Limiting the amount of saturated fat and trans fat you eat and engaging in an increased amount of physical activity can help to lower your blood cholesterol levels.

Your cardiovascular risk factors should be assessed by your physician at least once a year.

High LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, and uncontrolled blood glucose levels all place you at risk for heart disease. Carrying extra weight around your waist also raises your risk of heart disease, and smoking doubles your risk of developing heart disease.

If your new job will mean a big change in your daily schedule or activity level, speak to your doctor before you begin to discuss how and when any changes in your diabetes self-management regimen should be made. If possible, adopt your new schedule before you actually start your new job so you can see what effect, if any, it has on your blood glucose levels.

Working with a registered dietitian can be helpful in fine-tuning your carbohydrate-counting skills. Carefully reading nutrition labels on food products and measuring portions will also help you to meet your carbohydrate goals.

Yes — during periods of stress, the body releases so-called stress hormones, which cause a rise in blood glucose level. If stress becomes chronic, high blood glucose can also become chronic.

Meals that are high in fat may contribute to prolonged elevations in blood glucose after eating.

The best way to identify high blood glucose, or hyperglycemia, is to routinely monitor your blood glucose levels on a schedule determined by you and your healthcare team and to get regular HbA1c tests, also on a schedule agreed on by you and your healthcare team (usually two to four times a year).

For people with diabetes and celiac disease, starting a gluten-free diet requires learning the carbohydrate content of new, gluten-free foods, so they can be introduced into a meal plan or so that insulin doses can be adjusted accordingly.

In people with diabetes, malabsorption of nutrients from undiagnosed celiac disease can lead to frequent, unexplained low or high blood glucose readings.

If your physician suspects celiac disease, you should continue to eat gluten-containing foods until after the biopsy. If the biopsy confirms that you have the condition, the treatment is a lifelong, 100% gluten-free diet.

Celiac disease is an inherited disease that occurs at a higher rate in people with type 1 diabetes. All first-degree family members — parents, siblings, and children — of people with celiac disease should be screened for the condition.

If you are aiming for tight diabetes control with insulin or another medicine that creates the risk of hypoglycemia, accept that an occasional low will occur and have a plan for when it does. This is usually better for your long-term health than keeping blood glucose higher than recommended to avoid hypoglycemia.

A variety factors can influence your blood glucose levels, including food, medicines, exercise, stress, infection, and normal hormonal variation in the body. A single high blood glucose level is of little concern, but a pattern of high blood glucose needs to be addressed.