Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in the UK, it is often overlooked even though over 4,700,000 million people in the UK have diabetes and number of people diagnosed with diabetes has more than doubled from 1998 to 2018 and that number in 2019 is now around 3.8 million people but there are things that can be done to reduce the risk of diabetes.
A lot of people think that it is not a serious disease when it is accountable for 530 heart attacks and almost 2,000 cases of heart failure each week!
Diabetes is actually classed as a disease and it occurs when a persons blood glucose, also called their blood sugar is too high. Diabetes often occurs in people who’s pancreas isn’t producing enough insulin, the insulin their pancreas is producing doesn’t work or isn’t producing any at all. When the body doesn’t get the insulin it needs the blood becomes saturated with too much sugar which can’t get into the cells where it is needed for fuel. The build up of sugar in the blood can also have potentially fatal consequences including amputation, kidney failure, stroke, sight loss and death.
It will probably come as no surprise that obesity is the main reason for the increased population of people living with diabetes today. Even children can get diabetes with 23% of children being diagnosed with diabetes in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) so it is important to make sure your children are getting all the nutrients they need and that you keep their sugar intake monitored as well as keeping an eye out for any of the symptoms which include; increased thirst and urination, hunger, fatigue, weight loss, fruity smell on breath, blurred vision and irritability.
It is only recently that veganism has been considered an option to reduce the risk of diabetes in both children and adults, vegetables are full of antioxidants which help to prevent diabetes as well as improving the bodies sensitivity to insulin scientists have said. A study from over 300,000 people showed that the diets of those who were taking part that were plant based were 23% less likely to get diabetes. A further nine observational studies were carried out observing the diets of participants and found similar results with an even stricter study on plan based diets comprising only of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes which came back with even more positive results (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.62-0.79) reduced risk of diabetes.
The senior author Sun who is a nutritionist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston was very impressed with these finding and from the results was quoted stating
These data highlighted the importance of adhering to plant-based diets to achieve or maintain good health
These findings were then published in JAMA Internal Medicine and further added to the evidence supporting a plant based diet to reduce the risk or diabetes especially type 2 diabetes.
We know that eating vegan can sometimes be hard for those of us that are not so good at planning or who are simply new to veganism and don’t know yet where to get the nutrients they need from plant based foods. Diabetes Org is fully aware of this too so has put together an incredibly useful meal planner to help those of us who want to reduce the risk of diabetes and maybe haven’t heard about veganism until reading up on it as a way to reduce the risk of diabetes. The NHS have also posted a very useful page about diabetes and how a vegan diet “helps people better manage type 2 diabetes” and under the “how did the researchers interpret the results” the NHS state that The researchers said: “It can be concluded that plant-based diets accompanied by educational interventions can significantly improve psychological health, quality of life, HbA1c levels and weight and therefore the management of diabetes.”
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