For diabetes control, monitoring your blood glucose level is the main tool. There are so many devices available at your local drugstore and online, that helps you keep track of it. For your blood glucose control, monitoring alone is not enough. Sufficient exercise supplemented with proper food is the way to keep one’s diabetes under check.

For a diabetic, blood sugar level after meals tends to be on the higher side.

Regular monitoring of the blood glucose level, lets you understand your body better and to see the effect of certain food groups. The FDA approved blood glucose monitoring devices not only helps the diabetic understand the effect of food and exercise, but it also indicates high and low sugar levels. The diabetic can then take necessary precaution to prevent blood glucose from fluctuating to dangerous levels.

The American Diabetes Association standard for blood glucose levels for a healthy adult is below 100mg/dL before food and less than 140mg/dL two hours after meals. Testing one’s blood sugar is a smart way to see how what you eat and what you do with your body affects your blood glucose.

Benefits of monitoring your blood glucose level :

• By learning what the test results mean, it helps you take control of your health and what to prevent.
• These test results can form a database from which the diabetic can analyze and formulate medication, diet and exercise programs.
• The test results can be used when you are having a dialogue with your doctor and help adjust medication.
• Helps identify patterns for how things like stress, food, and exercise affect the test results.
• It can also be used to set health targets and maintain them.
• Lower the risk of future diabetes complications as monitoring lets you be better equipped and prepared for diabetes management.

Diabetes is a disease that can be managed, especially in this day and age. Using the many tools available, a diabetic’s lifestyle can be optimized to the fullest.