How changing your eating habits can prevent diabetes and obesity

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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of cases of diabetes in developing countries is likely to increase more than two-folds in the next 30 years. To date, the estimated number of diabetics in the Philippines is about 4 million and only 1 out of 4 are aware of it. Out of the 1 million who know they have the disease, only 200,000 are undergoing treatment.

Furthermore, the WHO report on diabetes says that whether you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, what, when and how much you eat all affect your blood glucose level. Blood glucose is the main sugar found in the blood and the body’s main source of energy. For a diabetic (or a person with impaired glucose tolerance), the blood glucose level can shoot up if too much food is consumed at a time. When blood glucose levels remain high for a period of time, a person can develop heart, eye, foot and kidney diseases. Too low blood glucose levels also create problems because a person can develop hypoglycemia. Keeping one’s blood glucose at a healthy level will prevent or slow down diabetes and consequent complications.

Pie Bonoan-Cabigas, Better Than Ice Cream general manager, said the best way to curb the rising diabetes incidence in the country is through lifestyle change, “addressing one’s health condition should start in changing his/her lifestyle, especially one’s eating habit. We are what we eat!”

“Pinoys have very well adapted the fast-pace lifestyle and everybody wants to get things done in a snap of a finger. With the rise of to-go restos and other food chains, most of us don’t care much about the nutrition we are getting from the food we eat. This unhealthy practice could cause bad health conditions, like obesity and diabetes,” Cabigas added.

Banking on the health benefits of BTIC products and the company’s continuous research and development efforts to give its consumers the very nutritious products that can boost one’s health and even help prevent illnesses, BTIC encourages frozen dessert lovers to make BTIC frozen yogurt a part of their healthy diet and lifestyle. BTIC Frozen Yogurt products are low in fat, cholesterol and calories but high in calcium, carbohydrates and protein. BTIC’s No-Sugar-Added products are sucrose-free.

A study documented in The International Journal of Obesity reveals that yogurt may help turn up the body’s fat-burning ability thus making it easier to lose fat while maintaining lean muscle. The mix of nutrients found in dairy foods such as Yogurt, especially calcium, may be responsible for helping the body break down and burn fat. Eating yogurt will provide the calcium we need without saturated fat and cholesterol.

Besides helping lose weight, BTIC’s frozen yogurt helps the digestive system because it contains active friendly bacteria cultures—Streptococcus thermophilous and Lactobacillus bulgaricus, which change most of the lactose in the milk into simpler sugars easily absorbed by the body. Other benefits obtained from eating yogurt products are: it strengthens the immune system; it prevents diarrhea and promotes healing specially after intestinal infections; it guards against ulcers; and decreases yeast infections.

“Before, we thought that diabetes and obesity were hereditary, but nowadays, anyone can develop it, especially those who love to eat sweets and foods rich in sugar. Changing our eating habits may take a while but in the meantime there is no need to deprive one’s cravings for desserts because BTIC offers products that are healthy with most of it having no sugar added,” Cabigas noted.