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Gender, Tsungai Chekerwa-Machokoto
There is nothing more important than being healthy.

When you are healthy, it doesn’t matter what your bank balance is, you are alive and well and that is all that matters. This week I’ve decided to shed some light on diabetes —which is known as a silent killer. Why is it called a silent killer? Because people don’t know the symptoms so when they start experiencing it, it will be too late by the time the condition is diagnosed.

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic, life-long condition that affects your body’s ability to use the energy found in food. Normally, your body breaks down the sugars and carbohydrates you eat into a special sugar called glucose.

Glucose fuels the cells in your body. But the cells need insulin, a hormone in your bloodstream in order to take in the glucose and use it for energy. With diabetes mellitus, either your body doesn’t make enough insulin; it can’t use the insulin it produces, or a combination of both.

Since the cells can’t take in the glucose, it builds up in your blood. High levels of blood glucose can damage the tiny blood vessels in your kidneys, heart, eyes, or nervous system. That’s why diabetes, especially if left untreated, can eventually cause heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness, and nerve damage to nerves in the feet.

There are two types of diabetes — type 1 and type 2.

Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune condition. It’s caused by the body attacking its own pancreas with anti-bodies. In people with type 1 diabetes, the damaged pancreas doesn’t make insulin. This type of diabetes may be caused by a genetic pre-disposition. It could also be the result of faulty beta cells in the pancreas that normally produce insulin.

A number of medical risks are associated with type 1 diabetes. Many of them stem from damage to the tiny blood vessels in your eyes (diabetic retinopathy), nerves (diabetic neuropathy), and kidneys (diabetic nephropathy). Even more serious is the increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

Treatment for type 1 diabetes involves taking insulin, which needs to be injected through the skin into the fatty tissue below.

Having type 1 diabetes does require significant lifestyle changes that include frequent testing of your blood sugar levels, careful meal planning, daily exercise and religiously taking insulin and other medications as needed. People with type 1 diabetes can lead long, active lives if they carefully monitor their glucose, make the needed lifestyle changes, and adhere to the treatment plan.

By far, the most common form of diabetes is type 2 diabetes, accounting for 95 percent of diabetes cases in adults. Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult-onset diabetes, but with the epidemic of obese and overweight kids, more teenagers are now developing type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes was also referred to as non-insulin-dependent diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is often a milder form of diabetes compared to type 1 diabetes. Nevertheless, type 2 diabetes can still cause major health complications, particularly in the smallest blood vessels in the body that nourish the kidneys, nerves, and eyes. Type 2 diabetes also increases your risk of heart disease and stroke.

With Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas usually produces some insulin. But either the amount produced is not enough for the body’s needs, or the body’s cells are resistant to it. Insulin resistance, or lack of sensitivity to insulin, happens primarily in fat, liver, and muscle cells.

People who are obese, more than 20 percent over their ideal body weight for their height, are at particularly high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and its related medical problems. Obese people have insulin resistance. With insulin resistance, the pancreas has to work overly hard to produce more insulin. But even then, there is not enough insulin to keep sugars normal.

There is no cure for diabetes. Type 2 diabetes can, however, be controlled with weight management, nutrition, and exercise. Unfortunately, type 2 diabetes tends to progress, and diabetes medications are often needed.

Diabetes that is triggered by pregnancy is called gestational diabetes (pregnancy, to some degree, leads to insulin resistance). It is often diagnosed in middle or late pregnancy. Because high blood sugar levels in a mother are circulated through the placenta to the baby, gestational diabetes must be controlled to protect the baby’s growth and development.

Gestational diabetes usually resolves itself after pregnancy. Having gestational diabetes does, however, put mothers at risk for developing type 2 diabetes later in life. Up to 10 percent of women with gestational diabetes develop type 2 diabetes. It can occur anywhere from a few weeks after delivery to months or years later.

With gestational diabetes, risks to the unborn baby are even greater than risks to the mother. Risks to the baby include abnormal weight gain before birth, breathing problems at birth, and higher obesity and diabetes risk later in life. Risks to the mother include needing a caesarean section due to an overly large baby, as well as damage to heart, kidneys, nerves, and eyes. Treatment during pregnancy includes working closely with your health care team and careful meal planning to ensure adequate pregnancy nutrients without excess fat and calories, daily exercise, controlling pregnancy weight gain, and taking diabetes insulin to control blood sugar levels if needed

Common symptoms of diabetes to look out for include frequent urination. The condition of diabetes causes the sugar content of the blood to rise above normal levels. This requires the patient’s kidneys to work harder than usual, so that the excess sugar can be removed successfully. This overtime work results in the formation of excess urine, causing the person to have frequent urges to urinate. Such a condition isn’t just distracting, it can also lead to kidney damage and eventually kidney failure in case no treatment is undertaken. Frequent urination can hence be a very significant warning of diabetes and should be reported to a physician if prolonged.

Since the first and foremost warning sign of diabetes is frequent urination, its repercussions are also strong warning signs. The loss of water in the form of frequent urination leads to dehydration. Dehydration can result in a number of other symptoms, including excessive thirst, dizziness, fainting, dry mouth, weakness, etc. A deep amber colour of the urine is also a very strong symptom of dehydration; the change means that the urine is highly concentrated.

Dehydration can become particularly dangerous if the fluid intake reduces below the requirements of the body.

As mentioned above, the high blood sugar levels in diabetes cause excessive urination resulting in severe dehydration in the body. This results in the loss of important fluids from all organs of the body. When fluid is lost from the eyes, then their focusing power starts decreasing, causing blurriness of the vision.

If the diabetes is not treated and controlled, then the dehydrated tissues of the eyes start causing damage to the blood vessels, leading to severe eye damage. Such a condition may result in partial loss of vision and even total blindness in the worst cases.

Due to either a lack of insulin or an impaired response to insulin by the cells of the body, they are unable to utilise the sugar in the blood. Since the body needs energy, it begins to break down muscle and fat. This is what causes people with diabetes to have weight loss. If the breakdown of fat continues without treatment, it can lead to a serious condition called ketoacidosis. Ketoacidosis happens when chemicals called ketones are released into the blood stream from the breakdown of fat. They cause the blood to be more acidic.

Diabetes causes adverse changes in the entire metabolism of the body. Since sugar is the major source of energy we need to carry out our daily routines in a healthy manner, the inability of the cells to use sugar is a real problem. One of the ways the body responds to this energy deficit is by making you feel excessively hungry. Frequent bursts of hunger and overall weakness are therefore a major warning sign for diabetes.

Fatigue in diabetes can occur both in conditions of high or low blood sugar. When blood sugar is very high, it impairs the ability of oxygen and nutrients to make it to the cells of the body, resulting in a groggy feeling. When blood sugar is low, it can also result in fatigue. The discomfort caused by increased hunger is also an addition to the fatigue that the person feels. Moreover, if the fluid intake is not enough then the worsening dehydration will escalate the tiring effects of diabetes to further levels. Although not a clear indication on its own, combined with other symptoms, it can make the presence of diabetes very obvious.

Diabetic neuropathy is a serious condition that is described as severe nerve damage being caused by the high levels of sugar in the blood. What makes it worse is the fact that such nerve damage is often irreversible and sometimes even results in severe damage to the limbs that amputation of the affected limbs becomes necessary. In early stages, the neuropathy can appear in the form of a burning or tingling sensation in the arms, feet, fingers, etc. This symptom is a very serious danger sign and should not be ignored under any circumstances.

Diabetes potentially ruins the body’s ability to fend off harmful bacteria. Since almost all such bacteria enter the body through our mouth, a diabetic patient may start noticing a variety of infections occurring in the mouth. In the most extreme form, diabetes can indirectly cause total tooth loss in patients. The early danger signs of such a condition may include jaw bone erosion, pain and swelling in gums. A very noticeable sign can be that if you were suffering from some dental problem earlier that has started to get worse suddenly, then the culprit might be diabetes.

Once you experience any of these symptoms, you should visit the doctor immediately because you can stop the progression of diabetes if you act soon. I know the disease that my family has of procrastinating doctors’ visits and braving things. It is a terrible habit and I hope you do not act as my family does because that doctor’s visit could be decisive of your fate.

Daily exercise is mandatory even if you do not have diabetes. Low GI foods are healthy as well. Lots of water is generally encouraged and if we stick to a healthy lifestyle, it is easier to cope when some of these diseases attack our systems. Let us try this year, to be healthier people so that we can enjoy our lives to the fullest.

*Some information used in this article was taken from WebMed.

Tsungai Chekerwa-Machokoto can be reached on [email protected]