Have Type 2 Diabetes Or PreDiabetes? Get Your D!
Type 2 diabetes is not an easy condition to have. You have to monitor your blood sugar levels, exercise everyday, and keep a close eye on your carbohydrate intake. What if there was a way to make a huge dent in your blood sugar without adding a new task to your to-do list? According to new research, vitamin D appears to be the dead-simple way to improve your diabetes management that you’ve been looking for!
Vitamin D and Diabetes – The Connection
Whether you already have type 2 diabetes or are at high risk of getting it, its time to start learning about vitamin D. That’s because this nutrient has an incredibly strong link to diabetes. Best of all, along with a diet and an overhaul of your physical activity, it can actually help reverse type 2 diabetes if you already have it.
Research published in the Diabetes Educator reviewed the recent evidence linking vitamin D and type 2 diabetes and concluded that vitamin D was one of the most cost effective ways to help manage diabetes.
What D Does
While vitamin D is commonly associated with bone health, its role in your body is much more than simply crafting a strong skeleton. Vitamin D directly acts on fat cells… making them more sensitive to insulin. Also, vitamin D decreases chronic inflammation… a condition that worsens type 2 diabetes and increases the risk of complications.
What To Do About D
Get Tested: Mary Ann Emanuele, M.D. of Loyola University states: “People at risk for diabetes should be screened for low vitamin D levels”. Unfortunately, while vitamin D deficiency has reached epic proportions, many of the 23 million people with diabetes walk around not knowing that they have low levels of vitamin D.
Be sure to visit your health care provider and ask for a test called a 25(OH) D test… its the most accurate way to see where you stand.
Get Some Sunlight: Because vitamin D is produced by your body from exposure to sunlight, if you spend most of your time indoors, you are probably not getting the vitamin D you need. While spending hours sun bathing is a recipe for sunburn and skin cancer, many scientists now feel that limited sun light is an effective method of preventing vitamin D deficiency.
Supplement With D: While food sources of vitamin D are out there, they’re extremely rare. Also, most foods do not contain nearly enough vitamin D to reach the newly recommended amount of 2,000IU per day.
Enter vitamin D supplements: they’re small, cheap, and you can get your requirements in one dose per day. Because vitamin D is fat soluble, be sure to take the supplement with food.
Eat D: Fortunately, the same foods that help combat type 2 diabetes also contain high levels of Vitamin D. Fatty fish, mushrooms and legumes are fantastic sources of Vitamin D. Be sure not to rely on food alone for Vitamin D or you will be setting yourself up for a deficiency. Instead include these foods in your diet and get about 15 minutes of sun and/or take a Vitamin D supplement.