April 26, 2008
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Anyone who has the condition known as diabetes has a condition that creates a situation where the conversion of energy from the food they eat is faulty. Most of the food we eat is broken down into glucose, the form of sugar in the blood. As the main source of fuel for the body, glucose must get to where it is needed but diabetes stops this process from happening. As more and more glucose remains in the bloodstream blood glucose or blood sugar levels can rise too high.
This subject has comprehensive information available on other sites and the information about the condition in this article has been made short to enable easy and quick understanding. The first type is called type one and primarily affects young people, usually called juvenile onset diabetes and is where the body completely stops the production of insulin; daily injections of insulin are needed if the diabetic patient does not want to die. The purpose of insulin is to regulate the amount of glucose in our blood. Type two affects adults and is sometimes called late onset diabetes; this type happens when not enough insulin is being produced or it isn’t being used properly, but it can normally be treated through diet.
Most of the food humans eat can be converted into sugar which provides us with energy. Prolonged periods of high blood glucose levels can lead to problems like heart disease, kidney complaints, blindness and even limb amputations. Specialists in diabetes will tell you that provided you do exactly what your care and management program tells you to do, your condition will start to improve; these conditions will vary form person to person but most should see improvements with some complaints halted altogether. Managing your condition means you must take control of certain areas of your life by ensuring you take your medication regularly; this means maintaining the correct level of blood sugar, cholesterol and blood fat along with giving up cigarettes.
It also means that you will need to keep your weight relatively stable within a prescribed range which should also help to reduce your blood pressure to within tolerable limits. Diabetes once recognized in the sufferer will be with them for the rest of their lives; there are currently over five and half million Americans who have been diagnosed with this, and the numbers are rising. However, it is estimated that about the same number of people again have the condition; around 600,000 US citizens contract this condition each year so you can see the problem is serious. It is believed that as many as 320,000 diabetics die each year in America whilst only 34,000 of those actually die directly from the condition itself.
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