Diabetes ?

[undercover]

These days everything I taste seems over sweet, even one small spoon of sugar in my cornflakes is far too sweet for me now, even fruit like bananas and apples taste sweet to me ?

I went to pattaya memorial hospital to have a blod test for diabetes and they told be I had mild diabetes, while I was back in the uk I showed the papers to my doctor and he said the readings were not high for English standards and there was nothing to worry about ? do they use a diferent standard here in Thailand ?

I have looked everywhere on the internet about diabetes but there is so much conflicting storys, can anyone give me some practical advice about diet ect ?

[Boo]

About diet, try to follow the glycemic index diet. It is diabetes friendly which basically says to try to balance a small amount of carbs (bad for you) with a protien or veg (good for you) therefore lowering the carb intake. A diabetic needs some carbs but balancing them with better food groups is supposed to keep the sugar levels under control. The baiscs of diabetes 2 is tht you eat & your sugar or glucose levels increase, in a non diabetic they should come back down to normal level within an hour but in a diabetic they stay up longer which in the long term is bad for you in many ways.

So I would also invest in a home testing kit & test your blood sugar an hour and half to 2 hrs after eating for a week or two. The kit will tell you what is a bad reading (in the UK anything over a 7 is deemed too high if on a regualr basis, a once off is fine but anything above that all the time would be quite high, not sure about thailands levels, sorry) & if you have a few of them in a row then get another opinion. There is no such thing IMO as "mild" diabetes. You are either diabteic or you aren't but a lot of times it is controlled by diet. BUT you should start to have yearly eye tests, make an effort to reduce as much sugar in your diet as posisble & be careful with your feet as you are more susceptable to infections & gangreen .

Try doing some searches on Type 2 diabetes (if you were type 1 you would prob have been diagnosed in childhood). The web has a massive amount of info available but I personally use the Diabetes UK as a reference tool & the department of heath.

[undercover]

Thank you very much Boo, I will check out that website. I am very new to this and was shocked to read that apples are bad for a person that has diabetes. I eat many apples !

You didden't comment on having a sweet taste in the mouth all the time as being normal or not for diabetes, any thoughts on that ?

[Sheryl]

What exactly was your fasting blood glucose? It sounds like it was a borderline reading, which would account for some doctors considering it mild diabetes and others not. In which case mild dietary adjustment should be enough.

Different countries and even different medical centers in the same country use different cut-off levels for fasting blood glucose, which is why someone right on the borderline might be considered normal by one place and mildly diabetic by another. To further complicate matters, the recommended cut-off level is periodically revised, usually downward based on newer research. ever time the cut-off is revised downward it creates millions of "new" diabetics. A more accurate way to look at these people (those with a fasting blood glucose of between 100-110) is not so much that they are diabetic but that they are at high risk of developing diabetes later on. In either case, the recommendation is the same...adjust diet and, if necessary, weight and level of physical activity (exercise).

The sweet taste in your mouth is a new one to me, hard to imagine that it would be due to diabetes especially very mild diabetes....but who knows. I can't offhand think of anything else that would cause it, either. Sometimes abnormal taste sensations improve with zinc or multivitamin supplementation; you could try a multivitamin containing zinc if the sweet taste is really bothering you.

If you are at all overweight, lose weight; this alone resolves many cases of mild/borderline diabetes.

As Boo said, get a home blood test machine, and get a listing of foods by either the glycemic index or (better yet) the glycemic load. The glycemic load is basically the glycemic index adjusted to quantity. or example, carrots have a high glycemic index but a low glycemic load; the quantity of carrots you would need to eat to seriously elevate your blood sugar is more than most people would ever consume in one sitting.

Avoid the foods at the high end of the glycemic load/index and monitor your morning (fasting) blood glucose until it is stable at around 100. After that, stick to the new diet and check your fasting sugar once a week to be sure it remains stable.

Apples actually have a pretty low gylcemic index compared to other fruits.

What you mainly need to avoid is sugar and any foods prepared with sugar, potatoes, white rice, white pasta and anything else made with processed flour. And keep ther quantities of brown bread/rice relatively small. This plus moderate exercise and getting (or keeping) your weight normal will probably suffice for a mild/borderline case.

Good luck.

[Boo]

The sweet taste in mouth I hadn't heard of either but diabetes does make you crave more sugar therefore creatig a cycle, you want more sugar, you eat more sugar, your glucose/blood sugar levels increase!!!

Diet really is the best way to control a diabetic who doesn't need tablets or insulin. I gained A LOT of weight prior to my diagnosis (20+ kg over a 3 year period) that I put down to overeating, metabolism slowing down & horomone issues from prior birth control pill problems but it was actualyl the diabetes "kicking in" so once they did diagnose me & I was put on a small dosage of tablet & with minor diet adjustments (I never really ate sweets but cut out bread 100% from my diet) dropped 16kg in a 10 weeks!!!!

I now try to follow the GI diet as much as possible but you still do have to live in the real world so make adjustments, if I have a "bad" meal will spend a day or two being good with portion control & low GI foods. As for fruit, my clinic encourages us to eat 5 portions a day as snacks or part of a meal. Fruit is a good way to keep your sugar levels balanced as you should also try to not let them get too low either (something a lot of peope forget), so eating a small luch & then a fruit snack 2 hours later is a good way to maintain the balance. But they do say to avoid too many citrus fruits, but apples, grapes peaches, nectarines & bananas are all fine.

Get the testing kit & then take the readings to another hopital & ask them to reveiew the results.