How to Prevent Diabetes With Four Simple Choices

Prevention is better than cure. Every adult should know how to prevent diabetes. This is equally true for all diseases related to lifestyle habits, or diseases caused or influenced by the way people live their lives. Diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, most cancers, and even Alzheimer's disease are influenced by lifestyle choices.

Every adult can take a few simple steps to avoid developing type 2 diabetes. Today, we understand a lot more about the cause of the metabolic syndrome, the factors influencing the onset of high blood sugar, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, strokes, heart disease, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, and all the common modern illnesses from which we suffer than we did three decades ago. Practice these simple steps and make them your habit and you know how to prevent diabetes.

• have a proper diet that is high in fiber and complex carbohydrates (up to 75% calories from high fiber, complex carbohydrates).
• get regular physical exercise; walking for 30 minutes 3 or 4 days per week may be all you need
• get adequate rest and minimize stress - this includes proper sleep habits, such as getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night
• avoid other bad habits such as smoking and drinking

These simple habits are guaranteed to change your health for the better and prevent many of the common modern illnesses that the top killers of today. However, there is a caveat. It has to do with your interpretation of the terms "proper diet", "regular exercise", and "adequate rest", so let me elaborate a bit. There are as many interpretations of "proper diet" as there are "diets", and the position of "moderation" is like quicksand.

For example, if you avoid smoking (including second-hand smoke) and drinking, you do not have to worry about the effects of those habits on your health. If you remove sources of cholesterol from your diet you then have no cause to worry about how much to "cut back" on cholesterol intake. A person on a high fiber complex carbohydrate diet (no animal products), coupled with regular exercise, most likely will never be obese, have high cholesterol, or type 2 diabetes, and will enjoy extra longevity (see National Geographic Magazine, November 2005).

Battle against me

How to prevent diabetes when personal preferences in appetite, sleep habits, and physical activity are not "sacrificed" does not have any answer from the drug companies either. There is no drug to cure complex lifestyle behavior. There are only "remedies" to mask our symptoms once we develop the disease. This is why this disease continues to prevail against modern medicine.

Type 2 diabetes can be avoided in most cases. It is a disease very much related to lifestyle. If you avoid those simple habits that contribute to the development of diabetes and other similar diseases health and longevity results.

These are two big 21st century questions: How to prevent diabetes and how to cure it. While the latter is more difficult, to not have a proper answer to the first question is not excusable. We know too much today about the cause of diabetes to allow this epidemic to escalate uncontrollably.