Introduction
Diabetes is on the rise worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of people with diabetes rose from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014, and in 2015, about 1.6 million people died worldwide as a result of diabetes.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that, “more than 29 million Americans have diabetes.”
Heart disease is another medical condition which plagues a lot of people. According to WHO, it is the leading cause of death among adults worldwide.
Interestingly, diabetes and heart disease are closely linked. In this article, I explain the relationship between diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, and how you can prevent both conditions.
Ready to learn more about this topic?
Let us start by taking a look at the link between the two medical conditions.
1. Are Diabetes and Heart Disease Really Related?
You may be wondering, “Is there really a link between diabetes and heart disease? Is it true that there is a relationship between diabetes and heart disease?” Well, as sure as there is hell, there is a link between the two diseases.
Several years ago, the Framingham Heart Study showed that when a person has diabetes, that person’s risk of getting heart disease is increased significantly.
Additionally, according to the Harvard Health Publications of the Harvard Medical School, about 66.6% of people who have diabetes eventually die of heart disease or stroke.
2. Diabetes Increases Your Heart Disease Risk
According to Dr. Benjamin Scirica, a cardiologist working at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, diabetes, which causes high levels of blood sugar in your body, activates your immune system and, as a result, your body develops chronic inflammations.
A combination of the high blood sugar and the inflammations causes the arteries to get bruised. Consequently, the walls of the coronary arteries become more prone to becoming hardened when cholesterol builds up in the arteries.
Furthermore, when there is an increased amount of sugar in the blood, the arteries become stiff. As a result, they find it extremely difficult to expand well. Consequently, blood platelets become stickier and there is a greater likelihood that they can form blood clots.
3. The Relation Between Diabetes and Heart Disease
When a diabetic eats a lot of fatty foods, cholesterol gets deposited in the arteries and that causes the arteries to become stiff. Just as when clay gets very hard it can break up and develop cracks, the cholesterol that has been deposited in the arteries can cause the arteries to break up.
When this occurs, the body’s repair mechanism goes into action quickly—the body sends blood platelets to seal up the ruptured portions of the arteries.
However, the coronary arteries are very small and so some of the blood platelets may impede blood flow, thereby hampering the smooth delivery of oxygen to the heart. As a result, a heart attack may occur.
Now that we have seen that there is a connection between the two diseases, how can we prevent it?
4. The Diabetes and Heart Disease Connection: the Sexes Connection
According to the CDC, women who have diabetes are more likely to develop a heart disease than men with diabetes. In fact, such women have a 40% greater risk of eventually ending up with a heart disease than men who also have diabetes.
Why does this happen? It may be because women usually have more fat in their bodies than men, and this fat increases the likelihood that a woman with diabetes can develop heart disease.
5. How to Prevent Diabetes and Heart Disease
What can you do to prevent these two conditions, if you have a family history of diabetes and heart disease, or if you don’t have a family history of these diseases but you just want to stay healthy?
- Ensure that you are active all the time. This can help to prevent type 2 diabetes.
- Keep your blood sugar level low at all times.
- If you are overweight, exercise regularly so that you can cut down on your weight drastically.
- Try to reduce the amounts of stress that you experience every day.
6. Diet to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes and Heart Disease
There are certain foods that you can eat to ensure that you do not develop these two medical conditions.
- Cut down on your consumption of sugar or avoid consuming it altogether.
- Eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, and foods containing a lot of fiber, such as brown rice, wheat, corn, sorghum, millet, Guinea corn, and dried peas and beans.
- Broil your meat and your fish instead of frying them with vegetable oil. This will help to lower the amount of cholesterol you consume.
- Roast your meats instead of frying them. Roasting helps you to get rid of some of the fat, and consequently, some of the cholesterol, in the meat.
- Consume your poultry meats without the skin—the skin contains a lot of fat.
- Choose to eat lean meat such as rabbit meat.
- Avoid drinking alcohol.
- Avoid smoking, or stop smoking if you are already in the habit.
- Avoid eating butter.
7. Pray
If you are a patient with diabetes and heart disease, and if you have tried all that medical science and man can do but you still find yourself suffering because of these two conditions, look up, for there is help beyond the skies for you—there is a God in heaven who is able to do the things that men cannot do.
Have faith in God and intone prayers reverently every day such as, “Dear Heavenly Father, Jehovah-rafai, our Healer. I thank You for the gift of life. I thank You for giving me this fearful, wonderful body. Father, I am suffering because of diabetes and heart disease. Please touch me and heal me, just as You healed so many of incurable diseases in the days of Jesus, and just as You are healing people of diseases every day, in current times. Nothing is too hard for You and I know You can do it easily. Please heal me for Your glory. Amen.”
God will honor your faith and touch you so that you can experience relieve.
Conclusion
Diabetes and heart disease are two prevalent diseases that are also linked to each other. However, when we live healthy lifestyles, when we are circumspect about what we eat, and when we exercise regularly, we can prevent these two diseases from afflicting us.
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