What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a chronic (long-lasting) health condition that affects how your body turns food into energy. Most of the food you eat is broken down into sugar (also called glucose) and released into your bloodstream. When your blood sugar goes up, it signals your pancreas to release insulin.
If you have diabetes, your body either doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use the insulin it makes as well as it should. When there isn’t enough insulin or cells stop responding to insulin, too much blood sugar stays in your bloodstream. Over time, that can cause serious health problems, such as heart disease, vision loss, and kidney disease.
There isn’t a cure yet for diabetes, but losing weight, eating healthy food, and being active can really help. Taking medicine as needed, getting diabetes self-management education and support, and keeping health care appointments can also reduce the impact of diabetes on your life.
Types of Diabetes: There are three main types of diabetes: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes (diabetes while pregnant).
What Causes Diabetes
The exact cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown. What is known is that your immune system — which normally fights harmful bacteria or viruses — attacks and destroys your insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. This leaves you with little or no insulin. Instead of being transported into your cells, sugar builds up in your bloodstream.
Causes of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes:
In prediabetes — which can lead to type 2 diabetes — and in type 2 diabetes, your cells become resistant to the action of insulin, and your pancreas is unable to make enough insulin to overcome this resistance. Instead of moving into your cells where it's needed for energy, sugar builds up in your bloodstream.
Exactly why this happens is uncertain, although it's believed that genetic and environmental factors play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes too. Being overweight is strongly linked to the development of type 2 diabetes, but not everyone with type 2 is overweight.
Causes of gestational diabetes:
During pregnancy, the placenta produces hormones to sustain your pregnancy. These hormones make your cells more resistant to insulin.
Normally, your pancreas responds by producing enough extra insulin to overcome this resistance. But sometimes your pancreas can't keep up. When this happens, too little glucose gets into your cells and too much stays in your blood, resulting in gestational diabetes.
How to prevent Diabetes
Lifestyle changes can help prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. Prevention is especially important if you're currently at an increased risk of type 2 diabetes because of excess weight or obesity, high cholesterol, or a family history of diabetes.
If you have been diagnosed with prediabetes — high blood sugar that doesn't reach the threshold of a diabetes diagnosis — lifestyle changes can prevent or delay the onset of disease.
Making a few changes in your lifestyle now may help you avoid the serious health complications of diabetes in the future, such as nerve, kidney and heart damage. It's never too late to start.
5 ways to help prevent Diabetes:
⦁ Lose extra weight: Losing weight reduces the risk of diabetes. People in one large study reduced their risk of developing diabetes by almost 60% after losing approximately 7% of their body weight with changes in exercise and diet.
⦁ Be more physically active: There are many benefits to regular physical activity. Exercise can help you: Lose weight, Lower your blood sugar Boost your sensitivity to insulin — which helps keep your blood sugar within a normal range.
⦁ Eat healthy plant foods: Fiber-rich foods promote weight loss and lower the risk of diabetes. Eat a variety of healthy, fiber-rich foods, which include: Fruits, such as tomatoes, peppers and fruit from trees, Non starchy vegetables, such as leafy greens, broccoli and cauliflower Legumes, such as beans, chickpeas and lentils. Whole grains, such as whole-wheat pasta and bread, whole-grain rice, whole oats, and quinoa
⦁ Eat healthy fats: Sources of good fats include: Olive, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed and canola oils, Nuts and seeds, such as almonds, peanuts, flaxseed and pumpkin seeds, Fatty fish, such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna and cod
⦁ Skip fad diets and make healthier choices: Many fad diets — such as the glycemic index, paleo or keto diets — may help you lose weight. There is little research, however, about the long-term benefits of these diets or their benefit in preventing diabetes.
*China is the country with the highest number of diabetics worldwide, with around 116 million people suffering from the disease. By the year 2045, it is predicted that India will have around 134 million people with diabetes.
Symptoms of Diabetes:
Diabetes symptoms vary depending on how much your blood sugar is elevated. Some people, especially those with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, may sometimes not experience symptoms. In type 1 diabetes, symptoms tend to come on quickly and be more severe.
Signs and symptoms of type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes are:
⦁ Increased thirst
⦁ Frequent urination
⦁ Extreme hunger
⦁ Unexplained weight loss
⦁ Presence of ketones in the urine (ketones are a byproduct of the breakdown of muscle and fat that happens when there's not enough available insulin)
⦁ Fatigue
⦁ Irritability
⦁ Blurred vision
⦁ Slow-healing sores
⦁ Frequent infections, such as gums or skin infections and vaginal infections
Type 1 diabetes can develop at any age, though it often appears during childhood or adolescence. Type 2 diabetes, the more common type, can develop at any age, though it's more common in people older than 40.
