Why Should you Join Diabetes Chat Rooms?

Can Diabetes Support Groups Online Help Me?

Caring for a diabetic person or living with diabetes usually means constant stress as well as constant decision-making. Unfortunately, in some cases, healthcare providers are not always available to answer diabetes-related questions.

For instant for diabetes-related information, and diabetes support, diabetics and caregivers sometimes turn to peer support rooms and DOCs (Diabetes Online Communities) such as diabetes chat rooms.

What are Diabetes Chat Rooms?

Diabetes chat roomsMany diabetes support communities are created by diabetics and are safe places where people affected by the disease can learn from others, provide information, and seek advice from others without judgment, stigma, or fear. People with diabetes reap numerous tangible benefits from joining a Diabetes Online Community.

Some of these benefits include greater social connectedness, lower levels of diabetes distress and anxiety, improved stress management, improved blood sugar management, and reducing the risk of diabetes-related complications.

These and other numerous benefits are part of the reason why these communities are catching on all over the globe. Not only are we seeing more people participating, but we are also seeing more communities each year.

Diabetes educators and diabetics alike have been discussing the benefits of joining DOCs for decades. Although they knew the facts, they just didn’t have the research and data to back it up. However, now researchers have started collecting more and more data on the benefits of diabetes chat rooms.

Online peer support groups were the trending topics at the 2019 ADCES (Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialist) conference, largely due to a review of 47 studies published in the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology in May 2019. More recently, a meta-analysis of 9 DOC reviews shows that being involved in a diabetes chat rooms is associated with significant improvements in behavioral, psychological, and clinical aspects of health.

Science-backed benefits of joining peer support groups

  1. Social Connectedness

Diabetes can have a negative impact on the social lives of people living with diabetes, caregivers, as well as their friends and relatives. This is particularly true for people living with type 2 diabetes particularly because they avoid sharing their diagnosis with friends, colleagues as well as family members due to the fear of stigma.

Diabetes online support roomDiabetes chat rooms help diabetics create and join support networks that understand the nuances of managing diabetes on a deeper level. Therefore, they don’t feel alone.

The May 2019 review also found that diabetics who join and are actively involved in diabetes chat rooms experience a higher quality of life as compared to the general population of diabetics. This results in part from social support, empowerment, and shared experiences resulting from social connections created in diabetes chat rooms.

  1. May Improve Glycemic and A1C Levels

According to the same 2019 review, diabetes chat rooms were also associated with stable A1C levels in adolescents. This is a positive sign, particularly because adolescents’ A1C levels tend to increase especially during this life stage.

On the other hand, the use of diabetes chat rooms in adults is associated with improved A1C levels. A1C shows the average blood glucose levels over the last 2 or 3 months. Besides being used to diagnose diabetes, A1C is also used to monitor and determine the efficacy of diabetes eating plans.

Although everyone with diabetes has different goals, generally, A1C levels of less than 7% mean better blood glucose control and a significantly lower risk of complications related to diabetes. According to a study published in the JMIR Diabetes journal in 2009, highly engaged diabetes chat room users tend to have better glycemic levels than diabetics with lower engagement.

This can be attributed to the fact that involvement in diabetes chat rooms offers accountability, which tends to motivate users to be keener about their blood glucose levels.

  1. Encourages Healthier Self-Care Activities

The Future Science OA July 2018 issue published a study that showed that diabetes chat rooms tend to encourage users to perform better self-care activities compared to non-users. These activities include eating a healthy diet, regular exercise, checking glucose levels, and taking medication and insulin.

Diabetes chat rooms also provide convenient places for people with diabetes to crowd-source answers and solutions to self-care concerns such the best systems for monitoring blood glucose levels, weight loss, and the best foods for people living with diabetes. This helps set up diabetics for long-term success

Although there are numerous benefits of joining diabetes chat rooms, it is essential to keep in mind that they don’t replace advice from medical practitioners. This is particularly because misinformation in the digital era is a real concern. However, according to a study published in the Current Diabetes Reviews, misinformation in diabetes chat rooms was uncommon (ranging between 0% and 9% of all posts).

Visit a Diabetes Chat Room HERE!

symptoms of Hypoglycemia

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Recipes for type 2 diabetes

recipes for type 2 diabetes
recipes for type 2 diabetes

There are many different types of recipes for type 2 diabetes but some of the favorites are apple pie, broccoli salad, fruit salad and many others as well. Most diabetics don’t realize that they can eat just the same as other people without the added sugar or using the sugar substitute instead.

For example a great recipe for type 2 diabetes is Apple Pie and is as follows –

1 frozen pie shell

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Peel and core, cut into thin slices 6-8 medium apples (a lot of people like their apples cut thin, but we prefer to chunk ours up or chop them up into smaller pieces, we find that holds the flavor better.)

As you are fixing the apples you can cook the frozen pie shell according to the directions on the package.

Place apples into a bowl and add 2-3 pats of butter, 1-2 tsp of cinnamon and 2-3 tablespoons of Splenda or Sweet and Low, mix well. Add mixture to the prepared and baked pie shell, sprinkle a little cinnamon on top and then put back into the oven until done, approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour.

This is a great recipe for type 2 diabetes patients or anyone that has diabetes. This Apple Pie recipe and many other diabetic recipes can be found online through the American Diabetic Association as well as through your local library. Diabetic recipes and cookbooks can be found through mail order catalogs, online, through your local library and also through the American Diabetic Association because they all know how important it is to deal and take care of diabetes.

Recipes for type 2 diabetes is a great thing to have handy when you are a diabetic or have friends and family members that are diabetic so that you too can offer them the same great tastes that you are eating.

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The Diabetes Educator Certification

Diabetes Educator CertificationThough death and disability from heart disease, cancer and stroke are on the decline the number of lives affected by diabetes has continued to rise in recent years, this has made the diabetes educator certification more important than ever.

Diabetes, if untreated or poorly managed, can lead to blindness, peripheral neuropathy, kidney failure, and heart disease just to name a few of the detrimental effects of the disease, and this makes certified diabetes educator a very valuable asset when it comes to combating the dreaded disease.

Diabetes educator requirements are that the person be a registered nurse, pharmacist, dietitian or otherwise educated healthcare professional.

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Diabetes Fundraisers are everywhere!

Diabetes FundraisersDiabetes fundraisers seem to be everywhere you turn, people wanting money to support diabetes awareness. The American diabetes association is always trying to make everyone aware of the dangers that are associated with diabetes.

There are many companies and businesses out there who try to raise money for various items associated with diabetes such as blood sugar fundraisers which will bring awareness to blood sugar numbers and how they need to be maintained in order for a diabetic to function properly and healthy without having other medical conditions arise.

Insulin fundraisers are another great fundraiser that a lot of companies are starting to get involved in because so many people do not have the funds to properly support all of the medications that are involved and needed in order to treat diabetes properly. Diabetes fundraisers are everywhere because diabetes is a serious topic and a serious medical condition that cause serious medical problems with thousands each and every year and even leading to death.

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