Type 2 Diabetes - Is Your Waist Measurement The Reason You Have High Blood Sugar?

It is a well-documented fact most people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes are either overweight or obese.

    in children, 95 percent are overweight or obese,
    in adults over 85 percent.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately one-third of adults in the United States, and 17.1 percent of children and adolescents in the United States, are obese.

What is the clinical version of what it means to be obese? As stated by the CDC, overweight and obesity are labels given when the range of weight for a given height is over and above what has been determined to be healthy.

But the problem isn't just having excess weight on your body, but where the excess weight is located. Even though two different people can each carry thirty extra pounds of weight on their body, one of them can have more medical complications due to the fact their excess fat is in a location more detrimental to their health than the other person.

The location offering the worst scenario is having fat around the waistline and is often referred to as abdominal or belly fat. You can lose a lot of this fat by dieting and losing 5 to 10 percent of your body weight.

The size of a person's waist is a much better indicator of whether or not a person will develop Type 2 diabetes than either their:

    body mass index (BMI), or
    their actual weight.

In other words, the larger your waist the larger the threat. It is now thought keeping your weight measurement to lower than half your height might be the best indicator of obesity.

How much is too much when referring to a person's waist? When a woman's waist is more than 35 inches, or a man's exceeds 40 inches, they are more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.

But there's a problem: measuring your waist circumference is not an ideal indicator of how much visceral fat you are carrying. Why not? Because there is as much fat inside the abdominal wall, surrounding your organs, as there is on the outside. The fat causing so many problems is not only the fat you can feel... the belly fat you can grab in your hands is not the fat helping to stop the insulin and glucose from entering your cells. Isn't that frightening?

Armed with this information, some people who sport a spare tire will immediately add crunches and sit-ups to their daily activities. Unfortunately, while this certainly can't hurt your overall health, this isn't the answer. Only a regimen of cardio and low-impact workouts, and weight loss, is going to reduce the belly bulge.

What does this belly or visceral fat do to your body? It affects everything... your heart, liver and kidneys all have to work harder:

    some of their functions are almost completely interrupted, causing them unnecessary stress and fatigue.
    in your brain, various hormones levels vital to your body's continued health, are thrown out-of-sync.
    sleep is interrupted and normal brain function in everyday life is impacted.

Next, take a close look at the circulatory system and it's components. LDL or "bad" cholesterol levels skyrocket, while HDL or "good" cholesterol, drops too low. Triglyceride levels shoot through the roof and blood pressure increases, not to mention the inflammation taking place throughout your body.

All of these negative aspects can take place even if you only have abdominal fat and virtually no excess fat elsewhere in your body. Unfortunately, the formation of abdominal fat is a side effect of a few medications... it does include some diabetes medications.

How do you start to create a healthy lifestyle today so you can get rid of your damaging belly fat?



Article Source: Beverleigh H Piepers