Little Things Go a Long Way in Controlling Diabetes

Seven years ago, doctors told Joe Crump he had diabetes.

He figured the diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes meant he'd have to take a pill and lay off sweets. After all, he felt fine.

"It's hard to respect something that doesn't hurt you," says Crump, 61. "I didn't need to go to the emergency room."

That was until he suffered a minor heart attack in 2007, his second. And simple cuts morphed into wounds that took weeks to heal. And he was diagnosed with cataracts. And his feet and ankles went numb.

That's when he got scared and started listening to a certified diabetes educator who gave him a road map to navigating a disease that affects more than 23 million Americans.

"I'm not ready to check out yet," says Crump, who has since lost 55 pounds and curtailed some of the problems connected to his diabetes.

Crump and millions of other people with Type 2 diabetes fail to control complications of the progressive disease because they don't know where to begin, says Carol Singleton, a registered nurse and owner of Single Source Diabetes of Brandon. Diabetes  --  a chronic condition in which the body fails to produce insulin and break blood sugar or glucose into energy  --  has no cure.

"Many diseases run their course. ... Diabetes is not one of them," she says.

Controlling diabetes involves understanding the need to balance healthy eating, physical activity, medications and blood-sugar monitoring, Singleton says. Otherwise, the thick, sugary glucose will wreak havoc on blood vessels and associated organs.

Nutrition, specifically understanding the effect of carbohydrates on glucose levels, is one of the more important issues facing diabetics. Carbohydrates are foods that help raise blood glucose, and they come in three forms: starch or complex, sugar and dietary fiber.