Information on Diabetes
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a disease that affects how the body uses glucose. Glucose is the sugar that we get from food that fuels our bodies. Similar to a car needing gasoline to keep running, our bodies need glucose.
A brief summary of how things are supposed to work:
You eat food. The glucose from the food gets into your blood stream. Your pancreas, which is a gland in your belly that helps your body digest food, produces insulin. Insulin is the hormone that helps the glucose get into your body’s cells. Your body gets the energy it needs.
However, if you happen to be one of the 29 million Americans that have diabetes; either your body can’t produce insulin or the insulin doesn’t work like it should. If the glucose can’t get to the cells the way it is meant to, the blood sugar will get too high and the person will get sick if they don’t get treatment.
Symptoms of Diabetes
Always hungry
Always thirsty
Dizziness
Tingling
hands or feet
Blurry vision
Always tired
Sexual problems
High blood sugar
Unexplained
weight loss
Diabetic foot
Frequent urination
Unexplained
weight gain
You should contact your physician if you are experiencing many of these symptons.
Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is a form often referred to as Juvenile Diabetes. This occurs most commonly in children and teenagers, although it really can develop at any age.
There are more than 200,000 cases in the United States per year. It is and incurable disease but manageable by treatment.
This type of diabetes means that the person is insulin-dependent and requires insulin injections (insulin therapy).
Type 2 Diabetes
The most common type of diabetes is Type 2 Diabetes or non-insulin dependent diabetes. This form of diabetes typically occurs after the age of 35. Yet, studies show that an alarming rate of younger adults are developing type 2.
More often than not, Type 2 is linked with people who are overweight . Therefore, the treatment for this form of diabetes focuses primarily on diet and daily exercise. If after diet and exercise the blood sugar levels are still high, insulin injections and oral medications will become necessary.
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