7 Ways You're Unknowingly Giving Yourself Diabetes

7 Ways You’re Unknowingly Giving Yourself Diabetes

The general believe about diabetes is that they’re caused by the kinds of food we eat. Most people only focus on the kinds of food, leaving out other core causes of diabetes. Focusing on foods is alright but we also need to focus on other factors like how and when we eat, what we drink, exercise and more. Some of the ways you’re unkowingly giving yourself diabestes are shared by MyHealth Pass

Are you skipping breakfast?

There are many statistics about why you shouldn’t skip breakfast, but one study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition said that missing even just one breakfast a week increases your risk of diabetes by 20%. It all has to do with maintaining healthy insulin levels. When you sleep, your insulin levels stay at a plateau, not extremely high or outrageously low. However, when you skip breakfast, those insulin levels plummet, only to spike again when you finally eat lunch. Such extreme changes in insulin could increase your risk of diabetes.

Are you drinking soda?

Even people less familiar with the disease know that consuming too much sugar could be a factor in gaining diabetes. However, it’s not so much the sugar intake that makes sugary drinks and desserts such a problem, it’s how much weight you gain from them. When a person is overweight, their body naturally experiences chemical changes that affect their body’s ability to produce enough insulin. The more weight you gain, the more insulin your body has to make to control your glucose levels, but when it can’t keep up, your risk for diabetes is greatly multiplied.

Are you not sleeping enough?

How much sleep you get may be just as important as what you eat. When your body doesn’t get enough sleep, you feel drowsy and with little energy. This reaction is similar to “insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes,” when your body stops or is insufficiently converting glucose into energy. When you’re dragging after pulling an all-nighter, it may not be just the fatigue getting you down, but a possible sign of diabetes.