Diabetes

Diabetes is a disease that causes the blood sugar level to be much higher than normal.

A hormone called insulin controls the amount of sugar in your blood. This hormone is produced by a gland called the pancreas behind the stomach.

When food is digested and enters your blood, this insulin takes sugar (glucose) from the blood into cells and breaks it down to produce energy. But if you have diabetes, your body cannot break down sugar and glucose to produce energy in this way.

Causes and types of diabetes

Diabetes is mainly divided into two main categories based on two factors:

Type 1 diabetes

Your body does not have enough insulin to move the glucose into the cells. In type 1 diabetes, this happens because the body's own immune system attacks and destroys your insulin-producing cells.

Type 2 diabetes

The insulin your body makes isn't working properly. This occurs in type 2 diabetes, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or when enough insulin is produced, the body's cells are not sensitive to that insulin.

The number of patients with type 2 diabetes is much higher than type 1 diabetes. Diabetes usually refers to type 2 diabetes.

Apart from these two types, there are other types of diabetes. Gestational diabetes is particularly notable among these. Many pregnant women develop diabetes when their blood sugar levels rise so much during pregnancy that the body does not produce enough insulin to control it. You can read our Gestational Diabetes articles to know more about this.

Why is it important to keep diabetes under control?

Many people suffer from type 2 diabetes without knowing it. Often, diabetes is diagnosed when a blood or urine test is done for a different disease or problem.

If someone has diabetes, it needs to be detected quickly, because if diabetes is not detected in time, i.e. not treated, it will make the body sicker day by day. Not only that, diabetes increases your risk of other health complications. Many times silently, without any symptoms, diseases take root in the body that you do not understand. That's why we recommend regular checkups for diabetics.

Read our Diabetes Health Complications and What You Can Do  article to know more about the health complications.

Pre-Diabetes

Many people have blood sugar levels that are slightly higher than normal, but not so high that they are called diabetics. This condition is called pre-diabetes.

If your blood sugar levels are higher than normal, your risk of developing diabetes in the future is greatly increased. So take measures now to keep blood sugar levels within normal range.

Generally, you can prevent pre-diabetes from developing into diabetes by maintaining a healthy diet and exercise habits . Some may require medication, in which case consult a doctor.

Symptoms of diabetes

If the main symptoms of diabetes appear, the doctor should be contacted as soon as possible. These include:

• Excessive thirst
• Urinating more often than usual, especially at night
• Feeling overly tired
• Weight loss and dehydration
• Itching around the genitals, or recurrent thrush
• Cuts or other wounds take a long time to heal
• Blurred vision

Special information

Symptoms of type 1 diabetes can appear weeks or even days apart and can be severe. Type 2 diabetes, on the other hand, does not have very specific early symptoms, or they are not a cause for concern at first. As a result, many people spend years with this disease without realizing it. 

Changing your lifestyle will not reduce your risk of type 1 diabetes. However, you can keep type 2 diabetes under control by eating a healthy, balanced diet and maintaining a healthy weight through regular exercise.

Living with Diabetes

If you are diagnosed with diabetes, you need to control your blood sugar. For this, you need to eat healthy food , exercise regularly and get regular blood tests to check whether your sugar levels are normal. Learn more about diabetes checkup.

If you follow these rules, you can keep diabetes under control for the rest of your life without the help of drugs. If you have type 1 diabetes, you have to take regular insulin injections for life along with these.

Because type 2 diabetes cannot be controlled with diet and exercise, it may require medication to treat it . Treatment is usually started with tablets, followed by insulin injections if necessary.