Type 2 Diabetes Diet

Type 2 diabetes is a growing concern, but a healthy diet can be very helpful for low blood sugar. Discover the important facts about the type 2 diabetes diet.

A good diabetes diet plan is focused on providing the right amount of nutrients, while staying low in fat and calories. The Type 2 diabetes diet follows the same lines as the pre-diabetes diet, but with an even stronger emphasis on whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

When you're diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, it's always best to consult a dietitian to make sure the way you eat has a good impact on your overall health, keeping blood sugar down.

Type 2 Diabetes Diet Basics

Controlling your carbs intake is the first step in the diabetes diet plan, but that doesn't mean cutting down all carbs, just focusing on the good ones. Carbs from whole grain, fruits, vegetables, legumes and low-fat dairy are the best choices.

Getting enough fibers, which can help lower blood sugar is another very important priority for the diabetic diet. Fortunately, fiber-rich foods are the ones that usually contain healthy carbs, from whole-wheat products to fruits, vegetables and especially legumes like beans, lentils, peas, along with nuts.

While the diabetic diet plan is usually light on fats, there are a few good fats which are recommended in smaller servings. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the best way to go and you can get them from nuts, avocado, olives, along with healthy vegetable oils, like olive, peanut and canola oil.

Fish is an excellent replacement for more fatty meats, since they contain less fats and cholesterol than even poultry. Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, fish like salmon, tuna, mackerel and sardines are great choices, as long as they're not eaten fried.

Foods to Avoid on the Type 2 Diabetes Diet

Sodium and fats are the most important things to look for when buying packaged foods for your diabetic diet plan. You should eat less than 2,400 mg of sodium daily and avoid saturated fats from red meat and high-fat dairy products.

Trans fats are another big restriction when it comes to the diabetes diet plan. They're found in processed foods, from shortening to margarine and by extension in most snacks and baked goods.

Avoiding cholesterol is important, so eat less egg yolks and organ meats, along with shellfish. When choosing fish for your type 2 diabetes diet, stay away from too much swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish.

Consult a dietitian to fully personalize your type 2 diabetes diet and learn how to use the exchange system, which allows you to substitute certain foods while keeping your blood sugar at safe levels.

See also:

Foods That Block Fat Absorption

Top Superfoods in Your Diet

Healthy Diets: What to Eat to Help Prevent Cancer

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High-glycemic foods tied to diabetes risk

Feb. 14, 2013 at 5:46 PM ET

By Katti Gray

Reuters

People who eat a lot of low-fiber and processed foods that quickly spike blood sugars may, not surprisingly, have a significantly higher risk of the most common form of diabetes, according to a new study.

"By raising blood sugar and demanding that the pancreas keep pumping more insulin, meal after meal, day after day, a high-glycemic diet can put people at risk over the edge," said Dr. David Ludwig, who studies obesity at Boston Children's Hospital but was not involved in the work.

The report analyzes 24 studies published since 1997 that tracked what 125,000 adults ate. The new study confirms links prior researchers made between those so-called high-glycemic foods - including white bread and potatoes - and diabetes.

Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the new report from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Oxford University in the UK and others found that the 125,000 studied adults daily ate an average of 139 grams of sugar or its equivalent.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 8 percent of Americans have diabetes. More than 90 percent of those cases are type 2 diabetes, which prevents the body from properly using or producing the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin.

The analysis did not pinpoint precisely how many of the 125,000 participants actually developed the disease, but for every additional 100 grams of sugar per 2,000 daily calories, people had a 45 percent higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

"It's easy to get more than 100 grams, especially if you're not being careful to choose the right kinds of foods," research dietician Heidi Silver, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, who was not involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

Low-glycemic foods include fish, meat, high-fiber fruits and vegetables, nuts, cheeses and other dairy products, brown rice and other unrefined grains. The glycemic load is calculated by multiplying the total of carbohydrate grams in a given food by its assigned glycemic index, a number that can be found in online tools.

It's important for the general public to better understand what high-glycemic and low-glycemic mean, researchers said, and how to figure out their glucose intake. A very ripe banana, for example, has far more grams of sugar than one that's still green. Eaten raw, rather than cooked, sweet potatoes have a low glycemic index.

There's a "jungle of information and misinformation out there," clinical dietician Kari Kooi of Methodist Hospital in Houston told Reuters Health.

"For instance, fiber (in prepackaged energy) bars is not the same thing as natural fiber you get in fruits and vegetables," said Kooi, who was not involved in the current study. "That's deceptive to consumers, who also may not realize that just having fiber...doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as being low-glycemic."

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

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