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(NaturalNews) According to the World Book Encyclopedia, the average adult human body contains approximately 96,500 kilometers (60,000 miles) of blood vessels. This means that if you were to attach all of your blood vessels together end to end, they could wrap around the Earth almost two and a half times.

Some of your blood vessels are about as thick as a magic marker, while others are as thin as a strand of hair. All of your blood vessels are essential to your health because they provide the transportation network that allows your blood to carry nutrients and oxygen to each of your cells. Your network of blood vessels also allows your blood to remove waste products from all of your cells.

Diabetes mellitus type 2 (referred to as diabetes throughout the rest of this article) has the potential to be a devastating disease because it slowly clogs up your network of blood vessels, destroying the transportation system that your blood relies entirely upon to nourish and cleanse your cells. Imagine injecting sugar-rich honey or jam into your blood vessels and you have a good idea of why a high blood sugar level is dangerous to your health.

Left unchecked, diabetes can result in complete blockages to your circulatory system, paving the way to every health challenge that we know of, the most common ones being heart disease, neurological disease, vision loss, and sexual dysfunction.

How You Can Develop Diabetes

Whenever you eat sugar or foods that break down into sugar, your blood sugar level rises. Your body senses this rise and makes your pancreas release a hormone called insulin into your blood. Insulin circulates throughout your network of blood vessels along with sugar, and acts as key, opening channels that line your cells, which allows sugar to exit your bloodstream and enter your cells. The net effects of optimal insulin release and function are:

1. Lowering of your blood sugar level.

2. Making sugar available for energy production or storage by your cells.

You can develop diabetes if you regularly eat more sugar and refined carbohydrates than your body can properly use. With repeated intake of sugar and refined carbohydrates, your body is forced to produce and release insulin so frequently that one or both of the following conditions may arise:

1. Your pancreas may not be able to produce enough insulin to effectively deal with your sugar and refined carbohydrate intake.

2. Your cells may become resistant to the effects of insulin.

One or both of these conditions will eventually lead to a high blood sugar level which, over the long term, will dramatically increase your risk of developing blockages in your network of blood vessels.

How to Reduce Your Risk of Developing Diabetes

What follows are the most important steps that you can begin taking today to dramatically reduce your risk of developing diabetes.

1. Regularly engage in some form of exercise that builds and/or maintains your muscle mass. Muscle tissue has significant capacity to store excess blood sugar in the form of glycogen. Simply put, the more muscle you have, the more capacity you have to "soak up" excess blood sugar and maintain a healthy blood sugar level. This is one of the biggest benefits to doing some resistance training on a regular basis.

2. Be active! The more you move your body throughout the day, the more sugar your cells need to burn up to produce energy.

3. Reduce or eliminate your intake of the following most common, sugar-rich foods in today's grocery stores:

* Pop (soda)

* Doughnuts

* Pastries

* Conventional store-bought cookies, cakes, and muffins

* Conventional chocolate/candy bars

* Many boxed breakfast cereals

4. Eat magnesium-rich foods on a regular basis. Studies conducted by researchers from Harvard University and published in the January 2004 issue of the journal Diabetes Care indicate that consistent intake of magnesium-rich foods can significantly lower your risk of developing diabetes.

Healthy magnesium-rich foods include:

* Brown rice

* Raw almonds

* Spinach

* Swiss chard

* Lima beans

* Avocado

* Raw peanuts

* Raw hazelnuts

* Okra

* Black-eyed peas

5. Consider consuming prickly pear cactus, called nopal, in Mexico. Nopal is a natural plant that is grown throughout Mexico and the southwestern United States and has been shown through several studies to be effective at promoting optimal blood sugar levels.

If you follow the measures described above, you can confidently expect to reduce your risk of developing diabetes and improve your overall health.

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