How is Low Carbohydrate Diet Beneficial to Diabetes

Abstract:

This essay is about the global status of diabetes, what is diabetes, how insulin works, why people easy to have diabetes, what is carbohydrate and why low carbohydrate diet beneficial to the diabetes.

With the development of society, people’s living standards have gradually improved. The choice of food is gradually becoming more and more, also it has brought us many diseases. Diabetes, as one of the top ten death diseases in the world, has attracted the attention of people around the world.

According to database from World Health Organization 2018, the number of diabetic patients increased from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014; in Year 2035, this figure may be as high as 471 million; the prevalence of diabetes in adults over 18 years old increased from 4.7% in 1980 to 8.5% in 2014; in Year 2016, 1.6 million people dead due to the diabetes. These data show that our life is threatening by the diabetes. Among them, 80% of patients live in low-income and middle-income developing areas, such as China, the Middle East and Southeast Asia (IDF international diabetes federation 2013). There are many ways to prevent and help to treat the diabetes. For example, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, avoiding tobacco, etc., but a reasonably healthy diet act as a crucial role for prevention and treatment of diabetes.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin to the body work, or the body cannot effectively use the insulin produced. Diabetes is mainly divided into two types : type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes accounts for only 5%-10% of the world’s total diabetes population (UCSF, 2018). This type of diabetes occurs mainly in children and adolescents, and the treatments of type 1 diabetes are mostly insulin-dependent. Regarding type 2 diabetes, type 2 diabetes is not innately formed, and the reason is that the human body cannot make good use of insulin. In type 2 diabetes, most patients are between 40 to 59 years old (IDF international diabetes federation 2013). But the prevalence of adolescents has gradually increased in recent years. Unhealthy diet, overweight and smoking are the mainly reasons for type 2 diabetes. However, this type of diabetes does not need to be treated with insulin every day. It can be treated with a healthy diet, increased doing physical activity or taking hypoglycemic agents.

In the human body, insulin is produced by pancreas and is used to balance the body’s blood sugar. When insulin binds to the insulin receptor on the surface of the cell membrane, the glucose transport channel on the cell membrane can be opened, and the glucose in the blood enter to the tissue cells. Then the glucose is metabolized into water and carbon dioxide, which lowers the blood sugar concentration and releases the energy to be organized by the body use at the same time. If the glucose intake is sufficient, insulin will bind to the receptor of the membrane such as hepatocytes, fat cells, and skeletal muscle cells, and the remaining glucose will be converted into glycogen, fat (triacylglycerol)(Vertical Health Website), and amino acids to store in the body for people when they feel hungry. If there is no insulin, glucose cannot be used or stored in the cells. When the body is starved, glycogen is broken down into glucose, in order to provide energy to the body and maintaining the concentration of blood sugar levels. When the human body is in normal operation, even if it does not eat any food for 72 hours, the stored energy substances such as glycogen and fat can satisfy the normal life activities of the cells. Insulin can inhibit the decomposition of glycogen to avoid excessive blood sugar in the human body. However, in the patients with type 2 diabetes, immediate insulin secretion disorder occurs after eating, which does not inhibit the decomposition of hepatic glycogen. There is still a large amount of endogenous glucose production after eating, and the glucose in the food is absorbed into the blood. As a result, the blood sugar will have a significant increase. Diabetes not only affects the safety of people’s blood sugar, but also it is the main cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and lower extremity amputation.

The prevalence of diabetes is directly related to the people’s diet. For example, China, one of the major countries with diabetes prevalence. In terms of diet, Chinese staple foods are mainly rice and various rice products such as noodles or taro. In terms of schedule, the high calorie intake time of Chinese people is mostly   on dinner time. One of the reason is attributed to Chinese traditional culture, and the other reason is belongs to the pressure from current life makes many Chinese adults do not have enough time to pay attention to their breakfast and lunch. As a result, the body does not have enough time to digest , absorb and consume these substances, and the symptoms of obesity will appear over the time. Obesity is often accompanied by diabetes, so a low-carbohydrate diet is very important for people with diabetes.

Carbohydrate is the main source of energy in the human diet. Carbohydrates are divided into monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. During the digestion of carbohydrates, food is moistened by saliva which is produced by salivary glands. When people chewing of the food, the salivary glands release salivary amylase to begin to break down the polysaccharides in the food. There is the reason why people taste sweet when they eating carbohydrate foods. Then food is transported to the stomach, stomach acid destroys the bacteria in the food and prevents the activity of salivary amylase. In the pancreas , the pancreas releases the enzyme pancreatic amylase, which converts the polysaccharide into a disaccharide. In the small intestine, lactase, sucrase and maltase are released, which break down the disaccharide into a monosaccharide and then Intestinal absorption. The parts of substance like cellulose that cannot be absorbed will reach to the large intestine, some of them are broken down by bacteria, and the others are excreted with the feces. The pancreas plays an vital role in the process of carbohydrate digestion. The amount of monosaccharides body produced is directly influenced by how much carbohydrate intake to the body. The most straightforward solution for diabetics is to reduce carbohydrate intake and low carbohydrate diets.

There are many different sources of carbohydrates in our daily lives, such as rice, fruit, bread and so on, but all of these are high-carbohydrate food. The monosaccharides produced during digestion are very detrimental to diabetic patients. High carbohydrate foods are not good for diabetics, but it does not mean that carbohydrate intake can be cut off. Carbohydrates are necessary to provide calories for muscle movement and maintain the brain’s energy. It is necessary to consume the right amount of carbohydrates. Low-carbohydrate foods are a good choice because low carbohydrates can effectively lower blood sugar. Low carbohydrate foods include many greens such as mushrooms, cabbage, cucumbers and so on. These foods are also very good low calorie foods that can be used to lose weight. Studies have shown that the low-carbohydrate diet reduces the weight of diabetics by about 10.4 pounds in 2-3 months, and the pressure on low-carbohydrate diets is less stressful in terms of treatment stress( diabetes-self-management (2018) .’A reduced-carbohydrate diet can be an effective technique for managing diabetes and new guidelines that promote lower carbohydrate intakes for both the general population’ says Michelle Mckenzie. (2017 by Diane Fennell,Diabetes delf-management)

In conclusion, diabetes is a high incidence modern disease. In addition to knowing how to do it is good for diabetes, it is also more important to know how to prevent this disease. First of all, a healthy diet with high-protein low-carbohydrate and low-fat foods, also people need to have a good lifestyle . Secondly, doing exercise regularly to keep body healthy. The pressure brought by modern life makes many people always ignore the benefits that doing sports can bring us. Thirdly, cultivating awareness of disease prevention is one of the effective ways to prevent this disease. In the future, a low-carbohydrate diet will become one of the most respected dietary methods, not only for diabetics patients, but also for healthy people to keep body healthy.

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