SCHOOL Beating Diabetes with a veggie diet
- from The Vegetarian June 1992
by dietitian Jane Brophy
The old saying 'You are what you eat' has a special meaning for vegetarians in general, but even greater significance for one particular group... F or diabetics the choice of food really can be a matter of life and death. Diabetes affects people of all ages and both sexes and can cause blindness, kidney failure and gangrene of the hands and feet if left untreated. Diet is one of the most important ways of controlling diabetes, and a vegetarian lifestyle with its emphasis on low fat, high carbohydrate and high fibre foods is particularly suitable. This common disease, which affects more than 30 million people worldwide leaves the body unable to process food properly. Usually, most of the food we eat is digested and converted to glucose, a sugar which is carried by the blood to all cells in the body and used for energy. The hormone insulin then helps glucose pass into cells. But diabetics are unable to control the amount of glucose in their blood because the mechanism which converts sugar to energy does not work properly. Insulin is either absent, present in insufficient quantities or ineffective. As a result glucose builds up in the bloodstream and leads to problems such as weakness, inability to concentrate, loss of co-ordination and blurred vision. If the balance of food and insulin isn't right diabetics can have a "hypo", which means their blood sugar levels are too low. If not corrected this can lead to coma and even death. | |
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