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There are several risk factors for type 2 diabetes, including age, ethnicity, obesity, family history, and cigarette smoking. According to the 2014 Surgeon Generals Report, there are several ways in which smoking may increase a persons risk for developing type 2 diabetes.1,8 The chemicals in cigarettes cause harm to your bodys cells and can interfere with their normal function. This can cause inflammation throughout the body, which may decrease the effectiveness of insulin. Additionally, when chemicals from cigarette smoke meet oxygen in the body, this process can also cause cell damage, called oxidative stress. Both oxidative stress and inflammation may be related to an increased risk of diabetes.
Smokers are 30 to 40 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than nonsmokers.8 Smoking can also make managing the disease and regulating insulin levels more difficult because high levels of nicotine can lessen the effectiveness of insulin, causing smokers to need more insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. Without proper management, diabetes can lead to health problems, including but not limited to:
- Heart disease
More On Sugar And Diabetes
Diabetes has become more prevalent in countries with a lot of food. Obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and other health issues can arise due to excessive sugar consumption. Sugar causes diabetes generally to the people suffering from type 2 diabetes. It generally appears in complicated and uncertain cases.Type 1 and type 2 diabetes both have an impact on the bodys capacity to control blood glucose levels. Type 1 diabetes, on the other hand, is an autoimmune disease in which the bodys immune system attacks insulin-producing cells. Damage to these cells impairs the bodys capacity to regulate blood sugar levels.
On the other hand, overeating and obesity cause the development of type 2 diabetes which can lead to weight gain. When someone has diabetes, eating too much sugar can cause various other complications. It is because diabetes makes it more difficult for the body to control blood sugar levels. People with type 2 diabetes should monitor their sugar consumption.
What We Know About How Vaping Affects Diabetes Risk
Researchers already know that e-cigarettes are far from harmless. For instance, while their vapor may not contain some of the chemicals that traditional cigarette smoke does, they still can contain heavy metals and cancer-causing products, like acrolein, according to the CDC. Additional research presented in April 2017 at George Washington University in Washington, DC, showed that e-cigarette use is associated with a 42 percent increased risk of myocardial infarction, or heart attack, for which people with diabetes already have a heightened risk.
Researchers are also trying to understand how vaping may affect diseases like diabetes. According to a study published in December 2016 in the journal Atherosclerosis, smoking e-cigarettes can lead to the mobilization of cells called EPCs to damaged blood vessels a reaction that also occurs after people smoke traditional cigarettes. Over time, repeated and chronic mobilization of EPCs can actually deplete them, says Lukasz Antoniewicz, lead author of the study and a graduate student at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Lower levels of EPCs are also associated with both cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
Right now, tobacco companies and e-cigarette companies launch their products as safe and harmless even though there is a lack of evidence that these products are safe, Antoniewicz says.
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Does Quitting Alcohol Lower Blood Sugar Levels
Quitting alcohol will help your blood sugar levels stabilize and reduce spikes in your blood sugar. The body often eliminates these spikes in blood sugar by turning the sugar into fat, creating obesity, sometimes known as a beer belly. By stopping alcohol use, you will reduce your risk of obesity which, in turn, will improve your blood sugar levels.
Other Preventive Measures For Diabetes
Here are some measures that you can follow to prevent the complications of diabetes:
- Managing your weight is one of the best ways to prevent diabetes. If a person loses 5-7% of their weight, they can lower the risk of diabetes.
- Getting proper exercise every day for about 150 minutes will helps in regulating blood glucose levels. It will also reduce body weight. However, exercising too much can be dangerous also.
- Controlling your portion of food while adding enough fiber, proteins or other healthful fats also helps in preventing the risk of diabetes. It will regulate or control your blood glucose levels. Moreover, you need not be required to give up on the foods that you wanted to eat. You just need to take those foods in portions.
- Women can control their risk of diabetes by managing their body weight before and after pregnancy. They can also increase their physical activities to balance their weight.
- You may also consult with your doctor for some safe measures regarding weight loss and weight gain.
- Drink alcohol in moderation for about 0.5-3.5 drinks per day. This has been linked with lowering the risks of diabetes by about 30%.
- In your diet, add more leafy green vegetables which help lower the risks by about 14 percent.
- Drinking coffee each day is associated with a 7% lowering risk of diabetes. You may also follow a whole food diet including fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
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Are There Any Benefits To Smoking
There are absolutely no benefits to smoking. People that smoke say that they find it relaxing, and it helps them deal with stress. In reality, it has the opposite effect. The nicotine in cigarettes is a stimulant and it is what people crave. You may feel some relief as you are temporarily satisfying the craving, but once youve finished your stress levels increase to more than what they were before having a cigarette.
Another common reason for smoking is that it keeps weight down, and people are worried about putting on weight if they stop. Smoking can suppress your appetite, but it doesnt necessarily mean that if you quit you will put on weight. Its important to know what could make you gain weight when you stop so that you are prepared and avoid this.
New Discovery Illuminates Brain Link Between Nicotine And Diabetes
Smokers stand a 30-40 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetesa disease in which the body loses the ability to produce or use insulin, leading to excess glucose in the blood and poor use of glucose as cellular fuel. Diabetes can have many serious consequences, including heart and kidney disease, blindness, and poor circulation leading to ulcers and amputation. People with diabetes also have a harder time quitting smoking. Until recently, nicotines link to diabetes has been thought to involve inflammation and oxidative stress caused by chemicals in cigarette smoke, but a group of researchers led by Paul J. Kenny at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has discovered an unexpected brain-based mechanism tied specifically to nicotine.
When the researchers deleted a specific diabetes-associated gene in rats, they unexpectedly found that it increased the rats nicotine consumption but also had a protective effect against the emergence of diabetes. It revealed that this gene, called transcription factor 7-like 2 , plays a dual role: It regulates cellular responsiveness to nicotine in a brain area called the habenula, which is important in aversive responses to stimuli, and it also controls a pathway linking the habenula to the pancreas, where insulin is produced.
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Whats The Harm Of Smoking With Diabetes
Diabetes increases your risk for complications like:
-
Heart disease
Smoking if you have diabetes makes these complications even more likely, as smoking can cause further damage to blood vessels as well.
The cardiovascular risks of smoking are especially important to highlight. People with diabetes who smoke have been found to have higher cholesterol levels and blood pressure than people with diabetes who dont smoke. So smoking causes even more damage to the heart and blood vessels than diabetes and high blood sugar alone. This can lead to serious problems like heart attack, stroke, and an earlier death. As such, the American Diabetes Association strongly urges any person with diabetes that smokes to do their best to quit.
If you have diabetes, youre probably familiar with these potential complications already. The good news is that many studies show that quitting smoking, along with managing your blood sugar levels, can significantly reduce your risk of experiencing any of these. In one study, for example, people who had diabetes and early signs of kidney disease who stopped smoking saw improvements in kidney function, blood sugar control, blood pressure, blood fat levels, and insulin resistance. These findings translated to fewer cases of blood vessel disease and nerve disease.
Symptoms Of Diabetes In Smokers
If you smoke a lot of cigarettes in a day, you are at a high risk of developing diabetes. To determine whether you should pay a visit to your doctor or not, here is a list of symptoms of diabetes that you should be aware of:
1# Frequent Urination
An increase in the insulin levels causes fluids to move of the cells and cause loss of glucose in the system, which causes your bladder to fill up and results in frequent urination.
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2# Increased Hunger
Due to the bodys inability to use glucose, the energy of our cells decreases and makes you feel hungry. Sudden feeling of hunger more than usual is a clear sign that there can be a logic behind elevated blood sugar levels in your body.
3# Weight Gain
If you are overweight or obese, you more likely to get diabetes. The extra weight around the belly can be a sign of diabetes.
4# Lethargy
As the body is unable to use the glucose in the blood due to lack of insulin, the cells are starved off their energy, which makes you feel tired.
5# Blurry Vision
High levels of glucose in the blood lead to a loss of fluids from the eyes. This hinders your vision, and you will not be able to see clearly.
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How Will Quitting Smoking Affect My Blood Sugar Levels
Some people who smoke and have diabetes are concerned that quitting smoking will lead to high hemoglobin A1C levels, a sign that their blood sugar levels have gone up. A review of 4 separate research studies shows that quitting smoking tends to improve blood sugar control and lower A1C levels in the long run.
That same review did note that there may be a temporary rise in A1C following quitting, lasting 1 to 3 years depending on how heavily you used to smoke. After 10 years, though, people who quit had the same A1C levels as people who had never smoked, meaning that A1C levels had lowered over those years.
Wrapping Up The Risks And Costs Of Vapes
Hopefully, we’ve been able to clarify some of the hype around diabetes and vapes and get down into the detail about the risks of vaping. When it comes to vaping, your safest alternative is to smoke nicotine-free juice or e-liquid with low nicotine content. You will also find this to be the most cost-effective, as vape juice is usually priced by its nicotine level.
We’ve tried to demystify the ‘sweetness’ of vapes, which is not the result of sugar, but rather sugar alcohols mixed with flavorings. As nicotine is the ingredient in vapes that can affect or cause diabetes, vaping does not put you at a higher risk of diabetes than normal cigarettes. Rather, the ability to customize your nicotine intake in vaping devices may decrease your risks when it comes to diabetes.
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Study 8 Curcumin & Black Pepper Combination Reduces Blood Lipids In Metabolic Syndrome
Patients diagnosed with metabolic syndrome were recruited for this study and assigned to placebo and curcuminoid groups.
Standard medications were provided to all. The curcuminoid group received the C3 complex at a dose of 1000mg per day. The C3 complex is a bioavailable form of curcumin containing all 3 curcuminoids.
Additionally, they also received biopiperine, active constituent of black pepper to increasethe absorption of curcuminoid. The study lasted for 8 weeks.
What were the results?
Curcuminoids were successful in reducing bad cholesterol levels- LDL and elevating good cholesterol-HDL. Overall cholesterol levels and blood lipids were reduced better than the reduction brought about standard care alone.
How did this occur?
Curcuminoids are strong antioxidants. Curcumins antioxidant property is comparable to that Vitamin C and E. This property helps in combating oxidative damage and increases the level of lipid metabolizing enzymes. It also activates genes that would be involved in lipid metabolism.
This ensures proper function of the liver to prevent fat accumulation and also protects blood vessels and heart from cholesterol-induced damage.
What does this mean?
Curcuminoids with piperine can be used as an add-on therapy with standard treatment to treat dyslipidemia in metabolic syndrome and lower cholesterol levels.
Read paper here:
Food Items Without Sugar For Diabetics
Your choice of food matters a lot when youre a diabetic. Nothing is off-limits totally. Even the worst products could be occasional treats if consumed in small quantities. However, they wont help you with having a lot of nutrition. Hence, sticking to the best food items that either do not contain sugar or contain less sugar is the greatest way to control your diabetes.
- Whole grains
- Shirataki noodles
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The Newly Discovered Brain Path Linking Nicotine To Diabetes
The 2019 Monitoring the Future survey finds that around 35 million U.S. adults use cigarettes, about 12 percent of high school seniors use vaping products on 20 or more of the previous 30 days, and over a quarter did so within the past 30 daysan increase from 11 percent in 2017. Around 2,000 Americans under the age of 18 smoke their first cigarette every day, and over 16 million Americans have smoking-related diseases, including diabetes.1 Diabetes appears at much higher rates in individuals who use tobacco products than in those who dont. The CDC says that tobacco products elevate the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes by 30-40 percent, and that use of tobacco products makes managing the condition much more difficult while also increasing the chances of complications, including limb damage, heart disease, and impaired blood flow.2
Yet its not clear to scientists exactly why individuals who use tobacco products face much higher risks of type 2 diabetes , especially when we normally think of weight gain as the cause of the majority of T2DM cases. A recent NIDA-funded study investigated whether certain regions of the brain might play a role in this T2DM risk. It tested the theory that nicotine control causes tobacco addiction through effects on the brain, which may then influence functions of the pancreas, blood sugar, insulin, and diabetes at the same time.
What did this study find about nicotine and diabetes?
Why is this important?
References:
Citation:
How Does Smoking Affect My Circulation When I Have Diabetes
In the same way, both smoking and diabetes affect blood vessels in other parts of your body, so adding both together really increases your risk of conditions linked to poor blood circulation. With diabetes, if you have high blood glucose levels over several years, your blood vessels can become damaged. This can lead to plaque forming in your blood vessels and make it harder for them to deliver enough blood to your cells.Smoking slows down circulation in the smaller blood vessels that supply your hands and feet. Poor circulation increases your risk of:
- blood vessel blockages in your legs
- foot and leg amputations.
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What We Dont Yet Know
We dont yet have all of the answers, and much of the research thats been done thus far is preliminary and doesnt meet the gold standard for research that is, being published in a peer-reviewed journal, and conducted with a randomized, placebo-controlled model.
Researchers are still trying to answer many questions, such as:
How do e-cigarettes affect your heart? The No. 1 cause of death for people with diabetes is cardiovascular, Zappe says. We already know that smoking increases the risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease, she notes but do e-cigarettes do the same, especially for people with type 2 diabetes?
What are the long-term effects of e-cigarettes? Because e-cigarettes are relatively newer to the scene, we still need to understand exactly how they affect the bodys risk for disease.
How Turmeric Can Help Fight Diabetes
Turmeric is an ancient Indian spice and a perennial herb that is also mostly found in Asian parts. Turmeric spice is extracted from Curcuma, which is a perennial ginger family plant and is used extensively in cooking the Indian cuisines. It is also used as coloring agent in Hindu and Buddhist in their ceremony practices and also considered sacred.
Turmeric has component known as Curcuminoids, which contains curcumin, a magical content that is working wonders in healing capabilities for both type 1 and 2 diabetes according to the research and findings. Curcumin is capable of mitigating the primary features of diabetes such as higher blood sugar levels and the inability for the body to respond to the insulin.
Type 1 diabetes occurs as a result of the destruction of pancreatic cells through inflammation and eventual cell death. The inflammation impairs the functioning of the insulin as well as contributing to the insulin resistance. Turmeric has an anti-inflammatory property that works by modulating proteins activities and their pathways in the body. This also enables the proteins that mediate inflammation to be hindered from their activities as well.
Turmeric plays a major role in reversing pancreatic damage in diabetic persons are often told that their condition cannot be treated. This is possible because the dysfunction of the beta cells in the pancreas where the insulin is produced can be repaired.
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