Diabetes
(KathyM)
I have had several members of my family and some very dear friends become victims of Diabetes. My first experience that I can remember very clearly, was a favorite uncle.
My uncle was a retired railroad engineer. I remember my aunt taking great pains with his meals. She baked all his meat dishes, she never fried a thing. However,I do remember one of the meats that she baked,actually two of them. One was hot dogs and the other was bacon. Now we know that those are NONOs for Diabetics. He didn't get them very often however. But with all her efforts at diet control, she could not take the beer bottle out of his hand.
Eventually, his feet started to bother him and he ended up losing both feet to gangrene and then soon afterward his life.
We have learned a lot about diet and Diabetics now, and one thing we have learned, is it isn't the sugar that is the cause of Diabetes, but once you have it, you can't have sugar. When buying any packaged food the first thing you check on the ingredients is where on the list is sugar.
If sugar is at or near the top of the list, put it back on the shelf. My uncle's beer was the major source of his excess sugar and ultimately the cause of his untimely death. Also in those days they didn't have the means to test the glucose level at home as they do now. Testing your sugar level is extremely important if you have Diabetes.
The major things to watch if you have Diabetes is diet,weight,exercise and SUGAR level. Sugar comes in almost all the foods we eat, so it is easy to get too much. Weight is important, you need to keep it down if possible, excess weight is often a precursor to Diabetes. Exercise helps to keep the weight down and the circulation up, both extremely important. Of course checking your sugar levels is important as a means to avoid high levels and severe repercussions.
I could write more about this catastrophic illness, but will stop with this for now.
