Diabetes Health Center
Type 2 Diabetes: Living With the Disease - Treatment Overview
Your treatment for type 2 diabetes will change over time to meet your individual needs. But the focus of your treatment will always be to keep your blood sugar levels within a normal or near-normal range to prevent complications from diabetes, such as eye, kidney, heart, blood vessel, and nerve disease. You play an important role in managing your condition. By learning about diabetes and working with your health professional to create a plan for treatment, you can improve your health and quality of life.
How can you manage your diabetes?
Follow your diet
It is important to follow a healthy, balanced diet that includes whole grains, lean meat, fish, and vegetables. To help control your blood sugar and reduce your risk for complications from diabetes, limit alcohol. And reduce calories if you need to lose weight.
Of the three major nutrients (carbohydrate, protein, and fat), carbohydrate has the greatest effect on blood sugar. Because you have diabetes, it's important that you include the proper amount of carbohydrate in your daily diet and that you space carbohydrate evenly throughout the day. You can use one of the following approaches:
-
Carbohydrate counting for people with diabetes
who do not use insulin (preferred) -
Carbohydrate counting for
people who use insulin (preferred) -
Food
guide for diabetes
-
Plate format
Planning meals to manage diabetes often means looking at food in a new way. Some people may have trouble accepting the changes they need to make in their lifestyle. You may find it helpful to read about how emotions influence what we eat, when we eat, and how much we eat:
Take an aspirin daily
If you are age 30 or older, talk to your health professional about taking a low-dose aspirin daily to help prevent heart attack, stroke, and other large blood vessel disease (macrovascular disease). People with diabetes are 2 to 4 times more likely than people who don't have diabetes to die from heart and blood vessel diseases.1
Exercise regularly
Exercise helps control your blood sugar, because you use
glucose for energy during and after activity. It also helps you stay at a
healthy weight; lower
high cholesterol; raise
high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or "good,"
cholesterol; and lower
high blood pressure. These benefits help prevent
cardiovascular
disease. Try to do activities that
raise your heart rate. Exercise for at least 30 minutes on most, preferably
all, days of the week. It may help to keep track of your exercise on an
activity
log
(What is a PDF document?). The American Diabetes Association suggests that you include
resistance exercises in your exercise program.2
Resistance exercises can include activities like weight lifting or even yard
work. See the topic
Fitness for ideas on how to add daily activity to your
life. Work with your health professional to develop a
safe exercise program.
Maintain blood sugar control
Lower high blood pressure and high cholesterol
WebMD Medical Reference from Healthwise



