Eating more Omega 3 may well help prevent or manage type 2 diabetes

Diabetes is on the rise. Estimates are that in a few short years diabetes will be one of the most significant diseases worldwide. Today we wanted to look at diabetes symptoms, and whether increasing your intake of Omega 3 fatty acids can help reduce your risk of diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is by far the most common form of diabetes, affecting roughly 90 percent of all diabetes sufferers. It is more common in older people, including women, but can also be contracted by younger people.

If you have type 2 diabetes your pancreas is not making sufficient insulin for your body’s needs resulting in too much glucose in your blood. This results in a wide range of symptoms, though can also be characterised by a lack of obvious symptoms, and for this reason it is considered that there are many sufferers who have never been diagnosed.

Those suffering from Type 2 diabetes may notice an increase in urine passed, unusual thirst, blurred vision, a sense of lethargy, mood swings and even notice that small cuts or abrasions may take a long time to heal, and gradual weight gain, and others.

Type 2 diabetes should be distinguished from type 1 diabetes which is a disease of young people, where the pancreas is unable to make insulin. This is much less common.

What are the diabetes risk factors?

The exact causes of type 2 diabetes are mixed and not totally understood, however the risk factors certainly are well understood. These risk factors include a genetic predisposition as well as a range of unhealthy lifestyle factors including poor diet, low levels of exercise, high blood pressure and obesity.

In other words the greatest risk of type 2 diabetes is an unhealthy lifestyle. And it can be managed in many cases by reversing these factors and increasing the level of exercise, improving the diet and reducing weight.

You are also at greater risk as you get older, though of course there is nothing you can do about this.

Women who have type 2 diabetes however have some specific concerns that are not shared by men. And women who are or intend to be pregnant have some very specific concerns. For example women with diabetes must pay specific attention to managing their diabetes during pregnancy as failure to manage blood sugar levels properly can lead to specific health problems such as high blood pressure and can even lead to health complications for the baby including birth defects or excessive weight.

Can you cure diabetes?

It is more difficult to cure diabetes than to prevent it, and for this reason much effort goes into type 2 diabetes prevention. Once a person has diabetes it is more common to manage it than to cure it, though good management can often lead to remission.

By paying more attention, in the early years of life, to maintaining a healthy lifestyle potential diabetes sufferers may well be able to prevent the condition occurring in the first place.

Does Omega 3 supplementation have a role in preventing or managing diabetes?

It would now seem as a result of a recent Chinese study that one of the tools that diabetes sufferers may use in managing their diabetes or even preventing it is Omega 3 supplementation. A Chinese study of around 110,000 people published in June 2011 has found that there is an inverse relationship between the amount of fish consumed and the incidence of diabetes. Read the rest of this entry

Omega 3 supplementation may help prevent or reduce the incidence of diabetes

There is a growing body of evidence that one of the major causes of much disease in our society is inflammation. Inflammation is a silent killer, and many of us are completely unaware that it may be happening to us right now.

Suggestions now are that inflammation also has a significant role in the onset of diabetes amongst overweight or obese people. Type II diabetes can occur when an overweight person starts to suffer from inflammation.

Whilst there is a clear link between being overweight or obese and contracting diabetes it is not demonstrated that it is simply the fact of being overweight that causes the diabetes. There must be a cause for the diabetes, and being overweight triggers the cause.

And it seems one of the major culprits is now considered to be inflammation in those who are overweight or obese. Several studies have found that inflammation in overweight people can be provoked by immune cells which are called macrophages and that this in turn leads to insulin resistance, and then to Type II diabetes.

The researchers have also demonstrated that obesity alone without the inflammation is not a cause of insulin resistance. This research has been done on mice and goes by the long winded name of  “JNK1 in hematopoietically derived cells contributes to diet-induced inflammation and insulin resistance without affecting obesity.” You can read it here.

Of course there are drugs specifically targeted at reducing inflammation, however in many cases the side effects may outweigh the benefits. However foods such as fish high in Omega 3 essential fatty acids can also combat inflammation very successfully without side-effects.

And of course there are also foods which you should avoid as these have a negative effect, and in particular it is best to avoid alcohol, refined sugars, hydrogenated oils and saturated fats. In see a complete anti-inflammatory food pyramid here if you are interested in learning more about what you should not be eating and what you should. Read the rest of this entry