, and participants had excellent compliance (more than 80% adhered to the program).
In a real-world setting, patients can perform aerobic exercise without supervision, although initial direction is needed for resistance training, he conceded. Patients can be counseled about attending local YMCAs or doing home-based exercise programs.
“The [new] study provides more evidence that the optimal benefits [occur] when you combine aerobic exercise plus resistance training,” which agrees with the current recommendations, Dr. Church commented. It also sheds light on a potential mechanism to explain why exercise works, he added.
The authors have reported no relevant financial relationships.
Diabetes Care . Published online May 13, 2013. Abstract
Belly Fat Elimination Process
Cutting-edge fat-loss exercise that will get your heart pumping and your muscles burning in almost no time, says BJ Gaddour, C.S.C.S., owner of StreamFit.com. It starts with one of the most effective exercises invented: the squat. When done correctly, a squat trains a lot of muscles, particularly big ones like your quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes. In fact, it burns more calories per rep than almost any other exercise
For Type 1 diabetics, further proof of improving your life using technology.
Medtronic gives hope to the type 1 diabetics as it sets the stage of them getting closer to the future of an artificial pancreas device as their clinical study proved that an insulin pump can automatically stop the flow of insulin once it detects that the blood sugar level had normalized.
These insulin pumps were developed by the medical technology company based in Minnesota and already available in over 50 countries outside US. Once the FDA approves the device, approximately 3 million Americans will benefit from it
I use QUEST diagnostics and they provide great service and customer support.
Diabetes is a chronic condition in which blood sugar levels rise higher than normal. There are two types of diabetes, and each presents its own challenges. The most common form, type 2, represents over 90 percent of diagnosed patients and presents itself most frequently in overweight adults with a family history of diabetes.
