Are diabetes and high cholesterol dangerous?

If you have diabetes and high cholesterol, it can be harder to manage both disorders. However, the good news is that both these diseases can be treated before drugs in the same manner: using a good diet tailored to your needs and partaking in regular cardiovascular exercise. For a diabetic, cholesterol problems are almost certain to arise, especially if you are not carefully following your diabetic diet.

Before addressing diabetes and high cholesterol through your diet, you must first understand that there are three types of cholesterol: low-density lipids (LDL), high-density lipids (HDL) and triglycerides. The two types that cause problems when their levels are too high are LDLs and triglycerides. Most of these fats come from saturated fats (like red meat fat, butter, lard, regular margarine, or Crisco); a good rule of thumb is to remember if the fat is hard at room temperature, it is almost always loaded with LDLs. HDL, on the other hand, is good for you, removing plaques and deposits from the insides of your arteries and improving your health. These can be found in certain vegetable oils, most notably olive oil and canola oil. No animal fat contains HDL, only vegetable fats.

Diabetes and high cholesterol together are more damaging than either one overall. For reasons we don't understand, the LDLs in a diabetic tend to be more dense than in a non-diabetic, and the same cholesterol level will be significantly more damaging in a diabetic than a non-diabetic patient. This makes treating high cholesterol critical when you also have diabetes.

In both diabetes and high cholesterol, a balanced low-fat diet with most fats coming from HDL sources is ideal. In diabetes, there are a few more requirements such as carefully spaced meals and minimal sugars, but you can easily treat one with diet at the same time you're treating the other. Your cholesterol diabetes diet should be high in proteins and low in saturated fats, with most of your fats coming from the natural content of foods and not fat added by frying. In a diabetes-high cholesterol diet breakfast is by far your most important meal.

Your cholesterol-diabetes diet should not include high carbohydrates early in the morning, though most people treating cholesterol often go this way. Instead, diabetics should get one serving of protein, like egg whites (egg yolks contain too much cholesterol), a handful of tree nuts, or legumes of some sort. With this, eat a) a slice of whole-wheat toast or a cup of granola or oatmeal, and b) a glass of non-fat milk. Fruit, especially fruit juice, should be avoided until a little later in the day because it can shoot your blood sugar up. Because you have diabetes and high cholesterol, your toast should be either unbuttered or buttered with Smart Choice or a similar high-sterol margarine.

Look up the new FDA food pyramid, and follow this carefully for the rest of your daily meals. Because you have both diabetes and high cholesterol, you should follow two more rules of thumb: eat six small meals throughout your day instead of three large ones to balance your blood sugar better, and make sure as many of your starches and grains are whole-grain and high-fiber as possible to help eliminate HDLs from your body.

Having both high cholesterol and diabetes is challenging. But with great care and attention, you can probably manage both diseases without drugs, and you'll feel better overall as an added bonus.