A dangerous trend

In the modern world, due to the prevalence of eating disorders and rigid diets, body positivity has become dominant. So if a person is overweight but not obese, even doctors are afraid to give him or her recommendations on weight loss.

In addition, at the doctor's office, there is often not enough time to patiently explain the principles of a sensible diet, discuss lifestyle changes, and the importance of adequate sleep and exercise. The main risk factors for type 2 diabetes are a sedentary lifestyle, consumption of food high in carbohydrates, excess weight, and obesity, especially the abdominal type.

Generalized sedentary behavior and the abuse of calorie-dense foods are making excess weight a growing problem worldwide. In the United States, about one in three adults has prediabetes. Those with prediabetes have a nearly 50 percent chance of developing type 2 diabetes within the next 5 to 10 years.

Germany, Portugal, and Turkey are among the most overweight countries in the world. In Turkey, excess weight is observed in 31.2 % of the country's population. Over the past 10 years, the number of obese residents has increased by almost 9 % and the incidence of diabetes is the highest compared to the countries of the European Union.

Prevention is possible!

The good news is that avoiding type 2 diabetes, unlike other dangerous diseases, is quite realistic in most cases. The main thing is to take the necessary measures at the prediabetes stage, specifically to change your lifestyle: eat right, move more, and lose weight. With proper control, it is even possible to reverse the problem!

Prediabetes is a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.

Obesity, especially excess abdominal fat (visceral fat), is a major cause of insulin resistance. Studies have shown that belly fat produces hormones and other substances that can contribute to chronic inflammation in the body.

A normal (healthy) waist circumference is considered to be no more than 31 inches for women, and 37 inches for men. A waist circumference greater than 35 inches in women and 40 inches in men is a reliable indicator of a high risk of premature death from heart disease, carbohydrate metabolism disorders, and certain cancers.

Diagnosis and control

If diabetes is preventable, why is the number of diabetics on the rise? This is largely because people can live with prediabetes for years and be unaware. There are no obvious symptoms of the condition, and people who think they are healthy may not get a blood glucose screening test for years. As a result, the disease can be discovered 10 years after its onset, when its complications manifest themselves.

What to do

As we can see there is no magic pill, and even suturing the stomach without comprehensive work will not help. The work to fight and reduce the risks of obesity and diabetes requires changing to a healthy lifestyle, and this must be done independently. However, it is good for the person losing weight to have a support system to provide confidence, motivation, and reminders to get on the scale, walk 250 steps more compared to yesterday, and what to eat to lose weight. The Ornament app helps precisely with this.

The app makes personalized checkups for any occasion — whether the user is about to become a mother or climb Kilimanjaro, whether he or she needs to lose weight once and for all, whether there is a deficiency of hormones or minerals, or whether the person is in a state of recovery from a protracted illness or movement restriction due to a fracture.

Ornament will always remind you what tests need to be taken and when. It also analyzes data including weight, height, physical activity, and the results of the tests taken, and assesses health risks. In Ornament, it is convenient not only to store the results of the tests taken but also to observe changes in dynamics, so that it is simply impossible to miss dangerous fluctuations of the same glucose.

The Ornament app also has special modes that allow you to keep your weight under control, programs to improve sleep, and many useful articles written by doctors and online consultations with specialists of different profiles.

13 November 2023