What Is Diabetes
Things you will learn about
Diabetes refers to a group of conditions characterized by high sugar levels or glucose levels in the blood. A high level of blood sugar level can cause serious medical illness sometimes.
We all need the energy to do daily work in our lives, and blood glucose is one of the major sources from which we get energy. Insulin is the hormone that helps us to get glucose from the food we eat.
What is insulin?
So many people who are not concerned with the medical stream can have the question, What is Insulin? So basically Insulin is the hormone that is secreted by the islets of Langerhans cells present in the Pancreas.
If there is any defect in the body that causes a stoppage of Insuline production or less amount of Insulin production leads to rising in blood glucose levels.
What is a normal blood glucose level?
- Normal blood sugar level or glucose level is less than 140 mg/dL or 7.8 mmol/L.
- Blood glucose level between 140 mg/dL – 199 mg/dL indicates prediabeties.
- And Blood glucose level of more than 200 mg/dL indicates diabetes.
Types of diabetes
There are mainly two types of diabetes.
- Diabetes Type 1 Or Diabetes Mellitus
- Diabetes Type 2 Or Diabetes Insipidus
Diabetes mellitus is caused due to the pancreas do not secrets the glucose-regulating hormone called insulin. This type of diabetes is firstly known as “juvenile diabetes“.
Diabetes insipidus is caused by resistance to the pancreatic produced insulin, and the cells of the body failing to react to the hormone. In the advanced stage, it can result in a lack of hormones also. It was previously known as “Adult-onset diabetes”
We are here to discuss type 1 diabetes or diabetes Mellitus in detail. We will also write a detailed article about diabetes type 2 or diabetes insipidus in our next blog.
What Is Type 1 Diabetes Or Diabetes Mellitus?
As we already told above that in type 1 diabetes, the pancreas fails to produce glucose regulating hormone in our body or the pancreas produces less amount of insulin.
Pancrease is one of the major organs that plays important role in our body. Beta cells of islets of Langerhans produce insulin, which helps to convert stored glucose into energy whenever we need it.
But due to less production or absence of production of insulin, the glucose gets stored in the body and does not convert into energy.
This will cause a rise in the blood sugar or blood glucose level in the body, leads to conditions like prediabetes & Diabetes.
Does Type 1 Diabetes Is Genetic?
A tendency to get type 1 diabetes can be genetic but the pattern is known till now. It can come in hereditary from mother or father but we can prevent it by taking precautions.
It is not mandatory that if parents are diagnosed with diabetes then their child also will get it. But a child may become predisposed to type 1 diabetes. We will learn about genetic and diabetes in detail in our future articles
What is Type 1 diabetes life expectancy?
There are many surveys done to rule out the life expectancy of patients having type 1 diabetes. According to the WebMD website, researchers determined that men with type 1 diabetes had an average life expectancy of about 66 years, compared with 77 years among men without it.
And Women with type 1 diabetes had an average life expectancy of about 68 years, compared with 81 years for those without the disease.
The life expectancy can vary if a patient suffering from other major medical illnesses, and also there are other factors that can affect the life expectancy in type 1 diabetes.
There are some people who lived more than expected life with this condition.
The life expectancy of type 1 diabetes in India.
The average life expectancy of patients with diabetes mellitus in India is about 67 years in both men and women. There is no accurate survey done to find out expected correct numbers.
The oldest person with type diabetes.
A person named Winsome Johnston is the world’s longest person lived with diabetes type condition. However, the oldest person is not yet known but as soon as we get to know we will update this.
Type 1 Diabetes Symptoms
- Severe thirst
- The increased appetite(especially after eating)
- Dry mouth
- Stomach Upset and vomiting
- Increase frequency of urination
- Unexplained weight loss
- Exhaustion
- Blurry vision
- Apathetic or heavy, labored breathing (Kussmaul respiration)
- Recurrent infections of the skin, urinary tract, or vagina
- Crankiness or mood changes
- Bedwetting in the child who’s been dry at night.
Risk Factors For Type 1 Diabetes.
Geographical Factors:
There are some countries like Finland, Sweden that have a high rate of type 1 diabetes. But it is not seen everywhere.
Family History:
Type 1 diabetes is more commonly seen in hereditary, but it is not mandatory that if parents suffer from diabetes then the child will also suffer from it. But childer become prominent or predisposed to it.
Autoimmunity:
Autoimmunity is one of the major risk factors for type 1 diabetes. The body’s immune system damages the cells of the pancreas which help to produce insulin. Sometimes patient’s family members have tested for diabetes autoantibodies, if the autoantibody is present, chances for developing type 1 diabetes get increased.
Environmental Factors:
Sometimes exposure to viral sickness or due to any other environmental changes risk of getting type 1 diabetes gets increased.
How To Diagnose Type 1 Diabetes?
There are certain tests that can help to diagnose diabetes.
1. Glycated Hemoglobin (A1C) Test.
Glycated Hemoglobin test shows the average blood sugar level in your body, carried by the RBC. It shows the average blood sugar level of your body of 3 months.
More than 6.5 % result in Glycated Hb (A1C) more than 2 times in consecutive leads to an indication of Diabetes.
If Glycated Hemoglobin (A1C) test is unavailable or inaccurate, Or if the patient having a certain condition like pregnancy or variant of Hb then the doctor can run the following tests to rule out the condition.
2. Random Blood Sugar Test.
A random blood sugar test can be done any time after you last ate. But sometimes blood sugar can be higher without having diabetes due to diet and timing of last meal or last time ate. The confirmation can be done by repeated RBS( Random Blood Sugar) Testings.
Sample blood is taken and blood sugar level expressed in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL)and milligram per liter (mg/L). If the blood sugar level is more than 200 (mg/dL) or 11.1 (mg/L), it indicates diabetes.
3. Fasting Blood Sugar Test.
FBS Or Fasting Blood Sugar Test help to measure blood sugar level after 12 hours or after an overnight fasting .
< 100 mg/dL indicates normal blood sugar level
>100 mg/dL and < 125 mg/dL indicates predaibetes
> 125 mg/dL indicates diabetes.
Other tests include
- PP2BS Test (Postprandial after 2 hours of the meal)
- Autoantibodies test.
Treatment For Type 1 Diabetes
Treatment includes taking insulin and other precautions. Our first goal should be maintaining normal blood sugar levels and no further progression of diabetes to other complications.
If we do not maintain blood sugar levels it can lead to life-threatening serious complications. Treatment and precautions include,
- Taking Insulin
- Blood sugar monitoring at the frequent time period
- Taking healthy diet
- Exercise and maintaining weight in a healthy range
- Carbo hydrate, fat, and protein counting
Types of Insulin.
- Onset type of Insulin:
This type of insulin are based on how fats acts or onset of the action of Insulin
- Peak Type of Insulin:
This type of Insulin is defined on how long they take to achieve maximum impact in the body.
On the basis of duration they are classified in followings:
- Short-acting type of Insulin :
Action is for a short period of time
- Long-acting type of Insulin :
Action is for a long period of time.
Maintaining Healthy Diet
A healthy diet can be the most useful thing in any condition, It can help the patient to prevent disease progression and leads to a healthy body.
A healthy diet should be followed by everyone from a healthy person to a sick person. Any kind of deficiency like Vitamin B12 deficiency, Iron deficiency, and conditions like type 1 diabetes can be prevented by a healthy diet.
Maintaining Healthy Weight
Maintaining a healthy weight is one of the major factors for the prevention and stoppage of type 1 diabetes progression, Especially if you are pregnant you should have to maintain weight. If you are overweight or underweight both conditions can be critical sometimes.
You should have to maintain weight by doing exercise, yoga,, and keeping your body active in your free time. Yoga can also help you to relax your mind. Maintaining mental health by doing yoga is one of the beneficial points of it.
Blood sugar monitoring at the frequent time period
If you are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes you have to monitor your blood sugar level at a frequent times by above-given tests. Also, you have to eat food with have a low glycemic index.
Food with high glycemic index can raise blood sugar level, if you don’t know what is glycemic index and glycemic index of different foods are?, you can read our articles for more information.
Conclusion.
Ending up with last word of conclusion, we have discussed about type 1 diabetes, so if you have any doubt regarding this condition let us know in comments section.
Also read our mental health, health related article for more information and gain your knowledge.
