Dr. James R. Gavin discusses a few ways to manage diabetes:
BDO: What are some different ways that people living with diabetes can manage the illness?
Dr. Gavin: So the question is often asked “what is more important when it comes to managing this disease, is it changing the lifestyle or is it that genetic component?
I think it’s important to emphasize the fact that in a disease like diabetes, a chronic metabolic disease, there are certain things that you can’t do anything about but there are other things that you can control and you alone can control.
You cannot change your biological genes; our genes have not changed as humans for 40,000 years. What you can change even if you have the genes that make you susceptible to diabetes, you can change what happens in your environment and you can change your reaction to the environment. So that means your focus ought to be on lifestyle.
You can control how much you eat when you eat, and what the composition of your diet will be. You can control and only you can control how much physical activity you do on a day-in-day-out basis. So the answer is a simple one, control what you can control that is known to have a huge impact on the outcome of this disease.