What causes diabetes?
Diabetes develops when you have a problem with insulin, the hormone that removes excess sugar or glucose from your bloodstream. There are two main types of diabetes:
Type 1 diabetes
An autoimmune disorder, in which your immune system attacks the pancreas, causes type 1 diabetes. As a result, it can’t produce insulin. This type of diabetes is also known as insulin-dependent diabetes because you must take insulin to restore normal blood levels. While type 1 diabetes often develops in children and teens, it can occur at any age.
Type 2 diabetes
When you have type 2 diabetes, your pancreas produces insulin, but not enough to maintain normal blood sugar. You also develop insulin resistance, so your body can’t use the insulin that your pancreas releases. The combination of these two problems leads to type 2 diabetes and high blood sugar.
Type 2 diabetes diagnosis usually occurs in adults, but it can also appear in children. While it’s called non-insulin dependent diabetes, some patients with type 2 diabetes may need to take insulin.
What is prediabetes?
Prediabetes is a condition in which your blood sugar is higher than normal but not yet high enough for a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. At this stage, most patients can reverse the problem and prevent type 2 diabetes by changing their diet, getting more exercise, and losing weight.
Being overweight or obese and living a sedentary lifestyle significantly increase your risk for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes.
What symptoms develop due to diabetes?
Both types of diabetes lead to symptoms such as:
- Frequent urination
- Increased thirst
- Blurry vision
- Excessive hunger
- Unexplained weight loss
The difference between the two types is that the symptoms appear quickly in type 1 diabetes, but they slowly develop over many years in patients with type 2 diabetes.
What health complications develop due to diabetes?
High blood sugar damages your nerves and small blood vessels, leading to serious health problems, such as:
- Chronic kidney disease
- Non-healing foot ulcers
- Vision loss
- Peripheral neuropathy
- Skin infections
- Cardiovascular disease
If you have diabetes, you have double the risk of dying from heart disease compared to people who don’t have diabetes.
How is diabetes treated?
Since there’s no cure for diabetes, you must carefully manage your diabetes, making lifestyle changes, and taking medication as needed to keep your blood sugar in the normal range.
Compassionate Family Medicine supports your diabetes management with services such as:
- Insulin management
- Glucose monitoring
- Medication management
- Diabetes education
- Meal planning
- Carbohydrate control
- Weight loss management
- Exercise regimen
- Smoking cessation
If you take insulin, you also need to carefully monitor your blood glucose. Compassionate Family Medicine teaches you how to do that and ensure you have the right type and strength of insulin.
Whether you need a diabetes screening or ongoing diabetes management, call Compassionate Family Medicine.
