Cyndrome

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Diabetes and care— there cannot be a better combination of words in the world of diabetes!

Your doctor may examine and advise you for some time on diabetes during your visits to his clinic or his visits to your residence. But you are your own doctor for 24 hours all through the months and years with diabetes. How many times a day do you contemplate about the word diabetes?

But don’t you despair. You can fight it out with proper care.

The two words that stand uppermost in diabetes care are diet and exercise! If you are disciplined in these two areas, half of your battle is won!

Be in the know that 50 to 60 percent of daily calories come from carbohydrates, 12 to 20 percent from proteins, and not more than 30 percent from fats.

As for diet, let the balance weigh heavily in favor of fruits, vegetables and lots of fiber. More intake of fiber will help you immensely. Give up your past habit of taking heavy meals. Take in small quantities, as and when you are hungry. Extremely high or low blood glucose levels need to be avoided. As for losing weight, “slow and steady wins the race.” You have already consulted your doctor, you strictly go by the norms given to you and you lose two pounds per week. Very good! That’s good progress.

The risk of heart diseases and liver problems are ever there for diabetics. The food items that are major sources of saturated fats must be avoided. Olive oil is often recommended as a good source of mono-unsaturated fat, the healthiest type of fat.

You must remember the following points, which are your lifelines:

1. Maintain the normal blood glucose level.

2. You have the possibility of heart and liver diseases. Limit your food items from this point of view.

3. Maintain the desired level of weight.

With all the emphasis on diet, research on influence of various types of foods on the diabetes patients is still going on unabated. Researchers in this area are the most confused lot. They are certain about effects of some items of food. Vague opinions also float. For example, the researchers are sure that cooked foods raise blood glucose higher than the raw foods. Whether foods with sugar raise blood glucose higher than the foods with starch, is still uncertain!

Diabetes care will, perhaps, be a hot subject for all time to come—so far, diabetes is alive and kicking!

Special areas in the pancreas gland, the Islets of Langerhans, produce a hormone called insulin. This hormone is a protein of small size. Insulin stimulates muscle cells and other body cells to take up glucose from the blood and convert the glucose to glycogen, a kind of starch, and then store the glycogen. By need the body cells convert the glycogen to glucose and use it as fuel. In this way insulin keeps the glucose level in the blood at a normal size.

By diabetes type 2, the cells in the body do not react properly by stimulation from insulin. Therefore they do not take in enough glucose from the blood to store it or to use it as energy source. This condition is called insulin resistance. The amount of glucose in the blood therefore rises. Also the insulin production can rise to regulate the glucose amount down, but this effort to reduce the blood glucose is not effective enough. If the disease persists for many years, the insulin production may tire out, so that the amount of secreted insulin decreases.

THE CAUSES AND MECHANISMS OF DIABETES TYPE 2

The exact mechanism that causes the disease is not known. There may be an autoimmune response to insulin or to the molecules on the cell surfaces that the insulin connects to. However, these lifestyle factors can cause the disease:

-Too high consume of sugar and fat

-Over-weight

-Too less exercise over many years.

Therefore diabetes type 2 can be prevented by a right diet and with regular exercise.

When the glucose uptake into the body cells is reduced, but glucose instead accumulates in the blood, the following physiological effects occur:

-The body cells do not get enough fuel for the work they shall do.

-The molecular thickness (osmality) of the blood increases. This causes water to be pulled out from the body tissues and into the blood. The tissues thus get dried out and the urine production increases.

-The tissues begin to break down protein and fat to get energy, causing weight loss and muscular reduction.

The symptoms of diabetes type 2 are a consequence of these mechanisms.

THE SYMPTOMS OF DIABETES TYPE 2

Diabetes type 2 is the most common kind of diabetes, actually 10 times more common than diabetes type 1, where the insulin production is reduced or stopped.  The disease usually appears after the age of 50, but the high sugar and fat consume in western countries nowadays also causes young persons to acquire the disease. Symptoms of diabetes type 2 come gradually. The symptoms are.

-Increased urine production

-Dehydration, that is a lack of water in the body

-Abnormal high thirst

-Dry mouth

-Increased appetite

-Slow healing of physical injuries

-Itching in the skin

-Infections caused by yeasts

-Impaired vision

In the long turn, the disease can cause atherosclerosis with blood vessel narrowing, heart disease and stroke.

THE TREATMENT OF DIABETES TYPE 2

The treatment of diabetes type 2 is most often diet with a low sugar amount and weight reduction. These measures will lighten the burden upon the blood sugar control of the body so that it manages to normalize the blood sugar levels.  If this does not work good enough, medicines to lower the blood sugar is used.

If the insulin production is reduced, insulin injections are also used.

There are also natural products in the market that can help to normalize the blood sugar level by diabetes type 2. Those products cannot heal the disease, but they can help the body to regulate the blood sugar. These products contain minerals that are working components of enzymes that stimulate the glucose metabolism in the body. They also contain herbs that have been used for a long time in traditional medicine to regulate the glucose level and have proven their effects in scientific studies.