What is diabetes
Diabetes is one of the chronic diseases that affect humans, and diabetes arises because of the inability of the pancreas to produce enough insulin to the body, or because of the inability of the body to regulate insulin and use, but what is insulin? Insulin is the hormone produced by the pancreas, which regulates the amount of sugar in the blood, when the incidence of diabetes, the pancreas unable to secret insulin, which regulates sugar, and thus increase the amount of sugar in the blood, and this leads to damage to many members of the body and functions such as nerves and blood vessels and others .
Symptoms of diabetes
The symptoms of diabetes vary from person to person depending on the type of diabetes the person is suffering from. There are three types of diabetes that will be discussed in this topic: the first type, the second type and the saccharine, and the symptoms are often not clear. The tests that confirm this, and can be summarized symptoms that affect the diabetic in: the feeling of constant thirst, urination at close times and large, low weight for unspecified reasons, the feeling of hunger, confusion of vision or vision disorders, slow healing usually, and feeling tired .
Types of diabetes
There are several types of diabetes:
- Type 1 Diabetes: It is sometimes referred to as childhood diabetes because it can affect young people. It is associated with a lack of insulin production. This type of patient requires insulin to be taken daily, and so far, doctors and researchers have not been able to determine the cause of this type of diabetes. , Or ways to prevent it, and accompanied by this type of symptoms include: feeling thirsty and excessive urination, weight loss, and vision disorders, a feeling of fatigue and hunger, and may suddenly manifest symptoms of this type of diabetes.
- Diabetes type II: This type of diabetes is caused by the inability of the body to the effective use of insulin produced by the body, and this type is not linked to the lack of insulin production as in the first type, and this type of diabetes in 90% of people with diabetes around Especially in age and due to lack of physical activity or excessive weight gain. Symptoms of this type are similar to the symptoms of the first type of thirst, disturbances in vision, urination, feeling tired and hungry, but they do not appear clearly as in the first type, so the patient may not know that he suffers from diabetes only when the disease worsens and the emergence of complications.
- Gestational diabetes: This type of diabetes linked to pregnancy and similar symptoms with type I also is the second type can not be detected by the patient easily, and usually is detected during the routine tests conducted before birth, and the cause of infection is that the placenta during pregnancy By releasing hormones to support pregnancy. These hormones make the cells stronger and more resistant to insulin. In the other two thirds of pregnancy, the placenta increases in size and thus secrete a larger quantity of these hormones that resist insulin and respond to the pancreas in normal cases by producing larger amounts of Insulin, but the pancreas may reach a stage where it can not keep up with this resistance. Insulin accumulates in the blood and cells are resistant. All pregnant women are at risk of developing gestational diabetes, but it is more likely to occur in women over the age of 25 and overweight women and those with genetic susceptibility . It is worth mentioning that the majority of women who develop gestational diabetes give birth to healthy children, but if the level of sugar in the blood of the pregnant and unchecked or treated, it can cause health problems for the mother and the fetus, such as growth in the child and jaundice and lack of blood sugar in the child may increase Of the risk of developing type 2 diabetes at age, and in some serious cases this leads to the death of the fetus.
Complications
Neglecting the treatment of diabetes can cause serious health complications, including complications of the heart, kidneys, blood vessels, eyes and nerves:
- Diabetes causes heart and blood vessel damage and can lead to strokes and cardiovascular diseases that kill half of all people with diabetes around the world.
- Diabetes causes nerve damage in many disorders, which have symptoms of tingling or pain in the limbs.
- Diabetes causes kidney failure, which kills up to 20% of people with diabetes.
- Diabetes can cause major retinal disorders that can lead to blindness in 2% of cases. It affects small blood vessels in the eyes, which damage the retina and cause vision problems.
protection
The following tips can be used to prevent diabetes or to delay the onset of:
- Maintain a healthy weight and strive to lose weight by exercising daily, or at least walking for 30 minutes a day, eating a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables at a rate of five servings a day, and reducing sugars and saturated fats in the diet.
- Avoid smoking and other habits that negatively affect blood vessels.
Diagnosis and treatment
Diabetes can be diagnosed by simple low-cost procedures such as fasting blood sugar tests or random blood sugar tests. If the level of sugar in the blood is high, the doctor will usually recommend other tests to determine the type of diabetes, Whether the first or the second, and therefore determine the appropriate treatment in this case, and can be recommended for the patient to examine the hemoglobin in the blood to identify, and gestational diabetes is usually diagnosed during routine tests during pregnancy, and usually conducted diabetes testing in the fourteenth week From the For nearly or after, the treatment contains work to reduce the blood sugar level and treatment includes the following:
- Improve the level of insulin in the blood of people with type I diabetes by taking doses of insulin, the first type as we mentioned is due to lack of insulin in the blood.
- Monitor the level of blood pressure because diabetes may affect blood pressure in humans as a result of their association with blood vessels.
- To monitor kidney health, diabetes affects the kidneys as above.
So make sure you are free from diabetes by performing simple tests that can confirm this, and if you have diabetes, you should visit your doctor to prescribe the necessary treatment and you must adhere to the treatment of medication regularly because the negligence of diabetes can lead to serious complications as We mentioned earlier, and it is also important that you change your lifestyle. This is the basis of healing from all diseases, .