Nutrition and Diabetes

NUTRITION IS ESSENTIAL
As you have read in the article on diabetes in this website, aggressive management of your blood sugar (glucose) is essential to prevent further complications of the disease such as blindness, amputations and kidney disease. While diabetes often requires insulin or oral medication for proper control, it is important to remember that proper nutrition is also equally critical in diabetes care. You will not be able to achieve good control of your diabetes without making changes in your diet!
Nutritional management, in the form of a meal plan designed especially for you, will help you to maintain blood glucose levels as close to normal as possible, and maintain or lose weight.
Like many people, you may not have had much success with dieting in the past and you may feel apprehensive about the need to be on a meal plan for essentially the rest of your life. You can improve your chances of succeeding by having a team of health care professionals design a plan that fits your lifestyle. Also, the meal plan may not seem so overwhelming once you realize that the general dietary recommendations for diabetics are very similar to what is recommended for all Americans. The following chart illustrates this.