Mary, 65 years old, was found to have diabetes two years ago. She was overweight and was told that she had to lose several kilos. Although she had been trying to do this before she developed diabetes, she had been unsuccessful. Now she felt that the extra burden of diabetes would make life impossible for her and that she could not do any more than she was already doing with her diet. Because her blood sugar levels were too high she was presented diabetic tablets.

When we looked at what Mary ate, we could see that indeed she really was trying hard and was not overeating. However, almost all of her carbohydrate foods had a high G.I. factor. For example, she was having Weet-Bix or cornflakes for breakfast morning coffee biscuits for mid-meal snacks, lots of rice with her lunch and evening meals and watermelon was a favourite fruit All these foods have a high G.I. factor. By changing to All-Bran™ or untoasted muesli for breakfast, having oatmeal biscuits or an apple, pear or orange for snacks and by adjusting the type and amount of rice the was eating, Mary was able to eat more, lose weight and improve her blood sugar levels. Eventually she stopped her diabetes tablets too.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts with diet, tablets will still be needed to obtain good blood sugar control. This is eventually the case for most people with type 2 diabetes.

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