Diabetics are definitely at high risk for developing Heart Disease. So, what can we do about it? Aside from keeping your blood sugar in the "good" range, we should also be watching our blood pressure and cholesterol. A new study has found that keeping close tabs on your Systolic blood pressure (the upper number) and your LDL cholesterol (the bad one) can provide some added help to diabetics when it comes to preventing heart disease.
Here are the #'s that are recommended:
| Systolic | LDL | |
| Non-Diabetics | 140 | 130 |
| Diabetics-old | 130 | 100 |
| Diabetics-new | 115 | 70 |
The "Diabetic-old" numbers are what doctors used to have us aim for - even lower than non-Diabetics. But this new study found that if Diabetics can achieve even lower numbers ("Diabetic-new"), we can stop the increase of plaque formation, and even reverse it!
I haven't a clue what my Systolic or LDL are, but I'm definitely going to pay more attention to them next time I'm at the doctor or getting lab work done.
CNN's coverage of this study also mentions that study participants were taking blood pressure and cholesterol medications, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to acheive such low numbers. At least I now know that there are even more ways to help prevent diabetes complications. And I'm going to do everything I can to prevent them.
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