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What tests you can have to monitor your diabetes condition? The following are the quick tips from America Diabetes Association:

• Get your A1c tested at least twice a year.
You may need it checked more often if you are not at your goal or if your treatment changes.
• Get a dilated eye exam every year.
Your doctor will use eye drops to see the back of the eye. If you’ve had normal exams in the past, you may need exams less often (every two to three years).
• Have your blood pressure checked at every diabetes visit.
High blood pressure damages your blood vessels. This raises your risk for stroke, heart disease, and kidney and eye problems.
• Get a blood cholesterol test at least once a year.
High cholesterol can cause heart problems. You may need frequent testing to reach your goal.
• Check your feet every day and get a complete foot exam at least once a year.
Your doctor should check your feet at every visit if you have nerve damage

Life healthier with diabetes!

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Diabetes is a silent killer. You never know what is happening in your body until you have reached critical point where your body starts to give you signals of diabetes. As a result, you will develop serious symptoms for diabetes.

Definitely early detection of diabetes is the best way to avoid its complication. The standard  tests for diabetes are the Fasting Plasma Glucose Test and the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test.

Besides, take note of the signs and symptoms of diabetes. Ask yourself these questions, are you visiting the bathroom much more lately? Does it seem like you urinate all day long? Urination becomes more frequent when there is too much glucose in the blood.

Another sign for diabetes is that you feel like can’t get enogh water and you’re drinking much more than usual. Due to the high concentration of glucose in the blood, your body is pulling extra water out of your blood and you are running to the washroom more, you will become dehydrated and feel the need to drink more to replace the water that you are losing.

Glucose from the food we eat travels into the bloodstream where your pancreas produces insulin to help in transition of the glucose into the cells of your body. The cells use it to produce the energy we need to live. In diabetes cases, the glucose stays outside the cells in the bloodstream. The cells cannot get the energy and you feel tired and run down.

When glucose gather in the bloodstream, it will blocks the micro nerves in the body especially micro nerves at retina, nerves ending and nerves in renal. As the results, your may feel tingling or numbness in your hands, legs or feet. 

Know these signs and symptoms of diabetes is important in the early detection of diabetes cases. Remember, diabetes is better to be treated earlier before it becoming worse and spoilt your health.

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Gestational diabetes is the term used for diabetes during pregnancy. It is a dangerous condition because it may cause a lot of complications to the baby. The best treatment is still the insulin injection. However, this brings problem to some pregnant mother who has phobia to the needle. That’s why researchers are finding alternative treatment for gestational diabetes.

A recent study conducted to test the usage of metformin in pregnant mothers with diabetes. 751 pregnant mothers with gestational diabetes at 20 to 33 weeks of pregnancy is received open treatment with metformin (with supplemented insulin if required) or insulin.

They found that metformin, alone or in conjuction with supplemented insulin, was not associated with an increase in neonatal complications compared with insulin.

Rates of neonatal hypoglycaemia were similiar in each group, but severe hypoglycaemia (<1.6 mmol of glucoseper litre) occured significantly less in infants of women taking metformin.

However, frequency of preterm birth was found to be higher in metformin group. The different could be due to chance or to an unrecognised effect of metformin on the labour process, the researchers suggest.

As a conclusion, the researchers comment “Clinicians may remain circumspect about using metformin until follow-up data for offspring are available.”

Resources: The New England Journal Of Medicine 2008; 358:2003

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What is carbohydrate? When we looking under a microscope we discover  that carbohydrates are simply long chains of sugars. Shorter chains were considered simple carbohydrates and longer chains, complex.

People used to believe that if you eat a simple sugar like glucose, fructose, maltose, or sucrose, your blood sugar will rise more rapidly because your body does not need to break down the sugar. However, if you eat a complex carbohydrate with a longer chain of sugars, like potato or a piece of bread, your blood sugar will rise more slowly and therefore would be a better choice not only for those without health complications but also for diabetics.

However, with a introduction of the new concept called glycemic index in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Dr. Jenkins, the whole theory above changed. Jenkins defined te glycemic index as the rate blood sugar rises following the ingestion of a particular test food relative to that of a standard food (usually white bread or glucose). Originally, glucose was believed to raise blood glucose most quickly, so it was given the rating of 100. However, ten years later (1990), additional foods had been tested and many were found to score even higher.

Reference: Healthy for life

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By Groshan Fabiola

There are two important types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The last is more common than the diabetes type 1, which is mostly found in younger persons. The second diabetes type develops mostly in people that are over 40 years old. Because it develops this late in ones life, this kind of diabetes is also known as “adult diabetes”. The typical person that suffers from diabetes type 2 is overweight, but there are always exceptions. The symptoms in this type of diabetes are more gradual than in the other kind of diabetes. There is also another big difference between these two diabetes type: the type 2 diabetes is caracterized by resistance to insulin, rather than the absence of it in the case of type 1 diabetes. This disease is mostly hereditary in almost all patients. What happens in the case of diabetes type 2 is that the body produces insulin, but the cells do not respond to it. As a result, the patient has a higher glucose level in his/ her blood.

This type 2 of diabetes is the most common one. This also have a bigger tendency of being hereditary than the first. Results have shown that one of three children with a least one parent that has diabetes will develop type 2 diabetes as well. Obesity is also another factor in developing diabetes.

There are many causes for diabetes, which means that are many reasons why a person can develop diabetes type 2. The most common of all the factors that cause diabetes is genetics. Almost a half of the people who suffer from diabetes type 2 are brothers and sisters and one in three children of the same family will eventually suffer from diabetes. The second strongest cause of developing diabetes is obesity. That and an intake of many calories are the second and third of the diabetes causes. Almost a third of all people that suffer from diabetes type 2 have antibodies to the islet cells, which produce insulin. These cells so vital in diabetes can be detected in the blood. If the islet cells do not work properly, your body will not get enough insulin. As a result you will be more than likely to suffer from diabetes. Studies have shown that such people will respond much sooner to oral medication than other people who suffer from diabetes. However, people who are like that and have diabetes will probably need insulin at one moment in their life in order to treat diabetes.

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If you have diabetes, one of the most important things to know is to take care of your feet.

How Can Diabetes Cause Foot Problems?
Some people with diabetes develop complications. Two of the common complications, both of which can adversely affect your feet, are damage to nerves (neuropathy) and damage to blood vessels (vascular disease).

People with diabetes sometimes develop nerve damage to the feet- your entire foot, or a part of it, can become numb or insensitive to pain. If your foot is numb, you can walk all day with a very bad blister, or something in your shoe that is injuring you, and never know it. You could burn your foot badly and do not know to pull your foot away.

How Does Diabetes Damage Blood Vessels?
Diabetes can cause the lining of blood vessels to thicken, narrowing the space where blood flows. If the blood vessels to your feet are either clogged up or completely blockd, the skin and muscles of your feet will suffer.

This can mean that your feet are:
- Less able to fight off infection.
- Less able to heal if injured.
- Likely to develop gangrene (or areas of dead flesh) if the blood supply becomes completely blocked.

How Should I take Care Of My Feet?
If you have no existing nerve or blood vessel damage, you should still take sensible care of your feet.
- Wash and carefully dry your feet evey day. Take special care to gently dry between toes.
- Very lightly moisturise feet every day, but not between toes.
- Wear well-fitting and sensible shoes, like broad and deep sports shoes.
- Look at your feet everyday to check that they look healthy and normal. Report any changes immediately to your doctor.

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The American Diabetes Association adopted the following classification in 1979.

Type –1, insulin-dependent diabetes

Type-2, non insulin-dependent diabetes

There are two other kinds of diabetes, known as gestational diabetes and secondary diabetes. There is also a special kind of diabetes in India called malnutrition related diabetes.

Type-1 Insulin-Dependant Diabetes

This is the most severe form of diabetes. It develops when pancreas makes little or no insulin. Without insulin in the blood stream, sugar does not get into the cells, and remains in the blood. People with type-1 diabetes depend on injections of insulin to regulate their smaller metabolism.

Type-2 Non Insulin Dependent Diabetes

This type of diabetes is also known as adult onset diabetes. It seldom develops before the age of 40 years, although it may occur at any stage. Infect the incidence of type-2 diabetes in adolescents in on the rise. But because the symptoms are milk, these may not notice and the condition remains undetected for a long period and till later years.

One common factor in both type-1 and type-2 diabetes is elevated blood sugar levels. However, unlike type-1 diabetes, type-2 is not a disease of the immune system. While people with type-1 diabetes must use insulin to live, most of those with type-2 diabetes are able to control the disease and even reverse it. This is possible by a combination of appropriate diet, proper weight control and adequate exercise.

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