Diet for COPD & Diabetes
Different diseases affect your body in different ways. You may have to alter your diet depending on your illness. This is true of diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). Diabetes is an endocrine disorder that affects your body's insulin and glucose levels, and what you eat has a direct impact on those levels. Unlike diabetes, COPD is a lung disease, and what you eat has no direct effect on COPD. However, if you have COPD you need to maintain good nutrition to best manage your disease.
-
Diabetes
-
The key to healthy eating when you have diabetes is to keep your blood glucose levels within a moderate range. This requires balancing your intake of carbohydrates with your exercise and activity levels and, if prescribed by your doctor, your dosage of insulin. Eat too many carbohydrates and your glucose shoots up too high. Eat too little, and your glucose sinks too low.
There are three kinds of carbohydrates in food: sugar, starches and fiber. You probably know that snacks, breads, pasta and potatoes are carbohydrate foods. So are fruits and vegetables. Also, milk contains sugar, so there are significant carbohydrates in dairy products too.
Not all carbohydrates affect you the same way. Obviously, fruits and vegetables provide more nutritional value than a candy bar even if they have an equal number of carbohydrate calories.
People with diabetes must also be aware of the speed at which different foods affect your glucose levels. A food that contains protein, fat and fiber will break down the carbohydrates into sugar at a slower rate than foods that are pure carbohydrates. This digestion speed is known as the glycemic index (GI). In general, vegetables, fruits and dairy foods have a lower GI than sweet or starchy foods. This means it's safer to eat vegetables than a piece of cake because your glucose level rises more slowly and over a longer period of time after eating the vegetables.
The American Diabetes Association advises you use the plate method to gauge how many carbohydrates you're eating. That is, the carbohydrates should take up more room than the rest of your food.
COPD
-
If you have COPD, you must maintain your body's strength and ability to cope with the effects of the disease.
You need to eat adequate amounts of protein, minerals and vitamins to keep your immune system strong. That's because COPD makes you more vulnerable to infections, especially respiratory viruses such as colds, influenza and pneumonia.
Excess weight strains anyone's heart and lung capacity, but COPD patients already have reduced lung capacity. Work with your dietitian and doctor to safely lose weight. Surprisingly, COPD patients need more calories than most people, because the lungs have to work harder to breathe, but there are safe ways to reduce weight without depriving your lungs of their required energy.
Stay away from empty calories. Cut back or eliminate all the junk foods high in sugar, refined starches, fat and salt. Limit how much sodium you eat. Sodium encourages your body to store excess water and this is another stress on your lungs.
Also stay away from foods that cause bloating and gas such as carbonated sodas, greasy fried foods, and beans. A bloated stomach can make breathing uncomfortable.
-
