A recent estimate proclaimed that 25-35 percent of Westernized populations could suffer from a degree of insulin resistance or from some of health consequences associated with this disease of lifestyle in the future. After further reading of websites and research papers, the following tips were found that were suggested to reduce the risk of acquiring diabetes.

The information is not meant to cure the disease, but because it is more a disease of lifestyle than anything else, scientifically validated information is available to help you reduce your risk. This is mostly information that you have heard all before, good nutrition, good health, and exercise, but judging by the incidence of disease from the numbers presented above, people still have not been told enough.

The ideal diet for modifying insulin resistance should reduce body weight, decrease fat while sparing muscle tissue, and improve insulin sensitivity. Insulin sensitivity refers to the increased uptake of blood sugar by muscle cells, which is particularly important because high levels of blood sugar (blood glucose = same thing) are associated with disease. While it is relatively simple to find agreement within the literature on these general points, it is difficult to find an agreement among experts regarding the ideal diet that will best help to accomplish these goals.

Briefly:

High fiber diets are recommended, as is decreasing the amount of saturated fat in the diet. However, processed carbohydrates (high-glycemic carbohydrates) often take the place of fats, but excess carbohydrates can be very deleterious because they lead to very high levels of blood sugar. North American diets are high in processed food, for example, 8 spoons of sugar in a 355ml soft drink, and the excess sugar-diet is likely one of the largest contributors to the great prevalence of diabetes (aside from a sedentary lifestyle).

White bread, sugary cereals, pretzels, sports drinks, and flavored-beverages, etc. are all packed with high-glycemic carbohydrates ready to skyrocket your blood sugar levels. They are calorie-dense but severely lacking in nutrients. Sure pop tarts and frosted flakes are truly low-fat foods, but with chronic consumption are these better breakfast foods than eggs and whole-wheat toast? I honestly can’t say for sure.

While high-glycemic carbohydrates may not need to be fully eradicated from the diet, they should not be the staple foods of your meal plans. In fact, reduce your consumption of high-glycemic simple carbohydrates to immediately post-workout. Plan around vegetables and lean meats and fruits, and include processed foods as a low priority.

Many people have used all types of diets successfully and unsuccessfully. NOTE: everyone is on a “diet”, this simply refers to the food that you eat…for example, a University student may be on a diet of Pasta, Pizza, Burgers, and Beer, and even though this student may get fat, he/she is still on a “diet” per se.

But anyway, some skinny people can eat a lot, and some skinny people can eat a lot of high-glycemic carbohydrate, while overweight individuals can eat relatively healthy, and average individuals can eat a wide-variety of food and all end up with no change in their body compositions. After seeing all this, who is to say what the best “diet” and macro-nutrient composition is for everyone, or for you?

Just like training, nutrition is sometimes best learned by trial and error, but reading literature on healthy eating helps as well, even though you are guaranteed to find two experts with completely opposing views on the best way to lose body fat, etc. Most importantly, if you can’t stick to your food schedule due to a complete hatred of the foods you are eating, than that food plan is likely to be unsuccessful, regardless of how well thought out that it is.

Again, just like training, nutrition is best tweaked to individual considerations, what works for a young man to get “lean for the beach” may not necessarily be the healthiest diet for a middle-aged, overweight, pre-diabetic. Educate yourself. Learn what foods are healthy, and pick the ones from that list that you enjoy. Eating can be enjoyable and healthy.

Often bodybuilders and athletes get caught up over-emphasizing the macro-nutrient profile of their meals (i.e. how much protein and fat is in a meal of chicken and rice). However, they will fail to consider the amount of micro-nutrients that are lacking in this bland meal (i.e. very little vitamin C, and other healthful antioxidants, etc.). The recommendations are for self-education and consultation with a true expert if necessary. Oops, getting a little sidetracked, so let’s return to looking at some other risks for diabetes:

Cigarette smoking – From heart disease to cancer, from emphysema to diabetes. Cigarettes cause too much disease. Please avoid them.

Stress – Very difficult to prove that stress causes illness, but many experts believe that decreasing the amount of stress and hassle in life goes a long way towards increasing overall health. So, get rid of your stress. Sometimes you need to remember that there is nothing that you can do about certain things in life, so accept that. But if you can change things, do so for the better.

Physical activity is important for disease prevention. Exercise may be the single most important lifestyle factor for both preventing and reversing insulin resistance, but don’t let it be an excuse for a poor diet! Everyone should attempt to maintain low (yet healthy) levels of body fat and moderate amounts of muscle mass. The recommendations are quite simple, but regular exercise is huge step in the right direction, away from diabetes. Pick some activities and do them consistently.

The importance of resistance training in overall health is no longer just my opinion, but is gaining great scientific support. If you jog 5 times a week for nothing more than health reasons, you could reduce that to 3, even 2 sessions, and replace the other days with resistance training for a greater overall health benefit. Why? Resistance training increases muscle mass.

Muscle serves 3 important functions: One, it is a very metabolically active tissue, helping to take up and use more blood glucose, and thus it may help improve the blood sugar profiles of diabetics. In fact, after young healthy men did weight training for several weeks, they needed to release less insulin to deal with a large amount of carbohydrate, thus indicating that insulin sensitivity increased with an increase in muscle mass (Yarasheski, 1992).

Second, muscle provides strength for daily function and should help to prevent injuries (for example, more muscle should reduce the injury risk associated with “pounding the pavement” (jogging) 5 times a week). And three, plain and simple, everyone looks a little better with some “pipes” rather than “pipe-cleaners” in their sleeves.

As people age, they lose muscle, which in my opinion is due mostly to lack of activity, rather than aging factors. Again, in my opinion, it is a matter of “what came first?”, the loss of muscle and then decreased activity, or no activity leading to a decrease in muscle? According to *Hasten and colleagues, sedentary older men and women (age 78+) have lower rates of protein synthesis than younger sedentary counterparts.

However, within just 2 weeks of resistance training the older individuals were able to increase their rates of protein synthesis as much as the younger men and women. Therefore, it shows that older individuals maintain the ability to increase muscle growth in response to short-term resistance exercise. My conclusion: It is never too late to get out and train for muscle mass and health. But…

IMPORTANT: A key point to remember if you are sedentary, don’t jump back into things too quickly! Any activity you do today is more than you did yesterday, so slowly but surely, build exercise and strength capacity. As always, consult an expert if your knowledge is limited in this field.

Will we ever be free of disease? No, unfortunately that is not likely to happen. But there are many simple steps that can help improve health. If you improve your health, fitness and performance improvements are likely to follow. In the future, research will guide us along the path to better lifestyle choices, and fortunately will provide us with some help to correct our mistakes. However, since lifestyle factors play such a prominent role in insulin resistance, we can modify the bad habits right now, so that insulin resistance can be avoided in the future.