Diabetes Information and Treatment Guide

Gestational diabetes (GD) simply means elevated blood sugar during pregnancy. To understand it, you must first understand the normal changes in pregnancy metabolism (34). When you are pregnant, certain hormones make your insulin less effective at transporting glucose, the body’s fuel, out of your bloodstream into your cells. This increases the amount of circulating glucose, making it available to your baby for growth and development. This “insulin resistance” increases as pregnancy advances. As a result, your blood glucose levels after eating rise linearly throughout pregnancy. By the third trimester, you will tend to have higher blood glucose levels after eating than nonpregnant women (hyperglycemia), despite secreting normal and above normal amounts of insulin. During overnight sleep, the excess insulin has a chance to mop up, which causes morning glucose levels to be lower on average than in nonpregnant women (hypoglycemia). (more…)

Persons who cannot walk, jog or swim due to lack of desire (or unfavourable weather), persons who cannot undertake physical exercise because of a possibility of harming the kidneys or the heart and women who cannot spare special time for outdoor exercise can easily and safely obtain the benefits of exercise through yogasanas and pranayama. Even those persons who go for a walk or a swim in the morning can do yogasanas at some other time of the day when their stomachs are empty. Other forms of exercise and yoga can even be done on alternate days. (more…)

Diabetes is a disease in which blood glucose levels are above normal. People with diabetes have problems using food for energy. After a meal, carbohydrates in food are broken down into a sugar called glucose, which is carried by the blood to cells throughout the body. Cells require insulin, a hormone made in the pancreas, to help use blood glucose for energy. (more…)

Most women with diabetes who become pregnant have Type 1 diabetes, because this is the type that affects younger women. However, increasing numbers of pregnant women with Type 2 diabetes are being seen.If you have diabetes and want to start a family, there are a number of things to consider. The key to a healthy pregnancy with diabetes is good blood sugar control before, during and after pregnancy. (more…)