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After being diagnosed with diabetes, you have to think
about it every day. Every meal you take, every drink you sip, you have
to think about its consequences. Have you taken your medications? Has
there been enough time that elapsed from the time you took your medicine
to the time you took your meal? Have you checked the amount of glucose
in your body?
You have to face these questions and a lot more
every single day and there is no such thing as a vacation. Because if
you do then it would all be over, with you on the losing end of the
battle.
So with so many things to think about, how can you manage?
It is going to take some work, but just do it right and you
should be okay. While there are no vacations from thinking about
diabetes, there are things you can do to make it part of your routine –
a habit. And it is a good habit to have.
Here you will learn what
steps you can take to manage your life even with diabetes, as well as
acquire a deeper insight into the disease itself, its many different
types, symptoms, how it is diagnosed, available medications, prevention,
and other useful information.
The way to live your life to the
fullest even after having been diagnosed with diabetes is found not in
wallowing in fear of impending death but in understanding the disease.
That way you will see how it works, why you need to take control, and in
the process, gain new hope in overcoming the burden of this health
problem.
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes (diabetes mellitus) is a
disorder of the human body that is characterized by high blood sugar
levels, a condition known as hyperglycemia. It is caused either by an
inadequate secretion of the glucose-regulating hormone, insulin, or an
inadequate response by the body’s cells to insulin.
What
does this mean to the diabetic?
Before we answer that question, let
us first do a primer on basic human biology, particularly on the process
of energy production.
All of us need food as a source of energy.
When we eat, our bodies will convert the food into energy, usually in
the form of glucose, the most basic form of sugar. So this means that
the more food we eat the higher our glucose levels get.
For a
person with normal health, this does not present a problem because our
bodies have their own way of protecting us from the bad effects of too
much sugar in the blood. That protection comes in the form of a hormone
called insulin which is secreted by the pancreas. The job of insulin is
to regulate the sugar levels in the blood by storing the extra glucose
for future use.
Later, when the body has used up most of its
energy insulin tapers off while other hormones kick in releasing the
stored glucose. This process helps the body maintain a constant level of
energy by allowing it to stay within the range of 80-120 milligrams of
glucose per deciliter (mg/dL).
However, in a person with
diabetes, this process is destroyed, leaving him vulnerable to either
extremely high energy levels or extremely low. The consequence, of
course, could be death, coma, plus complications of several major organs
of the body, leading to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, or
blindness. Because of this, diabetes is often characterized as a ‘silent
killer.’
In the United States alone, about 16 million
people are diabetic or are experiencing symptoms of diabetes. That means
that one out of every ten people have diabetes, which makes the disease
one of the most widespread health epidemics in our time.
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