Type 2 diabetes means a person’s pancreas cannot produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. Overtime, fluctuating blood sugar levels can cause a host of health complications as it impacts different parts of the body. One major warning sign is dizziness. Have you experienced this?
As Diabetes.co.uk explains, because diabetes is such a diverse disease with many complications, it can cause dizziness in many ways by affecting different parts of the body.
Dizziness is an episode of unsteadiness and unbalance as a result of something affecting the brain or ears.
As the health site explained, high blood sugar levels is a common cause: “High blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia) can cause polyuria, which in turn can lead to dehydration by passing too much fluid out of the body in an attempt to remove excess glucose.
“With low levels of water in the body, the brain may struggle to function correctly and cause light headedness.”
A dizzy spell can also be the result of low blood sugar levels: “Having a low amount of sugar in the blood (hypoglycemia) can lead to dizziness by causing the brain cells to malfunction,” the health site explained.
People should contact their GP if they are experiencing persistent bouts of dizziness, noted the health body.
As a GP will be looking for patterns, it is also important to keep a record of dizzy spells prior to the appointment, it advised.
According to the NHS, other symptoms of type 2 diabetes include:
- Peeing more than usual, particularly at night
- Feeling thirsty all the time
- Feeling very tired
- Losing weight without trying to
- Itching around your penis or vagina, or repeatedly getting thrush
- Cuts or wounds taking longer to heal
- Blurred vision
To keep symptoms at bay, people should eat a healthy diet to help them manage their blood sugar levels. Increasing evidence suggests a sticking to a low-carb diet helps people with type 2 diabetes to regulate their blood sugar levels.
This is the findings of a recent study conducted at Bispebjerg Hospital in collaboration with, among other partners, Aarhus University and the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports at the University of Copenhagen.
The research suggested that a reduced carbohydrate content and an increased share of protein and fat improves the patient’s ability to regulate his or her blood sugar levels compared with the conventional dietary recommendations.
Significantly, the study found that a low-carb diet helps patients with type 2 diabetes to control blood sugar levels independent of weight loss.
“The purpose of our study was to investigate the effects of the diet without ‘interference’ from a weight loss. For that reason, the patients were asked to maintain their weight. Our study confirms the assumption that a diet with a reduced carbohydrate content can improve patients’ ability to regulate their blood sugar levels – without the patients concurrently losing weight,” explained Senior Consultant, DMSc Thure Krarup, MD, from the Department of Endocrinology at Bispebjerg Hospital.
He added: “Our findings are important, because we’ve removed weight loss from the equation. Previous studies have provided contradictory conclusions, and weight loss has complicated interpretations in a number of these studies.”
To conduct the research, 28 patients with type 2 diabetes participated in the study over a total period of 12 weeks. For six weeks, the patients were given a conventional diabetes diet with a high carbohydrate content, and, for the other six weeks, they were given a diet with a reduced carbohydrate content, high protein content and moderately increased fat content.
The patients were given the diet types in random order.
A certain Japanese vegetable has been proven to lower blood sugar levels too.
