A poor lifestyle and diet raises your blood sugar levels. There’s no getting away from that.

The trouble is, the more often your blood sugar leves go high, the more insulin you make. And the more you make, the more resistant your body becomes to it.

It’s pretty much like your young drinking days. Back then, a few beers may have you got in that happy place. But over the years, as you became resistant to the alcohol, and it takes more and more to do the job. Before you know it, you need the beers flowing freely before it does anything for you.

And it’s the same with insulin. You become insensitive to it. So you produce more and more before it starts to do its job. That’s where the problems start – too much insulin is a real problem.

That’s how diabetes develops – your blood sugar balances get so out of whack you end up being grumpy, tired, hungry and craving those sugar rush foods. Hate to use a cliche, but any fool can see it’s then a vicious cycle unless you stop the cause.

You can treat the symptoms for as you like – but unless you attack the cause it’ll always be an uphill battle.

Here are 5 little gems that give diabetes a good punch in the chops.