Diabetes

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes Mellitus is a term that has emerged from the Greek language. In the ancient days, this disease was characterized by the sweetness of the urine. When the afflected person urinated at some place, the place would be swarmed by ants. When the wise men of those times studied this phenomenon, they came upon the term diabetes; today it is known as a disease of the body where by the blood is sweet. Diabetes mellitus literally means "to flow, honey" in the Greek language.The main causes of diabetes are insufficient production of insulin and obesity.

This is a disease that affects the body’s ability to produce insulin. Insulin is a natural compound that is produced by the B-cells that are located in the pancreas. Basically it is the pancreas that produces the insulin. The insulin so produced by the pancreas is used to reduce the sugars of the body to convert it into energy. When this is not possible, the sugars start building up and overflow into the urinary system. This leads to the urine becoming sweet and this is known as the diabetes. But all the sugar is not drained off into the urine, the blood also contains sugar. Too much level of sugars / glucose in the blood can lead to a condition called hyperglycemia.

When the glucose level in the blood increases, complications start taking place. The complications are of the two types. The first one being, direct, as energy cannot be produced by the sugars, the body is starved of energy and this leads to weakness and dizziness. The second problem is an inter-related problem. Here as and when the sugar level in the blood increases, other systems of the body start to malfunction. It mainly affects the kidneys, and then comes the nerves of the eyes leading to blurred vision. The toughest condition is when the heart is affected. Plaque starts building up along the walls of the arteries and lining layer and this could lead to stroke or other heart related problems at any time.

Diabetes does not belong to the class of diseases where it is considered as infectious. You cannot catch it like the AIDS or the flu. And surely it cannot be transmitted through the blood, but however diabetic patients are not advised to donate blood. Diabetes is a life long disease and once you have come up with it, you got to live with it.

Some of the symptoms of diabetes are dizziness and blurred vision. In addition to these, men may suffer from an erection problem. So when men are suffering from such a problem, like un-explained erectile dysfunction, it is advised to get a blood sugar test done to ascertain whether the person is suffering from diabetes. The advised blood sugar test is to be done on fasting.

What is High Blood Sugar?
When the sugar level is between 65 and 140 for every deciliter of blood checked, it is considered that the person is normal.
A person suffering from diabetes normally has a blood sugar level of 250 to 350 for every deciliter of blood.
A person with blood sugar level of 350 and above is considered that the person is having extremely high blood sugar levels.

What happens when blood sugar falls too low?
Most of us would have heard the terms called reverse engineering; this is a classic case of reverse engineering. When the body detects that the blood sugar level is too low in the body, the body begins a process whereby the blood sugar level starts to increase automatically. At this stage, the pancreas releases another hormone called the glucagons. With the help of this hormone, the stored glycogen of the muscles and the liver is converted back into glucose.

As and when all the stored glycogen is used up, the liver, small intestines and the kidneys start breaking down the proteins into glucose.

Symptoms of Diabetes
. One can suffer form any one symptom or he / she can have a combination of two or more symptoms.
Listed below are some symptoms for diabetes:
They are excessive urination, excessive thirst, infections like rashes / thrushes, sudden loss of weight, extreme hunger, extreme fatigue, feeling of nausea, irritability, vomiting, sweet smelling breath, and blurred vision.

Types of Diabetes
Based on the afflictions, diabetes has been classified into four types:

• Diabetes that is Non-insulin dependant
• Diabetes that is insulin dependant
• Gestational diabetes
• Secondary diabetes

Non-insulin dependant diabetes takes place for people who are above thirty years of age. This is affecting the people because of their living life styles and food habits. Here it is required to go in for proper dieting, and follow up a strict exercise regime to control this kind of diabetics. People afflicted with this kind of diabetics do not respond to insulin treatments. So in all probability, they have to control diet and do some moderate exercises

Insulin dependant diabetes is found in people who either had it in their family line or they are suffering from some other problem Here they have no other alternative other than keeping a check on their blood glucose levels and taking regular insulin shots.

Gestational diabetes takes place in pregnant mothers. This is in most cases a temporary problem. But whatever it is, blood glucose levels need to be checked regularly and one should take the insulin shots as prescribed.

Secondary diabetes is the condition whereby, the patient suffers from high blood sugar condition as a result of some other medical condition. The other medical condition may cause the pancreas to disintegrate or the pancreas may be damaged to a condition whereby the pancreas will stop producing insulin.
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