Here you will learn about diabetes, the causes, symptoms and how it can be treated. The first step is understanding what diabetes means and how it can occur.

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease that breaks out either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot use the insulin it produces effectively. With diabetes, your body doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use it as it should. When there’s not enough insulin or cells stop responding to insulin, too much sugar will be deposited in your bloodstream. Over time, that can cause serious illness in the body or other health-related issues like heart disease, kidney disease, and vision loss. A normal sugar level is in the range of 60-100mg\dl when checked with a glucose meter.

There are two types of diabetes:

• Type 1 diabetes
• Type 2 diabetes

Type 1 diabetes: this occurs mostly in adolescents. It’s a genetic condition that often shows up early in life and it occurs when the pancreas produces little or no insulin, with Type 1 diabetes your immune system is attacking and destroying the insulin-producing cells in your pancreas.

Type 2 diabetes: this occurs mostly as a result of a careless lifestyle that is, consumption of excess glucose(sugar) and it develops over time. It is a chronic condition that affects the way the body process blood sugar(glucose), the body either doesn’t produce enough insulin or it resists insulin.

Symptoms of diabetes.

At an early stage of diabetes, different symptoms will begin to occur such as:

• Excess thirst and increased urination.
• Weight loss.
• Blurred vision.
• Feeling hungry even when eating.
• Fatigue.
• Headaches.
• Red, swollen, tender gums.
• Slow healing sores.
• Tingling, pain or numbness in the hands and feet.
• Infection.

Treatment of diabetes.

The treatment of diabetes aims at maintaining normal blood sugar levels through regular monitoring, insulin therapy, diet and exercise.

When a patient with diabetes is not well taken care of it can lead to death due to the arousal of heart disease and kidney problems.