Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder in the endocrine system. This dreadful disease is found in all parts of the world and its becoming a serious threat to health. It is a chronic degenerative diseases such vital organs and tissues have begun to be destroyed.It is a group of diseases that result in too much sugar in the blood (high blood glucose).
COMMON TYPESTYPE 1 DIABETES This is a a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin.TYPE 2 DIABETESThis is a chronic condition that affects the way the body processes blood sugar (glucose).PREDIABETES This is a condition in which blood sugar is high, but not high enough to be type 2 diabetes.GESTATIONAL DIABETES It is a form of high blood sugar affecting pregnant women.
Diabetes Mellitus has a significant impact on the health, quality of life and life expectancy of patients as well as on the health care system.All types of diabetes mellitus have something in common. Normally, your body breaks down the sugars and carbohydrates you eat into a special sugar called Glucose. Glucose fuels the cells in your body. But the cells need Insulin, a hormone, in your bloodstream in order to take in the glucose and use it for energy.
With Diabetes Mellitus, either your body doesn’t make enough insulin, it can’t use the insulin it does produce, or a combination of both.Since the cells can’t take in the glucose, it builds up in your blood. High levels of blood glucose can damage the tiny blood vessels in your kidneys, heart, eyes, or nervous system.
That’s why Diabetes — especially if left untreated — can eventually cause Heart Disease, Stroke, Kidney Disease, Blindness, and nerve damage to nerves in the feet.
(A) TYPE 1 DIABETESType 1 Diabetes is also called insulin-dependent diabetes. It used to be called juvenile-onset diabetes, because it often begins in childhood.Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune condition. It’s caused by the body attacking its own pancreas with antibodies. In people with type 1 diabetes, the damaged pancreas doesn’t make insulin.This type of diabetes may be caused by a genetic predisposition.
It could also be the result of faulty beta cells in the pancreas that normally produce insulin.A number of medical risks are associated with type 1 Diabetes. Many of them stem from damage to the tiny blood vessels in your eyes (called diabetic retinopathy), nerves (diabetic neuropathy), and kidneys (diabetic nephropathy). Even more serious is the increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
Treatment for type 1 diabetes involves taking insulin, which needs to be injected through the skin into the fatty tissue below. The methods of injecting insulin include:•Syringes, •Insulin pens that use pre-filled cartridges and a fine needle, • Jet injectors that use high pressure air to send a spray of insulin through the skin, • Insulin pumps that dispense insulin through flexible tubing to a catheter under the skin of the abdomen.
(B) TYPE 2 DIABETESIt used to be called adult-onset diabetes, but with the epidemic of obese and overweight kids, more teenagers are now developing type 2 Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes was also called non-insulin-dependent diabetes.Type 2 Diabetes is often a milder form of diabetes than type 1. Nevertheless, type 2 Diabetes can still cause major health complications, particularly in the smallest blood vessels in the body that nourish the kidneys, nerves, and eyes.
Type 2 Diabetes also increases your risk of heart disease and stroke.With Type 2 Diabetes, the pancreas usually produces some insulin. But either the amount produced is not enough for the body’s needs, or the body’s cells are resistant to it. Insulin resistance, or lack of sensitivity to insulin, happens primarily in fat, liver, and muscle cells.People who are obese — more than 20% over their ideal body weight for their height — are at particularly high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and its related medical problems. Obese people have insulin resistance.
With insulin resistance, the pancreas has to work overly hard to produce more insulin. But even then, there is not enough insulin to keep sugars normal.There is no cure for diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes can, however, be controlled with weight management, nutrition, and exercise. Unfortunately, type 2 diabetes tends to progress, and diabetes medications are often needed.
GESTATIONAL DIABETES
Diabetes that’s triggered by pregnancy is called gestational diabetes (pregnancy, to some degree, leads to insulin resistance). It is often diagnosed in middle or late pregnancy. Because high blood sugar levels in a mother are circulated through the placenta to the baby, gestational diabetes must be controlled to protect the baby’s growth and development.Gestational diabetes usually resolves itself after pregnancy.
Having gestational diabetes does, however, put mothers at risk for developing type 2 diabetes later in life. Up to 10% of women with gestational diabetes develop type 2 diabetes. It can occur anywhere from a few weeks after delivery to months or years later.With gestational diabetes, risks to the unborn baby are even greater than risks to the mother. Risks to the baby include abnormal weight gain before birth, breathing problems at birth, and higher obesity and diabetes risk later in life.
Risks to the mother include needing a cesarean section due to an overly large baby, as well as damage to heart, kidney, nerves, and eye.Treatment during pregnancy includes working closely with your health care team and:•Careful meal planning to ensure adequate pregnancy nutrients without excess fat and calories, •Daily exercise, •Controlling pregnancy weight gain, •Taking diabetes insulin to control blood sugar levels if needed.
AETIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION
Consumption of refined carbohydrate is one of the major causes of diabetes by causing the pancreas to secrete excess insulin body to become insensitive to insulin and overworking the pancreas and eventually weakening it ,other factors play play their part.Stress and adrenal exhaustion are factors in many cases.
The pancreas secrets insulin to remove the glucose from the blood. If sugar levels falls too low as in hypoglycemia, the adrenal gland secrets hormones that triggers the conversion of stored sugar in the liver and muscles in form of glycogen back to sugar for use.
These glands, the pancreas ,liver and adrenals are all under stress with either hypo or hyperglycemia.Stress is interpreted in the body as an emergency situation and the adrenal glands response by secreting adrenalin to derive energy to deal with supposed threat. If this is too often repeated or too prolonged assign chronic nervous tension, the pancreas, adrenal glands and liver become severely depleted and fail to respond and hypoglycemia or diabetes may result..
Vitamin deficiencies such as B complex and Vitamin C may be the result of the situation since adrenal glands need large amount of these nutrients to function. Refined carbohydrates, stress, coffee, nicotine alcohol and recreational drugs all cause the adrenal glands to work in excess and this will lead over stimulation and its consequences.
It can be said that civilization and modernity of life is the largest factor in causation of pancreatic and adrenal malfunction leading to diabetes.Spinal lesion in the mid thoracic region are a common findings in diabetes. They cause imbalance of function between liver. pancreas, spleen ,adrenal glands and other organs causing congestion and sluggish function or hyperactivity.
SYMPTOMS
The symptoms of diabetes may be pronounced, subdued, or even absent. depending on how much your blood sugar is elevated. Some people, especially those with prediabetes or Type 2 Diabetes, may not experience symptoms initially. In Type 1 Diabetes, symptoms tend to come on quickly and be more severe.In Type 1 Diabetes, the classic symptoms are excessive secretion of urine (polyuria), thirst (polydipsia), weight loss and tiredness.
These symptoms may be less marked in Type 2 Diabetes. In this form, it can also happen that no early symptoms appear and the disease is only diagnosed several years after its onset, when complications such as excess hunger, muscle wasting, weight loss, weakness, electrolyte loss, dry skin, itching rashes, paresthesia, numbness, tingling of hands and feet, neuropathy with severe pains, vascular degeneration, frequent infections, such as gums or skin infections and vaginal infections, atherosclerosis, retinopathy, loss of sight, gangrene in dependent limbs due to poor circulation leading to amputation, ketosis, acidosis coma and premature death are already present.
Although Type 1 Diabetes can develop at any age, it typically 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.DIAGNOSISYour doctor may use the following tests to diagnose diabetes:• Random Blood Sugar Test. A blood sample will be taken at a random time. Regardless of when you last ate, a random blood sugar level of 200 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) — 11.1 millimoles per liter (mmol/L) — or higher suggests diabetes.• Fasting Blood Sugar Test.
A blood sample will be taken after an overnight fast. A fasting blood sugar level less than 100 mg/dL (5.6 mmol/L) is normal. A fasting blood sugar level from 100 to 125 mg/dL (5.6 to 6.9 mmol/L) is considered prediabetes. If it’s 126 mg/dL (7 mmol/L) or higher on two separate tests, you have diabetes.• Oral Glucose Tolerance Test. For this test, you fast overnight, and the fasting blood sugar level is measured.
Then you drink a sugary liquid, and blood sugar levels are tested periodically for the next two hours. A blood sugar level less than 140 mg/dL (7.8 mmol/L) is normal. A reading of more than 200 mg/dL (11.1 mmol/L) after two hours indicates diabetes. A reading between 140 and 199 mg/dL (7.8 mmol/L and 11.0 mmol/L) indicates prediabetes.If type 1 diabetes is suspected, your urine will be tested to look for the presence of a byproduct produced when muscle and fat tissue are used for energy when the body doesn’t have enough insulin to use the available glucose (ketones).
Your doctor will also likely run a test to see if you have the destructive immune system cells associated with Type 1 Diabetes called autoantibodies.
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