PRESCRIPTIONS
Diabetic seeks guidance in identifying safe foods

By Amy Tousman

Q. I was recently diagnosed with diabetes and have stopped eating sweets. When I read food labels, it seems that so many foods contain sugar. What can I do?

A. In recent years guidelines for diabetes have become more flexible. There are many ways to control your blood sugar. These include limiting sweets and carbohydrates, exercising, and losing weight if you are overweight.

Carbohydrates are found in foods such as rice, poi, bread, corn, peas, fruits, juices, milk and yogurt. During digestion, these foods turn into sugar in the body. The body cannot tell the difference between these sugars and table sugar.

Once the sugar from these foods is digested, it enters the blood. Whenever excess sugar enters the blood, it is detected by an organ called the pancreas. The pancreas releases a hormone called insulin to remove the excess sugar from the blood. In diabetes, insulin does not do its job of removing sugar from the blood.

For folks with diabetes, eating is a balancing act. The trick is to eat enough carbohydrate foods to give your body energy, but not so much that your blood sugar remains elevated.

It helps to spread your carbohydrates out throughout the day rather than eating them all in one meal. If too much sugar goes into the blood at one time, it is harder to remove.

Foods that have lots of fiber, such as brown rice or fruits, go into the blood stream more slowly than refined carbohydrates such as white rice or juices. Because they go into the blood a little at a time, they can be moved to the cells more easily.

Exercise helps to lower blood sugar in diabetics. It helps increase insulin receptors in the cells. This allows the body's insulin do its job of moving sugar from the blood to the cells.

Weight loss helps to improve blood glucose in overweight diabetics. There are substances in the fat cells that can cause the body to resist its own insulin. Weight loss reverses this process.

Exercising, losing weight and limiting carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates, are all tools you can use to normalize blood sugar.

Sugar can be substituted for other carbohydrates from time to time. Because desserts tend to be high in sugar and fat, but low in nutrients, they should not replace healthier foods on a regular basis.

Amy Tousman is a registered dietitian at Straub Clinic & Hospital Inc. and a member of the Hawai'i Dietetic Association.

Send questions to: Prescriptions, Island Life, The Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; you can e-mail ohana@honoluluadvertiser.com or fax 535-8170. This column is for information only; consult your health provider for medical advice. Submissions may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms.