Diabetes is the short name for Diabetes Mellitus (Latin for honey or sweet). A chronic disease associated with excessive levels of sugar in the blood. This disease occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin or does not use it properly.
If left untreated, diabetes can severely damage organs in the body. People with diabetes are considered at risk for developing high blood pressure.
Type I Diabetes
Once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar (glucose) into energy.
Although type 1 diabetes can develop at any age, it typically appears during childhood or adolescence.
Various factors may contribute to type 1 diabetes, including genetics and exposure to certain viruses. Despite active research,type I diabetes has no cure. But advances in blood sugar monitoring and insulin delivery have simplified the daily routine of managing type 1 diabetes. With proper treatment, people who have type 1 diabetes can expect to live long, healthy lives.
Read more here.
Type II Diabetes
It used to be known as adult-onset or non insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition that affects the way your body metabolizes sugar (glucose), your body's main source of fuel. Type II diabetes is often preventable, but the condition is on the rise — fueled largely by the current obesity epidemic.
When you have type II diabetes, your body is resistant to the effects of insulin — a hormone that regulates the absorption of sugar into your cells — or your body produces some, but not enough, insulin to maintain a normal glucose level. Left uncontrolled, the consequences of type II diabetes can be life-threatening.
There's no cure for type II diabetes, but there's plenty you can do to manage — or prevent — the condition. Start by eating healthy foods, including physical activity in your daily routine and maintaining a healthy weight. If diet and exercise aren't enough, you may need diabetes medications or insulin therapy to manage your blood sugar.
Read more here.
General symptoms
Before your doctor actually diagnoses you with diabetes, you may notice that you already have some of the major signs and symptoms. If you (or a loved one) experience the following symptoms, please take time to ask your doctor about the possibility that you have diabetes:
Frequent urination: You experience frequent urination because your kidneys can?t return all the glucose to your bloodstream when your blood glucose level is greater than about 10 mmol/l. The large amount of glucose in your urine makes the urine so concentrated that water is drawn out of the blood and into the urine
to reduce the concentration of glucose in the urine. This fills up the bladder repeatedly.
Increased thirst: Your thirst increases because you lose so much water in your frequent urination that your
body begins to dehydrate.
Weight loss: You lose weight as your body loses glucose in the urine and your body breaks down muscle and fat looking for energy.
Increased hunger: You notice that you're increasingly hungry. Your body has plenty of extra glucose in the blood, but your hunger is a result of your cells becoming malnourished because you lack insulin required to allow the glucose to enter your cells. Your body is being told that it's hungry even though energy (glucose) is available - which, however you can't consume because of lack of insulin.
Weakness: You feel weak because your muscle cells and other tissues don't get the energy that they require from glucose.
Treatment
Diabetes of both types have been treatable since insulin became medically available in 1921, but there is no widely available cure for any form of diabetes. Type I diabetes can only be treated with injected insulin, with dietary and other lifestyle adjustments commonly being part of the treatment. Type II is usually managed with a combination of dietary treatment, tablets and, frequently, insulin supplementation.
Diabetes and its treatments can cause many complications. Acute complications (hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis, or nonketotic hyperosmolar coma) may occur if the disease is not adequately controlled. Serious long-term complications (i.e., chronic side effects) include cardiovascular disease (doubled risk), chronic renal failure, retinal damage (which can lead to blindness), nerve damage (of several kinds), and micr-ovascular damage, which may cause impotence and poor wound healing. Poor healing of wounds, particularly of the feet, can lead to gangrene, and possibly to amputation.
Adequate treatment of diabetes, as well as increased emphasis on blood pressure control and lifestyle factors (such as not smoking and maintaining a healthy body weight), may improve the risk profile of most of the chronic complications. In the developed world, diabetes is the most significant cause of adult blindness in the non-elderly and the leading cause of non-traumatic amputation in adults, and diabetic nephropathy is the main illness requiring renal dialysis in many developed countries, with the United States leading the statistics.
Management
Medical experts agree that a proper dietary plan, incorporating low glycemic food or foods with low glycemic loads will go a long way to improving the quality of life of those afflicted by diabetes mellitus. In recognition of this, the Philippine Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) promotes food planning and knowing the glycemic index value of foods to avoid the rise of sugar in the blood stream. (A PDF version of the FNRI article may be downloaded here. If you're using Windows and don't have a PDF viewer, I recommend SumatraPDF. It's free and open source.)
In 2007, the FNRI and, independently, the Institute of Chemistry of the University of the Philippines determined the Glycemic Index (GI) value of coconut palm sugar samples to be thirty-five (35.) Glycemic Index values below fifty-five (55) are considered low GI foods and are recommended for a healthy food plan for those suffering from diabetes and obesity.
