Tips for diabetes prevention

Don’t let your weight gain more than 10 pounds in half a year, don’t let your blood sugar fluctuate throughout the day, and don’t sit still for more than 8 hours a day. As long as you persist for a long time, you can reduce the risk of disease by more than 40%. This is what my cousin, a nurse, who has been in the endocrinology department of a tertiary hospital for 8 years, summed up by following up with the director on thousands of high-risk patients.

Last year my uncle was diagnosed with a fasting blood sugar of 6.1mmol/L, which was right on the critical line. He was so frightened that he asked my cousin for a special sugar-control diet. The first thing she asked him was if he had gained weight recently. Sure enough, in the first half of the year, he worked on projects, drank ice milk tea with clients every day, and his weight increased by 18 pounds. Regarding the method of weight control, there is a lot of quarrel on the Internet now. One group says that we should completely give up polished rice and white noodles and replace them with whole grains. The other group says that as long as the total calories do not exceed the limit, we can eat anything. My cousin said that you don’t have to be on any particular team. She has seen many people chewing brown rice and getting gastric ulcers, and she has also seen people eat less than half a bowl of white rice at every meal. For people with stable blood sugar, the key is not to let their weight suddenly rise or fall in a short period of time. Do not lose more than 1 jin a week, and do not gain more than 1 jin. Just slowly adjust the diet structure, such as adding two more chopsticks to green leafy vegetables at each meal, and eating less fatty pork belly. This is much more reliable than a sudden extreme diet.

Many people eat a very light diet and have a normal weight, but they are still found to have abnormal glucose tolerance. Most of them ignore the problem of blood sugar fluctuations. I used to have a colleague who worked in design. In the morning, he was in a hurry so he ate a butter bread with sweet soy milk. Before 10 o'clock, he was so hungry that his hands were shaking and he was sweating. At noon, he ordered a braised chicken and rice full of oil. After eating it, he felt groggy all afternoon. Isn't this just putting his blood sugar on a roller coaster? Sometimes it goes to the top and sometimes it falls to the bottom. After a long time of tossing, the sensitivity of the pancreatic islets will naturally deteriorate. There are two mainstream opinions on how to stabilize blood sugar. One group says to eat small meals frequently and add small snacks between meals to avoid excessive hunger. The other group says to do 16+8 intermittent fasting to reduce the working frequency of pancreatic islets. My cousin said that there is really no need to follow a rigid template. People with weak stomachs should not insist on not eating for 16 hours, as starvation will cause gastritis. The gain outweighs the loss. Just add a handful of plain almonds or half a corn between meals. If you don’t have gastrointestinal problems and your metabolism is good, try concentrating your meal time within 8 hours. It can indeed help reduce the burden on the pancreatic islets. My best friend was diagnosed with abnormal glucose tolerance last year and tried 16+8 for half a year. After a review this year, it was completely normal.

There are still many people who think that to prevent sugar, they have to get a fitness card and run five kilometers every day, which is really unacceptable. My cousin and her department have done follow-up visits to elderly patients before. Those adults who walk downstairs for 40 minutes after dinner every day have better blood sugar control than young people who go to the gym twice a week to train hard for two hours. Nowadays, there are different opinions on exercise to control sugar. Some people say that aerobic fat burning is the best, while others say that building muscle can improve basal metabolism and fundamentally improve insulin sensitivity. In fact, there is really no need to worry about it. If you are so tired from get off work that you just want to paralyze after work, just take two less stops on the subway and walk home. Don't rush home after eating. Just sit on the sofa and check your phone, put away the dishes while standing, walk the dog, and just move for 30 minutes every day. If you like to exercise, do some strength training two or three times a week to increase your muscle mass, which is of course the icing on the cake. You don’t have to force yourself to do exercises you don’t like.

Oh, by the way, there is another point that many people don’t pay attention to: don’t stay up late. My former friend who was an operator had a regular diet and walked to and from work every day. He stayed up until two or three o'clock every day to change his plan. Last year, his fasting blood sugar during physical examination was 5.9mmol/L, almost reaching the critical level. Later, he forced himself to go to bed before 12 o'clock. After three months, when he checked again, it was back to 5.2. Regarding the relationship between sleep and blood sugar, there is no completely unified conclusion in the academic community. Some people say that as long as you sleep for 7 hours, it will be fine even if you go to bed at 2 a.m. and wake up at 10 a.m. every day. Some people say that it is only effective if you go to bed before 11 a.m. to comply with the biological clock. From the examples around me, the routine is more important than the absolute bed time. What I fear most is going to bed at 10 a.m. today and going to bed at 3 a.m. the next. Going back and forth is more harmful than staying up late to maintain a fixed schedule.

In fact, after all, there is no one-size-fits-all anti-sugar trick. They are all trivial habits of daily life. You don’t have to be so anxious when your blood sugar levels rise that you don’t dare to eat this or that. Don’t just eat and drink and stay up late every day just because you are young. Stand for an extra 10 minutes after eating today. Next time you want to drink milk tea with full sugar, switch to three-thirds of sugar. Adjust slowly. It will work better than any extreme method. After all, the reason we prevent sugar is to live a good life, not to make ourselves suffer, right?