Posted by ajju in What is diabetes?
Diabetes or diabetes mellitus is a metabolism dysfunction. Metabolism means the way our body uses digested food for growth and energy. All the food we eat are digested and converted in to glucose (a form of sugar) which is the major source of fuel to our body. When our food is digested the glucose makes its way into our bloodstream for energy and growth of our body. To help the glucose get into our blood, we need insulin which makes our body cells to absorb glucose. Once we eat our food, the insulin hormone is produced by our pancreas and allows glucose to enter in to our bloodstream and thus reducing the blood sugar level.
Diabetes Mellitus and Its 3 main types:
Diabetes is a Greek word meaning Siphon which refers to polyuria a condition of passing much of water like a siphon.
Mel is a Latin word meaning honey which means the blood and urine of a diabetic person contains excessive glucose and glucose tastes like a sweet honey.
Literally, Diabetes Mellitus means ‘Siphoning off Sweet water’ which in the ancient china was known to be “Sweet Urine Disease”.
The 3 major types of Diabetes Mellitus are:
Diabetes Type-1: The Pancreas doesn’t produce Insulin.
Diabetes Type-2: The Pancreas doesn’t produce enough Insulin, or the Insulin produced does not work properly in absorption of glucose to our body cells.
Gestational Diabetes: Pregnant Women develop diabetes which subsides up on birth of the child.
Treatment and Its Importance:
The most chronic of the 3 types of Diabetes Mellitus are the Type -1 and Type-2. Still no permanent cure has been found for these two types of lifetime diabetes. Yet, they are controllable with injected insulin or tablets plus a restricted diet with exercises.
Patients having Type-1are advised an injection of insulin and some dietary restrictions with exercises.
Patients having Type-2 are generally treated with tablets, special diet and ample exercises, but in rare case insulin injection is also required.
Uncontrolled diabetes may lead to health issues such as blindness, heart or kidney diseases, hypoglycemia, nerve damage, and gangrene in feet that leads to amputation, poor or very slow healing of wounds and erectile dysfunction.
Increase in concentration of blood glucose leads to diabetic coma, concentration of urine crystals.
Chart to Find out the Stages of Diabetes Using Blood Sugar Values
| Category of the Diabetic Person | Fasting Value | Post Prandial (Value of Glucose after 2 hours of glucose or food consumption) | ||
| Minimum | Maximum | |||
| Normal | 70 mg/dl | 100 mg/dl | Less than 140 mg/dl | |
| Early Diabetes | 101 mg/dl | 126 mg/dl | 140 to 200 mg/dl | |
| Established Diabetes | Greater than 126 mg/dl | ****** | More than 200 mg/dl | |