The purpose of dietary treatment of diabetes mellitus is mainly to reduce the burden of insulin, control body weight, correct the body's metabolic abnormality, normalize the metabolism of sugar, fat and protein, eliminate the symptoms caused by metabolic disorders, prevent and actively treat ketoacidosis, prevent complications, extend the life span, and reduce the rate of disease and death.

Dietary treatment is the most basic and effective treatment measure for any type of diabetes. The combination of medicine and food, especially light patients, dietary control and regulation, generally do not need to take medication or a small amount of medication, blood glucose, urinary glucose can return to normal, the disappearance of symptoms. For medium and heavy patients, after dietary control and regulation, the use of medication can be reduced to stabilize the condition and reduce or prevent the occurrence of complications. For children, adolescents and pregnant women breastfeeding and so on, but also take into account the growth and development and fetal growth needs; for adults should be taken into account to maintain normal social labor as well as work and life, for the treatment of middle-aged and elderly people should be to ensure that the quality of life is the main focus; for the control of glucose, should be more than the appropriate flexibility of the young and middle-aged patients. In short, the dietary treatment of diabetes mellitus is of great significance in eliminating and alleviating symptoms, controlling the development of the disease, preventing and delaying the development of complications, and promoting the recovery of diabetes mellitus. Due to the complexity of the causes of diabetes, there is no method to cure this disease at home and abroad, once sick, often lifelong disease. Therefore, patients can only control the development of the disease by long-term adherence to diet therapy. If the diet is not well controlled for a long time, it can produce many complications, such as cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, skin infection, gangrene of the lower limbs, cataracts and so on. Therefore, in the treatment of diabetes mellitus, diet therapy is very critical, regardless of the severity of the disease, with or without complications, oral hypoglycemic drugs or the use of insulin or not, diet therapy is one of the measures that must be complied with, and is the basis of all treatment methods. Light patients with diet therapy alone can also achieve ideal results. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to diet control from the very beginning of the disease, and be persistent. In addition, healthy adults who are more than 10% overweight and have a family history of diabetes should also pay attention to diet to prevent the development of diabetes.

Dietary therapy emphasizes a reasonable diet, so that the patient from the food intake of sugar does not aggravate the burden on the pancreas, to promote blood glucose in the fasting down to normal or close to normal, to promote the disappearance of urinary glucose, to correct metabolic disorders, and to prevent the emergence of a variety of comorbidities. At the same time, it is also necessary to ensure that the patient is supplied with sufficient nutrients to maintain the physiological functions of the body, improve the labor force and prolong life. If the diet is not controlled and the blood sugar is too high, it is easy to cause the occurrence and development of complications and life-threatening. However, if the diet is excessively restricted, especially the amount of staple food intake, it can cause blood glucose to drop, which reduces the utilization of sugar in the body and causes ketonuria. A reasonable diet, with other treatments, can not only bring down blood glucose, but can also lead to a significant increase in the utilization of sugar in the body. Therefore, we advocate scientific and rational diet therapy, rather than simply control the diet and take starvation therapy.