The best way to prevent diabetes is to make some lifestyle changes:

Maintain a healthy weight. Being overweight raises your risk for diabetes. Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI) to see if you’re at a healthy weight. If you’re overweight, start making small changes to your eating habits by adding more whole grain foods, fruits, and vegetables. Start exercising more, even if taking a short walk is all you can do for now. If you’re not sure where to start, talk to your doctor.

Eat healthy:

• Eat lots of whole grains (such as whole wheat or rye bread, whole grain cereal, or brown rice), fruits, and vegetables.
• Choose foods low in fat and cholesterol. Read food labels. If you eat 2,000 calories per day, you should eat no more than 56 grams of fat each day.
• Limit your salt intake to less than 2,300 mg (about 1 teaspoon of salt) each day.
• If you drink alcohol, limit it to no more than one drink (one 12-ounce beer, one 5-ounce glass of wine, or one 1.5-ounce shot of hard liquor) a day.

Get moving. Try to exercise for at least 30 minutes most days of the week. Some suggestions:

• Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
• Take a brisk walk on your lunch break.
• Park at the far end of the parking lot and walk.
• Get off the bus or subway a few stops early and walk the rest of the way.
• Walk or bicycle whenever you can.

What are the signs of diabetes?

• being very thirsty
• urinating a lot
• feeling very hungry
• feeling very tired
• losing weight without trying
• having sores that are slow to heal
• having dry, itchy skin
• losing feeling in or having tingling in the hands or feet
• having blurry vision
• having more infections than usual

If you have one or more of these signs, see your doctor.

Whatever you need to help you deal with incontinence, you can find at DisposableMedicalExpress.com, whether you need garments like pull ups or maybe even an adjustable belted undergarment. The belt in such an undergarment is reusable, and usually comes one to a bag. The Tranquility brand uses straps that fit waist sizes of 28-58 inches. These babies help you retain freedom of movement and allow you to continue to live a normal life.

You would be surprised to learn the range of products you may need as you become older. Little changes can mean a lot of adjustments, but once you’ve made them, then you’re good to go. One of those changes may be getting used to wearing adult diapers. It’s really no big deal. You will find that these products are actually designed to keep the aging process from robbing you of your fun. Things like lift seats and undergarments can really make a lot of difference.

They don’t call it Tranquility for nothing. It can be a little disconcerting when you first start experiencing incontinence. But once you get used to the change, using Tranquility products can really give you peace of mind. Tranquility diapers, for instance, will protect your clothing and give you one less thing to worry about, not to mention make it unnecessary to have your life revolve around doing your laundry. Trust me, it will be nice to start living a normal life again, and enjoying yourself.

Adapted from the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1996

The change from the recumbent position to standing produces acute hemodynamic changes that are exaggerated during pregnancy. The result is that in the third trimester, standing can produce a decrease in blood pressure and cardiac output, followed by increases in maternal heart rate and systemic vascular resistance. To compensate for the positional change, chemical compounds derived from the amino acid tyrosine, catecholamines, are released to increase vascular resistance and normalize blood pressure and heart rate. Graduated compression stockings have been shown to reverse these effects.

The authors conclude that the use of support stockings during pregnancy is associated with favorable cardiovascular effects. They point out that support stockings may be useful clinically to reduce contractions that occur in pregnant women on standing. Thus, use of compression stockings during pregnancy appears to promote beneficial hormonal, mechanical and cardiovascular effects.

About 20 million Americans have diabetes, about half of whom are women. As many as one third do not know they have diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes occurs at about the same rate in men and women, but it is more common in Whites than in minorities.

Type 2 diabetes is more common in older people, mainly in people who are overweight. It is more common in African Americans, Hispanic Americans/Latinos, and American Indians.

Am I at risk for diabetes?

• Age — being older than 45
• Overweight or obesity
• Family history — having a mother, father, brother, or sister with diabetes
• Race/ethnicity — your family background is African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic American/Latino, Asian American/Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian
• Having a baby with a birth weight more than 9 pounds
• Having diabetes during pregnancy (gestational diabetes)
• High blood pressure — 140/90 mm HG or higher. Both numbers are important. If one or both numbers are usually high, you have high blood pressure.
• High cholesterol — total cholesterol over 240 mg/dL
• Inactivity — exercising less than 3 times a week
• Abnormal results in a prior diabetes test
• Having other health conditions that are linked to problems using insulin, like Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
• Having a history of heart disease or stroke

What causes diabetes?

Type 1 and type 2 diabetes — The exact causes of both types of diabetes are still not known. Type 1 diabetes tends to show up after a person is exposed to a trigger, such as a virus, which can start an attack on the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. There is no one cause for type 2 diabetes, but it seems to run in families, and most people who get type 2 diabetes are overweight.Gestational diabetes — Changing hormones and weight gain are part of a healthy pregnancy, but these changes make it hard for your body to keep up with its need for insulin. When that happens, your body doesn’t get the energy it needs from the foods you eat.

Should I be tested for diabetes?

If you’re at least 45-years-old, you should get tested for diabetes, and then you should be tested again every 3 years. If you’re 45 or older and overweight you may want to get tested more often. If you’re younger than 45, overweight, and have one or more of the risk factors listed in Am I at Risk for Diabetes you should get tested now. Ask your doctor for a fasting blood glucose test or an oral glucose tolerance test. Your doctor will tell you if you have normal blood glucose (blood sugar), pre-diabetes, or diabetes.

Anyone who’s tried keeping up with their nutritional needs – at any age – can tell you that it can be a pain. You can ignore your nutrients a little when you’re younger, because the effects aren’t quite so obvious. But when you become older, you can really see what happens if you aren’t getting what you need. However, trying to eat all of that food may be a difficult job. That’s why there are great things like the Boost drink and Boost Plus out there. They make getting your vitamins and minerals easy.

Now that you have decided to give incontinence products a whirl, what do you think you will be needing? There are plenty of things on the market designed to make your life easy and pleasant. Take disposable underwear, for instance. What do you think your teenage grandson would say if he knew there was such a thing? He’d think it was the coolest thing in the world, because you don’t have to wash that kind of underwear. That’s just one less thing to keep track of, and it’s all yours.

There are a lot of reasons to use products like adult wipes and disposable gloves when caring for an aging loved one or client. For one thing, using disposable products is simply sanitary. It isn’t like you aren’t going to wash your hands afterward anyway, but it does put another layer between your skin and bodily byproducts. Another reason is the comfort of the one for whom you’re caring. Things like wipes often include things that care for the skin as well as cleanse. In addition to all of that, using these products simply saves time.