Everybody surely knows diabetes as a sugar-related illness. Even the small kids are familiar with this health condition. So young as they are, they already know the basic rules if one is diabetic—no excess sugar! But is it enough to avoid sweets to fight diabetes?
This article will help you understand the condition further. Here, you will learn the essential facts about diabetes, its early signs, and what you should do when you find yourself suffering from the sickness.
This is a prevalent disease in the whole world. Health experts consider it as a chronic or long-lasting medical condition affecting the manner a person’s body is food into energy. Relatively, most of your food intake turn into sugar (glucose) and get released your bloodstream.
This means that when the blood sugar shoots up, it becomes an indication that it’s time for the pancreas’ insulin release. Insulin, on the other hand, functions as the key to allow the blood sugar into the body’s cells for utilization as energy.
Unfortunately, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is no treatment yet for this common illness. However, weight loss, healthy diet, and being consistently active help manage and control the illness from getting worse. Regular intake of medicine and maintaining appointment with the doctor are other ways to lessen the diabetes impacts in your life.
Facts You Need to Know About this Illness
You’re probably eager to learn the early signs of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, as well as its indications. But it is important to know first, some essential facts about the disease.
- In a 2018 Quick Facts by CDC, it says that over 30 million individuals in the United States have diabetes. Additionally, 1 in every 4 of these people does not know they already have the illness.
- Over 84 million American adults or more than a third, are prediabetics, and 90% of them do not even know they have it.
- This ailment is 7th in ranking when it comes to the leading cause of fatality in the U.S.
- Type 2 Diabetes accounts for approximately 90-95% of all those diagnosed as diabetics. Type 1 diabetes, on the other hand, accounts for roughly 5%
- During the last two decades, the number of adults who have undergone diabetes diagnosis has more than tripled since the population in the U.S. has already aged and turned more obese or overweight.
Signs and Symptoms to Watch and Monitor
Diabetes, specifically Type 2 diabetes, can progress minus the early or warning signs. As earlier mentioned, a lot of people who have Type 2 Diabetes are not aware that they have the illness. That’s why it is essential to regularly talk to the doctor about the risk for the health condition. More so, talk with the doctor can help in determining whether there is a need for a test.
You possibly have diabetes if you are seeing or feeling these signs:
- Frequent drinking due to extreme thirst
- Frequent feeling of hunger even after meal or eating
- Dryness of the mouth
- Frequently urinating and urine infection
- Unexplained loss of weight (even if you are frequently eating or feeling hungry)
- Feeling of fatigue
- Blurred vision
- Frequent and severe headaches
- Dizziness
- Itchy skin
Causes of Diabetes and Who Usually Have It
The causes of diabetes vary according to type. A patient suffering from Type 1 Diabetes may have a different reason for having the illness from that of someone with Type 2 diabetes. For Type 1 Diabetes, it is caused by the body’s immune system that destroys the cells found in the pancreas.
Pancreas, on the other hand, is the ones making the insulin. Also called autoimmune reaction, this cause lets the body attack itself. A medical study has it that there are no particular causes for this type of diabetes. However, it may involve the following triggers:
- Bacterial or viral infection
- Chemical contaminants in food
- The undetermined element that’s causing the autoimmune reaction
- Underlying hereditary disposition
For Type 2 diabetes, the causes are typically multifactorial. This means there is more than one diabetes condition involved. The probable causes of this type include:
- Obesity
- Poor diet
- Aging
- Spending an inactive lifestyle
The reasons for Gestational Diabetes or diabetes in pregnancy remain unknown. Nevertheless, certain risk factors increase the chances for this condition to develop. These include:
- Family history
- Obesity or overweight
- Suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome
- Carrying a baby whose weight is more than 9 lbs
How to Deal with the Disease
Regrettably, there is no identified cure for diabetes yet. However, there are ways to deal with the illness. They are ways to either prevent this illness from getting worse or ways to not acquire it at all.
However, alongside lifestyle measures, such as a balanced, low-sugar diet and regular exercise, people with type 2 diabetes might need to manage blood sugar in other ways. Dealing with such sickness may vary according to type. Typically, a person with Type 1 Diabetes always needs insulin.
For patients with Type 2 Diabetes, Metformin is the primary medication to take. This medicine helps in the reduction of blood sugar. It makes insulin more effective, too, and it assists in weight loss, which also helps reduce the impacts of the ailment.
If you’ve just started to see or feel the signs of diabetes and you haven’t been diagnosed for having it, you can do these two simple how-to’s:
- Exercise – This can be in the form of brisk walking, dancing, cycling, swimming, weightlifting, and simple physical activities like gardening and cleaning.
- Diet – Eat healthy every day. Always include vegetables, fruits (like apples, berries, oranges, bananas, etc.), proteins, dairy, and grains in your meal.
An individual with diabetes, in its early phases, can contradict high blood sugar levels through a regular workout, weight loss, and a balanced and low-sugar diet. And when this sickness fully progresses, or, if there occurs the complication of diabetes, it is more often than not, incurable, but certainly manageable.
