Many women see comfort in a cup of chamomile tea, thanks to its slightly sedating effect and its ability to ease anxiety, menstrual cramps, and skin problems. Your bloodstream finds it comforting, too. Because there's something in chamomile that not only helps keep blood sugar stable (at least in the lab) but also guards against the tsunami of damage that high blood sugar can do.

Too-high levels of blood sugar can act like scouring powder on your arteries, weakening junctions between cells, allowing nicks between cells that encourage an ugly pileup of inflammation and plaque. Everything that's happening in there eventually makes itself known in the form of a heart attack, stroke, memory loss, impotence, wrinkled skin, and more. But chamomile can change all that.

If you don't like tea (and even if you do), there's plenty more you can do, with next to no effort, to keep blood sugar steady and its damage at bay (in addition to eating well and exercising):

Fill up on broccoli. It's rich in a compound called sulforaphane, reputed to cut blood sugar damage to arteries.

Spice things up with cinnamon. This favorite spice may turn on insulin receptors and help your body use glucose better (no pileups of sugar in your blood). Cloves and allspice also may help prevent diabetes damage.

Say yes to spinach. People who fill up on this green have lower rates of diabetes, possibly because of its magnesium content.