Fighting Heart Disease As A Diabetes Patient
December 8, 2021
Simple Tips To Manage Diabetes And Protect Your Heart
December 8, 2021
Maintaining an optimum weight has obvious health benefits, two of the most important being better management of type 2 diabetes and prevention of heart disease. According to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), losing weight can phenomenally help in improving your blood sugar control and lowering your risk of developing diabetic complications such as high blood pressure and build-up of plaque in your arteries. Both these complications increase the risk of developing heart disease. Therefore, weight reduction offers dual benefits: for both diabetes and heart disease.
Let us now take a further look into how weight reduction helps those with diabetes and prospective heart disease.
Improvement In Insulin Resistance
In those with type 2 diabetes, the body fails to respond properly to the insulin that is produced by the pancreas, causing a subsequent increase in blood glucose levels, according to NIDDK (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases). This is known as insulin resistance, and it is frequently linked to excessive weight, according to the CDC.
According to Joelle Malinowski, RD, CDCES, who works with Ellis Medicine in Schenectady, New York, losing weight will make your body more sensitive to insulin, thus reducing insulin resistance. According to another study, there occurs improvement in insulin sensitivity due to weight reduction because there is a decrease in the inflammatory responses in the muscles.
Management of diabetes becomes easier when insulin resistance decreases. Thus, when it comes to the question, “does weight loss help type 2 diabetes?” the answer is a definite “yes.”
Lowering Your Blood Pressure
Weight reduction has a wide range of benefits for cardiovascular disease, too. It can help you significantly avoid the conditions that are associated with being overweight, which increases your risk of developing heart disease.
Losing excessive weight can help lower your blood pressure levels. When you are overweight, your heart needs to work harder to pump blood throughout your body. The harder your heart pumps, the higher will be your blood pressure, which can lead to vision problems, kidney damage, and heart disease, all of which are the same as diabetic complications. Thus, maintaining a healthy weight has benefits not only for the heart but also for those with diabetes.
Lowering Cholesterol Levels In The Blood
Obesity can lead to a surge in cholesterol levels, and these high cholesterol levels can cause heart disease. Being overweight is not the only reason for elevated cholesterol levels. Environmental factors, hormones, and genes, too, impact your cholesterol levels. That said, if you are overweight and you consume a lot of unhealthy food items such as processed meats, sugary foods, or fast food, you, too, could be at risk for high cholesterol. Weight reduction can lower your cholesterol levels, which helps in a proper balance of fats in your bloodstream, thereby ensuring a healthy heart.
Association Between Diabetes And Heart Disease
There is a link between diabetes and heart disease, with both high blood pressure and high cholesterol being common conditions among those with type 2 diabetes. This is according to the CDC.
High blood pressure can end up causing damage to the walls of the arteries, and too much low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol and triglycerides (another type of fat) can worsen the damage to artery walls, thus resulting in additional complications.
Excessive weight heightens the problem because obesity is a known risk factor for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and coronary artery disease.
Diabetes leads to high blood sugar levels and increases the risk for heart disease. Weight reduction can help in managing your blood sugar levels, thus improving your chances of avoiding heart problems.
On A Final Note
It is highly advisable to choose lifestyle changes that you can successfully sustain rather than dependence on fad diets for weight reduction and weight management. By consuming a healthy diet and living an active lifestyle, you will be a pro when it comes to managing not only your weight but also diabetes and heart disease.
