KNOW YOUR DIABETES

What is Diabetes and why you should take it seriously?

Diabetes in very common words, it is a condition in the body, where blood glucose (sugar) levels rise more than the normal. According to WHO, this condition can be summarized as follows:

• It is a chronic disease that occurs when the pancreas of our body fails to produce the required insulin, or when the body, though produces the adequate insulin, but cannot use it effectively. This translates into increased concentration of glucose in the blood (known as hyperglycaemia).
• There are mainly two types of diabetes—diabetes 1 and diabetes 2.
• Type 1 diabetes is caused when production of insulin retards.
• Type 2 diabetes is caused when the body cannot use its insulin effectively. Obesity and sedentary lifestyle are one of the major contributors of this disease. This type of diabetes is more common than type 1 diabetes.

Why you should Take Diabetes Seriously?

The irony is most of the people, when diagnosed with this disease, just become complacent with the dose of drugs that they get by their doctors. They do not take it seriously. They do not deem it necessary to change their lifestyle they are in, and think that since they are taking the pills, they have got the unqualified right to continue with the food that they eat/do not eat and the routine that they follow/do not follow.

But the fact is exactly the opposite. In fact, there are a number of reasons why you should take diabetes seriously:

• Diabetes is indeed a systematic disease that causes implications in almost every body part if it is allowed to aggravate.
• Diabetics have a slow stomach-emptying process. This poses the risk of food or acid being regurgitated and causes acidity, gastritis etc.,
• With long-term poor glucose control, the lung function of type 1 diabetics gets reduced and resultantly they become susceptible to complications.
• Diabetics are more susceptible to heart diseases than the non-diabetics. Diabetes increases the risk of heart disease four-to-five-fold. Making the things worse, diabetic patients do not show its obvious symptoms, like chest pain. A diabetic is more prone to heart attacks, cardiac arrest, cardiac ischemia, arrhythmias, etc.
• Due to the excessive glucose to which the kidneys are exposed in diabetics, they are more likely to get kidney diseases.
• Diabetics are more likely to get infection and ulcer in feet and toes. Which gets worse and few times, even the whole leg to be amputated to prevent the infection to spread to other parts of body.

These are the very few complications associated with the diabetes. The correct approach (Dr.G’s way) to handle Diabetes will be posted in the next blog