Living with Diabetes is hard.

You have to be very careful of your diet, and all of a sudden Kidney, Eye, and Foot health become a cause for concern.

You've probably heard about the advantages of regular exercise if you have diabetes and want to enhance your health. This is certainly helpful, but, did you know there are other ways to help manage your diabetes?

Chiropractic care is one of them.

Chiropractic care is a healthy, drug-free way to help improve your health. Chiropractors focus on the body's ability to heal rather than simply treating symptoms.

Chiropractic care can help you manage your diabetes. Our Sacramento Chiropractic Office treats patients with type 2 diabetes pretty frequently.

This article will discuss how chiropractic care can benefit people with diabetes. If you or a loved one is living with diabetes, we wrote this article for you.

We sincerely hope you find this article helpful.

Ultimate Guide on how Chiropractic Care Helps Diabetics (Based On Real Patients)

What Exactly is Diabetes?

The ability of your body to process and utilize glucose, or blood sugar, is affected by a set of metabolic diseases known as diabetes. Because it fuels your muscle and tissue cells and supports brain function, glucose is essential for preserving good health.

There are two main types of diabetes:

1.    Type 1 Diabetes

Patients with type 1 diabetes have little to no insulin production and require daily insulin therapy indefinitely. Over 1.25 million adults and kids in the United States have type 1 diabetes.

2.    Type 2 Diabetes

Patients with type 2 diabetes are those whose bodies have developed an immunity to the effects of insulin or cannot produce enough insulin to keep blood glucose levels within normal ranges. Nearly 30 million Americans have this kind of diabetes, making it the most prevalent type.

Prediabetes & Gestational Diabetes

Over 86 million Americans suffer from these two types of diabetes, and both are treatable.

Prediabetes

Prediabetes is a condition where your blood sugar levels are not able to get high enough for a proper diabetes diagnosis. Most patients who have type 2 diabetes start out at prediabetic.

In this state, early treatment can resolve high glucose levels and prevent type 2 from developing over time.

Gestational diabetes

Gestational diabetes affects 18 percent of all pregnant women based on their inability to produce a healthy amount of insulin.

Chiropractic And Diabetes: How Are They Related?

Chiropractic care may be able to relieve any back or neck pain you are experiencing as a result of your diabetes. Chiropractors are experts in relieving pain caused by different conditions and diseases.

They use a variety of techniques to provide pain relief for their patients. Some techniques include decompression therapy or adjusting certain body parts, such as your spine or neck.

This helps increase blood flow throughout your body and gives it more energy so that it doesn't have any problems dealing with other conditions that may arise due to diabetes.

Chiropractic care can also help your internal systems communicate with other critical areas of your body by improving nervous system function. One important organ that is helped by improvement in the nervous system is your pancreas, which is responsible for producing appropriate levels of insulin.

Chiropractic Adjustments Benefits for Diabetics

Chiropractic adjustments can help with pain management. When you have a chronic condition like diabetes, you'll likely experience some ongoing pain. Chiropractic adjustments can help relieve that pain and reduce stress levels, and help with other important areas that can help you manage diabetes.

1.    Improve the Nervous System

Chiropractic care is a great way to improve the nervous system. Chiropractors work on several parts of the body and have found that working on the spine directly affects other systems in the body because it dramatically affects how well the body’s systems can communicate using the nervous system.

A healthier nervous system can be nurtured through spinal adjustments (known as "chiropractic adjustments"), traction or stretching exercises, and manual manipulation of joints or muscles.

As we stated above, improving the nervous system can have a massive net positive effect on the pancreas, which is responsible for producing appropriate levels of insulin.

2.    Potential Pain Relief

There are many joint issues that can be diagnosed and treated by chiropractors. This implies that even if you don't have a clear-cut case of back or neck discomfort, you might still be able to benefit from chiropractic treatment.

Often having diabetes can cause mild numbness or even pain which can make activities of daily living difficult.

Chiropractic care can help reduce numbness and tingling and may even reduce pain as soon as the first visit.

3.    Improved Blood Sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure control

Nerves in the upper neck and middle back affect pancreatic function. By aligning the spine, these nerves can better influence how the enzymes needed to digest nutrients, and insulin are produced. Keeping the spine aligned can ensure that the body is able to send signals (nervous energy) to and from the pancreas effectively which can help insulin levels.

Another benefit of chiropractic therapy is that it helps improve blood pressure levels, leading to better blood flow throughout the body. This improves health overall and reduces the risk of developing complications down the road (such as kidney failure).

In addition to this benefit, chiropractic treatments may also help reduce LDL cholesterol levels while increasing HDL cholesterol levels in your body. You'll be at less risk for heart disease or stroke!

Most people have no idea chiropractic care can affect circulation and nutrients this much!

For those interested, the studies proving this are listed in the references below.

4.    Better Control over Diabetes Symptoms

The result of benefit 3 (above) is that chiropractic care can help you control your diabetes symptoms. Chiropractic care will not cure diabetes, but it will help your body become more efficient at using insulin and processing sugar. This can also reduce fatigue, which lets you live a more active lifestyle.

5.    Improved Digestion

Chiropractic adjustments help improve digestion and bowel movements. This is because the nervous system controls these functions, and chiropractic care can help care for the nervous system.

When you have a healthy digestive system, you can absorb nutrients better into your body, which leads to a healthy appetite. This is good for diabetics as well because it can indirectly help manage blood sugar.

6.    Improves Blood Circulation

When you have poor blood circulation, the body's cells do not receive enough oxygen to function properly. This can cause many problems, from minor discomfort to serious issues such as heart disease and stroke.

Chiropractic adjustments help improve the flow of oxygenated blood throughout your body by gently pushing on your spinal column to realign vertebrae that may be out of place. By realigning the vertebrae, chiropractors allow the nervous system to work optimally and that directly affects your circulatory system.

There are also studies that show chiropractic adjustments increase lung capacity. This can help improve the flow of oxygenated blood throughout your body as well.

7.    Improved Posture and General Wellbeing

Chiropractic therapy offers benefits beyond reducing some of the pressure from diabetes. Several other parts of your life that are connected to your health can also benefit from chiropractic care.

Chiropractic adjustments can help you with improving your posture and increasing the range of motion in your limbs and throughout your body. Chiropractic increases your general feeling of ease because your body will simply be in alignment. This can remove many constraints that keep you from enjoying activities of daily living.

8.    Reduces Inflammation and Promotes Detoxification

Toxins in the body can lead to inflammation, which is a very important thing for people with diabetes to remember. Chiropractic is an effective way to reduce this inflammation and help your body release these toxins naturally.

Exercises and stretches, such as yoga or tai chi, also lower inflammation and help detox. However, chiropractic care can also be an extraordinarily helpful tool in detoxing, reducing inflammation, and increasing mobility.

Chiropractors are trained on how to manipulate spinal vertebrae so as to not irritate them, which means that if you suffer from chronic back pain due to poor posture or misalignment of vertebrae or joint inflammation, chiropractic care could be exactly what you need. By gently realigning the spine, your nervous system will be able to better support your liver and lymph nodes which may indirectly promote detoxing and reduce inflammation.

9.    Decreases the Stress Hormone Cortisol

Your body releases cortisol, a stress hormone, in response to stressful situations. The neurological system of your body signals the adrenal glands, two tiny glands that are positioned on top of each kidney, to release cortisol when you are under stress.

Once released, this hormone travels through your bloodstream and helps mobilize glucose (blood sugar). This is why it is released when you are feeling stressed or even physically exerting yourself by running or lifting weights--it helps you cope with the situation at hand so that your body can perform optimally under pressure.

By reducing stress on the body, our care may indirectly help reduce blood sugar.

Our chiropractors work with patients' existing conditions while educating them on ways to improve their overall health through simple lifestyle changes to make living with chronic illnesses significantly easier.

We celebrate stories from our patients about the little things they can do now that they were not able to do before thanks to their health improvements.

Can Diabetics Eat Bananas?

Yes! Bananas are perfectly safe to eat even with diabetes, as long as they are part of a healthy, balanced diet.

Okay, we added this specifically for our patients.

We get this question so often and if you love this fruit and think you can’t have it:

You can, and below we will go over why.

What Are the Benefits of Bananas for Diabetic Patients?

B6, C, and potassium are all vitamins that are abundant in bananas. Bananas are low in calories, which is great for people with diabetes who need to watch their weight. They also have lots of fiber, which helps slow down sugar absorption into your bloodstream after you eat them.

Bananas have a lot of benefits for diabetic patients. Here are some of the benefits:

●       Bananas are beneficial for those who have high blood pressure or hypertension because they are low in sodium and high in potassium.

●       Bananas also contain tryptophan, an essential amino acid that helps to produce serotonin and melatonin in your body. Serotonin helps to improve mood, while melatonin helps to promote sleep. Bananas also contain B vitamins and vitamin C, which are good for combating stress and anxiety.

●       Bananas are low-calorie, making them perfect for those who want to lose or maintain a healthy weight. One small banana contains only 105 calories; however, it also contains 4 grams of fiber and almost no fat!

●       Bananas can help you fight off infections by boosting your immune system thanks to their high levels of vitamin C content, which helps stimulate white blood cell production and activity. They can kill off harmful bacteria that enter your body through cuts or wounds on your skin's surface area.

The Bottom Line

Bananas are okay to eat.

Also, there are tons of benefits of chiropractic for people with diabetes. People with diabetes are in a very vulnerable position. If their blood sugar is not under control, they can experience serious consequences.

With the help of chiropractic, these individuals can live healthier lives and fight off some of the negative effects that unmanaged diabetes has on the body.

In short, chiropractic care may benefit people with diabetes who suffer from headaches, lower back pain, dizziness, blurred vision, or other symptoms. Chiropractic has demonstrated its value in helping diabetic conditions consistently in scientific studies and for us at Barham Chiropractic.

If you or a loved one are dealing with diabetes, we would love to meet you.

Give us a call at (916) 542-6273, we look forward to celebrating your health improvements.

References

Chiropractic, B. of L. (2019, May 31). The connection between chiropractic care, insulin control, and diabetes. Beacon of Life Chiropractic. Retrieved November 24, 2022, from https://www.gobeaconhealth.com/connection-chiropractic-care-insulin-control-diabetes/

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