Managing Gestational Diabetes with a Diabetic Diet

3-5% of pregnant women will be diagnosed with gestational diabetes. While this condition is rare, it is important to know how to manage the disease during your pregnancy. One of the easiest ways of managing your gestational diabetes is by following a healthy, diabetes-friendly diet. The diabetic diet you follow during pregnancy will help regulate your blood sugar and ensure the health of your baby.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when planning a Gestational Diabetes Diet:

1. Meet with your doctor to discuss your personalized meal plan that will be focused on helping you maintain normal blood glucose levels. Ask any questions you may have, and be sure you are clear on what foods are appropriate for you to eat as well as how much you should eat.
2. Avoid sugar and all foods high in sugar. These will create unnecessary and harmful spikes in your blood sugar.
3. Choose complex carbohydrates, including vegetables, grains, cereals, beans, peas and other starchy foods. These take longer to break down in your body and help regulate your blood sugar.
4. Place emphasis on foods that are high in fiber in your diet, and choose foods that are low in fat.
5. Eat bedtime snacks that contain both protein and complex carbohydrates to encourage your body to maintain a constant level of blood sugar.
6. Be sure to eat 3 consistent meals a day with several snacks at similar times each day in order to provide adequate nutrition to you and your baby as well as regulate your blood sugar naturally.

For more information about Blood Sugar Levels and Pregnancy, please visit American Diabetes Services.

Not Getting Enough Shut-Eye May Increase Your Risk of Diabetes

An inadequate amount of sleep, coupled with lack of exercise and poor diet, may increase your risk of developing diabetes.

The results of a new study by the University of Chicago confirm that the ability to regulate one's blood sugar is dependent on how much sleep the person gets.

Five men and six women volunteered for the study. All were middle-aged, little overweight and exercised rarely. The study consisted of two 14-day periods: one where they were allowed to sleep 8.5 hours nightly and one where they were restricted to 5.5 hours of shut-eye a night. The volunteers were not allowed to exercise and junk food was made available to them.

When sleeping too little, the volunteers' blood sugar was higher on a glucose tollerance test and they became less sensitive to the blood sugar hormone insulin.