Title: Dessert not dirty word now
 Categories: Diabetic, Info/help
      Yield: 1 Info/help
 
      1    Info/help
 
      Sweet desserts for diabetics?  It's not joke.
  
      The latest guidelines say that people with diabetes do not have to
  avoid simple sugars.  They can be integrated into individualized meal
  plans.
  
      However, sucrose and sugary foods need to be exchanged with other
  foods and simply added to a meal plan, say Ann Gallagher, a
  registered dietitian and a member of the board of directors of the
  American Diabetes Association.
  
      In diabetes, a disease that affects 14 million Americans, the
  body does not produce or properly respond to insulin, a necessary
  hormone. If not controlled by diet and/or insulin injections, this
  results in high blood sugar, which can lead to blindness, kidney
  disease, heart disease and amputations.
  
      Diabetes is the fourth-leading cause of death in the United
  States.
  
      For most of the century, it was widely believed that the dietary
  treatment of diabetes required a person to replace simple sugars with
  complex starches such as potatoes or cereals, Gallagher says.  Many
  people still think that eating too much sugar causes diabetes, she
  says. But the most common form of diabetes call adult-onset  -- most
  ofter results from being overweight.
  
      There is little scientific evidence that sugars - such as sucrose,
  fructose, corn sweeteners, fruit juices, honey, molasses, destrose and
  maltose - aggravate high blood sugar any more than starches do.  It's
  the total amount of carbohydrates that affects blood sugar after a
  meal, Gallagher says.
  
      Individuals with a diabetic condition now can use monitoring and
  can customize their meal plans, often in consultation with a
  registered dietian, to include a balance of foods in line with the
  USDA.
  
      Those who are obese or who have high cholesterol, high blood
  pressure or other conditions must take other precautions to control
  those conditions, Gallagher says.
  
      The new diabetic guidelines replace 1986 recommendations, which
  advised that 12 percent to 20 percent of calories should come from
  protein, less that 30 percent from fat and only up to 60 percent from
  carbohydrates. The new guideline recommend that 10 percent to 20
  percent of calories come from protein but establish no fat and
  carbohydrate percentages.
  
      People with normal levels of cholesterol and triglycerides and who
  maintain normal weight can follow mainstrem guidelines of not more
  that 30 percent of calories from fat (10 percent or less from
  saturated fat)