Diabetes Mellitus is a medical condition that affects 23.6 million children and adults in the United States alone, or 7.8% of its population. Among these, about 17.9 million have been diagnosed with diabetes, and 5.7 million people do not know yet that they have this condition.
Diabetes is a result of blood glucose being persistently higher than normal in your blood. What makes this condition serious is that uncontrolled diabetes can lead to dangerous complications such as heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure and even amputation of your limbs.
However no matter how grave it sounds Diabetes is manageable and the risk of those serious complications can be reduced with proper diet and exercise.
Diabetes is getting more common worldwide. This is partly due to aging as well as unhealthy diets and lack of exercise.
This medical condition causes body to stop producing or making good use of insulin. Insulin is a hormone made by our pancreas that let our body cells burn blood glucose commonly found in sugar, starch for energy.
In Diabetes the amount of insulin in the blood becomes too little or ineffective and the outcome is high glucose levels in our blood.
Diabetes or whether you’re at risk of having Diabetes is detected and measured with the help of 2 common tests: a Fasting Plasma Glucose Test (FPG) and an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). FPG is recommended due to its ease, faster analysis results and less cost to the patient.
FPG test is conducted on a hungry stomach or the person has not eaten in order to get accurate results. Anything between 100 and 125 mg/dl indicates pre-diabetes condition in you while 126 mg/dl or higher points to diabetes.
OGTT test evaluates person’s tolerance to glucose. The patient has to fast as per normal and drink a beverage loaded with glucose. The doctor will give it 2 hours to settle in and measure glucose levels in your blood after that. Anything between 140 and 199 mg/dl will indicate pre-diabetes, while 200 mg/dl or higher signals diabetes.
There are 3 common types of Diabetes and others that are detected during pregnancy. Pre-diabetes is also considered a type of Diabetes as it requires proper regime and changes to your diet to prevent you from becoming diabetic.
Type 1 diabetes
- Usually detected in children or young adults, although it can happen at any age
- There’s no insulin produced and must be administered for treatment
Type 2 diabetes
- Commonly found in adults
- The insulin is produced in the body but not enough or doesn’t work effectively
Others
Gestational diabetes
- Found during pregnancy
- The risk of getting it later in life is higher
- May harm the baby if left uncontrolled