How to Reduce the Risk of Diabetes and Heart Disease

Heart disease is responsible for almost 30% of all deaths according to the World Health Organization, making it the deadliest killer in the world. Diabetes is one of the top ten causes of death and it often accompanies heart disease, which greatly increases a person's risk of a heart attack or a stroke. Some of the methods used to reduce the risk of heart disease also work for diabetes.

Diabetes

1. Consume less simple carbohydrates like soda, potatoes, sugar, white rice, and pasta. Simple carbohydrates, or carbohydrates without fiber content, cause the body's blood sugar levels to rise a lot faster than fiber-rich foods, and prolonged periods of high blood sugar can lead to diabetes. Replace these foods with diet soda, brown rise, vegetables and sweet potatoes, all of which have more fiber and lower carbohydrates. Sucralose is a common low-carb substitute for sugar.


2. Exercise regularly. Losing weight decreases the risk of both diabetes and heart disease. While a gym membership is one way to lose weight, simply buying a video game console with gesture-oriented games can make regular exercise very fun. The Nintendo Wii, the Xbox Kinect and the Playstation 3 Move are all cheaper than a half-year gym membership and feature games that involve a lot of physical exercise.


3. Reduce the amount of chronic stress in your life. Persistent stress is a major contributor to diabetes and heart disease. During stressful times the body releases adrenaline and glucose (sugar) into the bloodstream to help cope with the situation. Chronic stress keeps these blood sugar levels elevated, which can overwhelm the body's ability to process glucose; this leads to both hypertension and diabetes.

Heart Disease

1. Reduce your fat intake. Eat low-fat foods such as baked chicken instead of fried chicken, or yogurt instead of ice cream. Cut down on the consumption of hamburgers and french fries. Foods high in fat contribute more to weight gain than other foods because one gram of fat contains twice as many calories as one gram of protein or one gram of carbohydrates. In addition, it also raises the levels of bad cholesterol in the blood.


2. Watch your cholesterol. Eat lower cholesterol foods and supplement your diet with cholesterol-fighting superfoods. Superfoods that can be consumed for a snack includes apples, almonds and peanuts. For breakfast, a good cholesterol-fighting food would be oatmeal. Superfoods for meals include foods with kidney beans, tomatoes and salmon. Yogurt is a good dessert superfood. In general, all high-fiber vegetables fight cholesterol because fiber binds to bad cholesterol and forces it out of the body.


3. Stop smoking, and avoid second hand smoke. The smoke from cigarettes is toxic; it contributes to blood clots, hardens the arteries and causes high blood pressure. All of these problems cause heart disease and can lead to a heart attack or a stroke.