Maintaining Healthy Blood Sugar Levels

06/04/07 A recent report linked high blood sugar levels with cancer in women. This highlighted again the problem of high blood sugar levels, even below the level found in diabetes, as they also increase people¹s chances of getting heart disease and full-blown diabetes.

But how do we go about making sure we maintain healthy blood sugar levels?

Professor Martin Wiseman, Medical and Scientific Advisor for World Cancer Research Fund, gives his top five tips:

1. The most important thing is not to become overweight. If you are overweight, then you should lose weight. This can be done through having a general healthy diet and be regularly physically active.

2. Always go for the wholegrain option. Replace white rice with brown rice, and make sure your pasta is whole wheat.

3. Cut down or completely stop having sugary snacks like sugary fizzy drinks and cakes. Temptation can be hard to resist, but cutting these out of your diet is a great step towards maintaining healthy sugar levels.

4. Make sure you get as many vegetables into your diet as you can. It¹s particularly easy to get your vegetable quota by chopping vegetables up and putting them into sauces.

5. Be as physically active as possible - it doesn't have to be exercise at the gym, but even walking instead of driving, or taking the stairs instead of the lift, can really help."