Dr. David L. Katz: Food is the fuel for the most remarkable machine we know, the human body. It just stands to reason then that diet is one of the corner stones of health and vitality one of the pillars of disease prevention and of course for preventing chronic disease such as diabetes it's the overall dietary pattern that matters most but there are specific properties of foods and particular foods that can help protect you and your family from the threat of diabetes. One of the standouts in this area is fiber.
Now there are two kinds of fiber in our diets, soluble and insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber is found in foods such as wheat and helps speed transit through our intestinal tract that too is good for health but soluble fiber is specifically beneficial in reducing the risk of diabetes. Soluble fiber can help lower cholesterol levels, it also stabilizes blood sugar levels and lowers the release of blood insulin and number of foods are particularly rich sources of soluble fiber and they should be a part of your diet and part of your strategy to reduce diabetes risk.
Apples for instance are rich in pectin, that's a soluble fiber. So, its really true and apple a day may help keep the diabetes doctor away. Berries are particularly good sources of soluble fiber. They are also very rich in antioxidants; a variety brightly colored berries is a terrific addition to any diet. Blue berries, rasp berries as well as the black berries and strawberries shown here. Some grains are a rich source of insoluble fiber, wheat would top that list but oats here are a great source of soluble fiber so oatmeal as breakfast at a cold winter morning is a great part of the defense against diabetes and here we have lentils.
Lentils and beans are a great source of protein and make a good substitute for meat on occasion but in addition in unlike meat they are rich source of soluble fiber, so making these a part of your diet on a regular basis can help reduce your risk of diabetes. For more tips about diabetes prevention and a wide variety of other health topics please visit my blog at prevention.com/vitalfinds. I am Dr. David Katz.
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