Diabetes
Diabetes
Key facts
- The number of people with diabetes rose from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014.
- The global prevalence of diabetes* among adults over 18 years of age rose from 4.7% in 1980 to 8.5% in 2014.
- According to latest estimates 11.8% of Indian population is diabetic.
- Diabetes prevalence has been rising more rapidly in low- and middle-income people than in high-income people.
- Diabetes is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.
Overview
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. Hyperglycemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.
Type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes (formerly called non-insulin-dependent, or adult-onset) results from the body’s ineffective use of insulin. The majority of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes. This type of diabetes is largely the result of disruption of insulin receptors. Trans-fatty acids and cooked saturated animal fats, which contain trans-fatty acids, tend to block and disorganize the cell membranes in a way that disrupts the insulin receptors in the cells. For this we should remove animal fats and trans fats off our plate.
Far more common, type 2 diabetes occurs when either (1) the pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin or (2) the cells in the body are resistant to the actions of insulin (insulin resistance). It often occurs in adults who are overweight or obese, hence the designation “diabesity.”
Diabetes is a serious condition whose characteristic is higher than normal blood sugar levels in the body. Diabetes occurs when your body cannot make or effectively use its own insulin, a hormone made by special cells in the pancreas called islets (eye-lets). Insulin serves as a “key” to open your cells, to allow the sugar (glucose) from the food you eat to enter. Then, your body uses that glucose for energy. Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are the most common forms of the disease, but there are also other kinds, such as gestational diabetes, which occurs during pregnancy, Type 3 diabetes which is also known as Alzheimer’s disease, etc.
Alert! Now comes the MYTH BUSTER !!
Excess blood sugar is not the ‘CAUSE’ of type 2 diabetes, instead it is the excess fat (more specifically in medical terminology, triglycerides) that causes diabetes. These lines are not only written in highly peered reviewed journal, but also in medical textbooks that a doctor study to become a doctor !!
Most of the people do not know this fact. Even their doctors do not tell them this. Patients think that as the increased blood sugar in the problem, just reducing blood sugar will cure their problem and they end up taking medicines.
Actually, the reality is, today’s medical science is focused on treating the symptom rather them the cause.
Type 1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes (previously known as insulin-dependent, juvenile or childhood-onset) is characterized by deficient insulin production and requires daily administration of insulin. Cow’s milk seems to be strongly linked to the onset of Type-1. Those with Type-1 diabetes were more likely to have been breastfed for less than three months and exposed to cow’s milk before four months. Research has also shown that children who consumed pasteurized cow’s milk before the age of three months were 11 times more likely to develop Type-1 diabetes.
Symptoms include excessive excretion of urine (polyuria), thirst (polydipsia), constant hunger, weight loss, vision changes, and fatigue. These symptoms may occur suddenly.
Impaired glucose tolerance and impaired fasting glycaemia
Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and impaired fasting glycaemia (IFG) are intermediate conditions in the transition between normality and diabetes. People with IGT or IFG are at high risk of progressing to type 2 diabetes, although this is not inevitable.
Health Impact
Over time, diabetes can damage the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys, and nerves.
Adults with diabetes have a two- to three-fold increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Combined with reduced blood flow, neuropathy (nerve damage) in the feet increases the chance of foot ulcers, infection and eventual need for limb amputation.
Diabetic retinopathy is an important cause of blindness, and occurs as a result of long-term accumulated damage to the small blood vessels in the retina. Diabetes is the cause of 2.6% of global blindness.
Diabetes is among the leading causes of kidney failure.
Prevention
Simple lifestyle measures have been shown to be effective in preventing or delaying the onset of type 2 diabetes. To help prevent type 2 diabetes and its complications, people should:
achieve and maintain a healthy body weight;
be physically active – doing at least 30 minutes of regular, moderate-intensity activity on most days.
eat a healthy diet, avoiding white sugar, dairy, eggs, meat, white flour, trans-fats and animal fats; and
Avoid tobacco use – smoking increases the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Eat more raw fruits and salad & reduce dependency on cooked food.
Diagnosis and treatment
Early diagnosis can be accomplished through relatively inexpensive testing of blood sugar. Testing hba1c is more reliable than testing fasting and pp blood sugar.
Treatment of diabetes involves diet and physical activity along with lowering of blood glucose and the levels of other known risk factors that damage blood vessels.
Interventions that are both cost-saving and feasible in low- and middle-income countries include:
Blood glucose control, particularly in type 1 diabetes. People with type 1 diabetes require insulin, people with type 2 diabetes can be treated with appropriate dietary interventions. oral medication can be reduced with proper monitoring.
blood pressure control; and
foot care (patient self-care by maintaining foot hygiene; wearing appropriate footwear).
Other cost saving interventions include:
Screening and treatment for retinopathy (which causes blindness);
blood lipid control (to regulate cholesterol levels);
Screening for early signs of diabetes-related kidney disease and treatment.
Staying inside homes as diabetics have less immunity and infection of Covid 19 can be fatal to them.