Diabetes

What Is Diabetes?

A high blood sugar condition is usually called diabetes. This happens usually when your pancreas is forming no insulin, or your body is not using the generated insulin for its energy boost. It is a health condition that is not confined to any age, and they are usually chronic, that is, it remains with you for life long. However, the same is manageable with lifestyle alterations and medications.

There are endless complications that are related with the diabetes. It can cause nerve damage, damage your heart condition or even your vision in the long run.

What Are The Types Of Diabetes?

Diabetes can be of different types, such as:

➦ Type 2 diabetes:

Usually common in adults, although kids can have it too, this one is the most common form of diabetes. Here, either your insulin formation is completely stopped, or your body is not responding to the insulin.

➦ Type 1 diabetes:

Here, your insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are destroyed by your immune system. This is also as common as 10% among all the diabetes patients, which is more common in children, although adults might also form it, too.

➦ Gestational Diabetes:

This is a condition usually seen in case of pregnancy. However, the same fades away after pregnancy, but patients who find this type of diabetes usually face type 2 diabetes later on in their lives.

➦ Type 3c diabetes:

This is a form of diabetes that is usually seen when there is some damage in pancreas. This can afterwards result in Pancreatitis, cystic fibrosis, or pancreatic cancer.

➦ Genetic Diabetes (MODY):

This is a type of diabetes that is usually transmitted genetically. Near about 5% diabetes patients face this type of diabetes.

➦ Neonatal Diabetes:

This is a type of diabetes that is found in newborn babies, which remains only for the first 6 months. However, near to 50% of the patients continue to have diabetes after 6 months.

➦ Brittle Diabetes:

This is the type of diabetes where the patient faces fluctuation between high and low blood sugar, which often results in hospitalisation of the patient.

Global Diabetes Statistics

Diabetes count in the globe is about 537 million, and that is likely to go up in the coming decades to 750 million, according to experts assessing the statistics. Alone in the US, 38 million are diabetes patients, which is near to 11% of the entire population. Among all the patients in the US, near to 90% are afflicted with type 2 diabetes.

Symptoms Of Diabetes

The symptoms to initially identify that you have diabetes are:

• Frequent urination.
• Blurred vision,
• Sudden increase in thirst and feeling dry mouth.
• Sudden weight loss or weight gain.
• Wounds are taking more time to heal.
• Frequent yeast infections (skin or vagina)

Other than the general symptoms, if you wish to identify which type of diabetes you have, then here are the details:

• Type 1 diabetes: Stomach pains, tough breathing, breath with a fruity smell and vomiting.
• Type 2 diabetes: Darkened skin, dry mouth, and blurred vision, which are too feeble at the start to be identified.

Causes Of Diabetes

Here are the major causes of forming diabetes:

• Resistance to insulin: Your body muscles, fat and your liver won’t respond to the insulin formed, as they must do. Obesity, lack of muscle exercises, some effects of medications and genetic reasons are usually identified as the reason of insulin resistance.
• Autoimmune condition: Your immune system attacks the pancreas and the insulin-producing cells out there.
• Hormonal imbalance: Irregular hormonal release from the placenta often causes diabetes in a pregnant woman.
• Damage to the pancreas: If you have damaged the pancreas, caused by some surgeries or due to some injuries, you can develop type 3c diabetes.
• Medications: Taking corticosteroids and HIV-AIDS medicine for a long duration can cause diabetes.

What Are The Complications Of Diabetes?

Diabetes can cause some serious issues in you, especially when you have been suffering from it for a long time. They usually damage the blood vessels, and your immune system also collapses due to it, forming serious ailments like:

• Arterial coronary diseases.
• Stroke or a heart attack.
• Damage to nerves.
• Damage to vision.
• Can cause damage of kidneys,
• Gum infections
• Hearing loss or even
• Sexual dysfunctions, like Erectile Dysfunction in men.

Other than these, diabetes can also cause issues for your mental health, like depression or at critical conditions, dementia like issues.

Diagnosis

Glucose check: Fasting and random glucose tests show how blood sugar is affected by your food and allow the doctor to see your baseline blood sugar level. The usual test result of 126 mg/l shows that you have diabetes in case of a fasting glucose check. And in case of a random check, 200 mg/l is said to have diabetes.

Hb1Ac tests: HbA1c is a glycated haemoglobin test to show the average sugar level for the last three months. Usually, if the average is 6.5% or more, it is said that you have diabetes.

Managing Diabetes

There are several ways to manage diabetes, such as:

1. Essential checks: Monitoring your blood sugar with different glucose meters. Check your diet and eliminate all diabetes enhancing agents from it, like potatoes, paddy, etc.

2. Diabetes medications: Diabetes medications can be orally taken, such as Metformin. Or else, there are subcutaneous injections of insulin that you can take at home. There are different insulin pens and pumps to help you do that.

3. Exercises: You need to undergo the exercises regularly to keep diabetes under control. Most of the time, a lack of exercise causes an increase in diabetes.

4. Quit addictions: Smoking and alcohol are two prime aspects that causes increase in diabetes. Hence, as diabetes has been detected in you, you need to leave these addictions.

5. Stress Management: Managing your stress is also essential for diabetes management. You must keep things under your control for better diabetes management.