Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 34 million Americans have diabetes, and an additional 88 million adults are considered pre-diabetic. Here is what you need to know about diabetes and how diabetic supplements might help.
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a long-term condition that affects your body’s ability to use energy. Specifically, it is a problem with your body’s ability to self-regulate via insulin, an essential hormone for controlling blood sugar. There are several major types of diabetes:
- Type 1: In this type of diabetes, the immune system attacks the pancreas, which is the organ that produces insulin. This results in the pancreas being unable to produce insulin which, in turn, leads to high blood sugar.
- Type 2: With Type 2 diabetes, your body cannot use insulin correctly, which results in high blood sugar.
- Gestational Diabetes: This form only occurs in pregnant women. With gestational diabetes, blood sugar spikes even though the mother previously did not have diabetes. Gestational diabetes typically resolves after birth.
Tips for Managing Diabetes
If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, make sure to follow your doctor’s recommendations. This includes taking medications as prescribed and attending your follow-up appointments with the primary care doctor and other healthcare professionals, like your optometrist and podiatrist.
In some cases, doctors may recommend diabetic supplements to help stabilize your blood sugar.
Best Blood Sugar Supplements for Diabetic Support
Blood sugar supplements do not replace your medication, and you should always speak to your doctor before adding a diabetic support supplement to your diet. There are several types of diabetic support supplements available.
Glucose Tablets: If blood sugar dips too low, these tablets can help get it back to safe levels. While having high blood sugar is bad, low blood sugar and hypoglycemia are also dangerous.
Glucose tablets are most beneficial for people at risk of low blood sugar from taking insulin and other sugar-control medications. You should ask your doctor whether a medicine you are taking can potentially cause low blood pressure and, if the answer is yes, have glucose tablets ready if you experience a dip.
You should only take glucose tablets if you can confirm low blood sugar via your glucometer. If your sugar reading is below 70 mg/dl, take two or three glucose tablets, wait fifteen minutes, and remeasure. If your sugar is still too low, repeat the process until your sugar levels rise above 70 mg/dl.
Meal Replacement Drinks: Studies show that, for people with type 2 diabetes, adopting a healthy diet and losing weight if you are obese can improve your sugar control.
If you are looking to lose weight, a glucose-controlled meal replacement drink like Glycerna can help replace unhealthy foods or junk food. If you are traveling or unable to cook and want to avoid getting fast food or skipping a meal, you can drink a meal replacement supplement to stay satiated and prevent overeating later. Speak to your doctor before adding me
al replacement drinks to your diet.
Shop Simply Medical today for our excellent selection of diabetic support supplements.