Diabetes: Prevention, Cure and Complications

When the human body does not produce insulin or use it properly, this disorder is called diabetes. Insulin is a hormone which converts sugar and starch into energy. Having diabetes means that the body contains higher levels of sugar (glucose).

But the human body has to maintain a balanced sugar level. The increased level of sugar assembles in the blood than in the required cells which causes diabetes. It also damages the liver and kidneys.

Prevention of Diabetes
This disorder can be prevented if one follows certain guidelines.

But the human body has to maintain a balanced sugar level. The increased level of sugar assembles in the blood than in the required cells which causes diabetes. It also damages the liver and kidneys.

Prevention of Diabetes
This disorder can be prevented if one follows certain guidelines.

The first and foremost guideline is to keep a check on the intake of food. One should include the right proportion of all the nutrients in the food. If you will eat a balanced diet you will likely stay fit and healthy.

Another important consideration is to monitor your physical activity. This means that one should regularly do physical exercises to keep fit. It reduces the risk of many diseases, including diabetes. If one cannot follow a regular exercise routine then a brisk walk of 30 minutes five times a week will be beneficial.

Keep a watch on your body weight. It should be in harmony with your age and height.

Also keep a check on you blood pressure. Once in every 3 months, get your blood pressure checked. Do not binge upon high cholesterol level food items.

It also increases the risk of cardiac arrest along with diabetes. Take alcohol and other hard drinks in a moderate amount and completely do away with tobacco.

These guidelines are not only for non-patients but are also for diabetic patients. Another pertinent point, a diabetic patient should never feel hesitant to take insulin as prescribed by the doctors.

Diabetes can affect your body parts like the liver, kidneys, foot and eyes so don’t wait for diabetic symptoms to arise. Get regular check ups of your body by doctors because a virus can still be cured in its infantry stage. But if ignored it can pose a question of life and death.

Cure for Diabetes
Type-1 diabetes: There is no practical cure, at this time, for type 1 diabetes. The fact that type-1 diabetes is due to the failure of one of the cell types of a single organ with a relatively simple function (i.e. the failure of the beta cells in the Islets of Langerhans) has led to the study of several possible schemes to cure this form of diabetes mostly by replacing the pancreas or just the beta cells.

Only those type-1 diabetics who have received either a pancreas or a kidney-pancreas transplant (often when they have developed diabetic kidney disease (ie, nephropathy) and become insulin-independent) may now be considered “cured” from their diabetes.

A simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant is a promising solution, showing similar or improved survival rates over a kidney transplant alone.

Type-2 diabetes Type-2 has had no definitive cure, although recently it has been shown that a type of gastric bypass surgery can normalize blood glucose levels in 80-100% of severely obese patients with diabetes.

The precise causal mechanisms are being intensively researched; its results are not simply attributable to weight loss, as the improvement in blood sugars precedes any change in body mass.

This approach may become a standard treatment for some people with type-2 diabetes in the relatively near future.

Complications and Prognosis
Patient education, understanding, and participation is vital since the complications of diabetes are far less common and less severe in people who have well – controlled blood sugar levels.

Wider health problems accelerate the deleterious effects of diabetes. These include smoking, elevated cholestrol levels, obesity, high BP, and lack of regular exercise.

According to one study, women with high blood pressure (hypertension) were three times more likely to develop type-2 diabetes as compared with women with optimal BP after adjusting for various factors such as age, ethnicity, smoking, alcohol intake, body mass index (BMI), exercise, family history of diabetes, etc.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that some of those with type-2 diabetes who exercise regularly, lose weight, and eat healthy diets may be able to keep some of the disease or some of the effects of the disease in ‘remission.’

However patients should talk to their doctors about this for real expectations before undertaking it (esp. to avoid hypoglycemia or other complications); few people actually seem to go into total ‘remission,’ but some may find they need less of their insulin medications since the body tends to have lower insulin requirements during and shortly following exercise.

The way diabetes is managed changes with age. Insulin production decreases because of age-related impairment of pancreatic beta cells.

Additionally, insulin resistance increases because of the loss of lean tissue and the accumulation of fat, particularly intra-abdominal fat, and the decreased tissue sensitivity to insulin.

Glucose tolerance progressively declines with age, leading to a high prevalence of type-2 diabetes and postchallenge hyperglycemia in the older population.Age-related glucose intolerance in humans is often accompanied by insulin resistance, but circulating insulin levels are similar to those of younger people.

Treatment goals for older patients with diabetes vary with the individual, and take into account health status, as well as life expectancy, level of dependence, and willingness to adhere to a treatment regimen.