MENU

Articles by Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE

Solving The Blood Glucose Mystery

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
One of the keys to managing your blood glucose is to keep everything in balance: your food, your activity, your medicines and your stress level. When you check your blood glucose levels, you can see how all of these things are balancing out and how all of your hard work is paying off.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 20, 2016

Keeping Cool

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
As winter ends, the longer days and the appeal of sunshine motivates many people to spend more time outside and to become more active. If you have diabetes, being more active can make it easier to keep your blood glucose levels in your target range. But as with so many things in diabetes, you do need to take care to protect yourself— especially on very warm days and when it is humid. If you are traveling this summer, you also need to make plans to keep your medicines and other supplies safe.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 20, 2016

Heart Health Making Every Effort Count

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
If you want to do all you can to keep your blood pressure and cholesterol numbers in your target range, where do you start and what can you do?

There are many things you can do to help manage your blood pressure and cholesterol at the same time. Knowing what will give you the most benefit can help you decide where to put your efforts.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 20, 2016

The Skinny On Weight Loss

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
When you start to lose weight, you lose some of your stored fat. That may seem like a good thing to you, but your body doesn’t always agree. We used to think fat just sat in your body and did nothing. But we now know that is not true. The fat you store makes hormones that help control your weight and hunger.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 12, 2016

Pat Yourself On The Back

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
Along with anger, fear and frustration, guilt is a common feeling among people with diabetes. No matter how much you do to care for yourself, it seems as if there is always more you could have done. After all, if you walked for 10 minutes, maybe you could have walked for 20. If you skipped dessert at dinner, maybe you should have skipped the bread, as well.

If you feel guilty, it can add to the stress you feel living with diabetes. It can also cause you to have very negative feelings about diabetes in general. Here are some ideas to help get off the guilt trip and feel better about your efforts and yourself.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 11, 2016

Making A Change

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE

Two things affect how we change: how we think and how we feel. Our thinking side—our “head”—is careful. It guides us with facts and reason. We think things through before making a move. Our feeling side— our “heart”—is quicker to act. When our head and heart agree, it is easier to make a change. For example, if you’re in love it is easy to choose to get married, even though this is a very big change. But when your head and heart send you different messages, it is harder to make changes —even when you really want to make them.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 10, 2016

Is Your TV Killing You?

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
The next time you are watching your favorite police drama on TV, ask yourself who is the victim? According to a recent study, it may be you. The link with television viewing and health is getting a lot of attention lately, in part because of the growing problem of obesity and type 2 diabetes among adults and children in the United States. A recent report combining many of the best and newest studies on this topic, showed a very strong link between the amount of time spent watching TV and type 2 diabetes, heart disease and death.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 7, 2016

Heart Disease and Diabetes

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in both men and women, and people with diabetes are at a higher risk for heart disease than those without diabetes. Even though women and men with diabetes have the same risk of getting heart disease, women and men are different when it comes to heart disease and diabetes in some of the following ways...

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 7, 2016

Expecting To Be Expecting?

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
For most women, the idea of starting a family is both exciting and scary. It is exciting to think how you can create a new life and perhaps have a dream come true. It can also be a time of worry as you think about how your life will change. Women who have diabetes may also worry about how diabetes can affect their pregnancy and their future child. The good news is that more and more women with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are having safe pregnancies and healthy babies than ever before. As you might expect, it takes more planning and more work, but the results are worth it.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 7, 2016

Diet Soda and Diabetes

By Martha Funnell, MS, RN, CDE
You may have heard about recent studies showing that people who drink diet soda have a higher risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes than those who do not drink diet drinks. But in fact, researchers have not been able to say that the diet drinks are to blame. Most of those studies are observational, meaning they simply report what they observe. Observational studies are not designed to determine cause and effect. That requires a different kind of study.

Download this article.

[ Read more ]

November 7, 2016

1 2 3
OmnichannelHealth Media, publisher of DiabetesDigest.com, does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information.