Early Symptoms of Diabetes type 1, type 2 diabetes

Signs and Symptoms for Diabetes

November is national diabetes awareness month, so we at Advanced Bio Treatment would like to give you a heads-up on this very preventable and reversible disease.

Diabetes can strike anyone. The World Health Organization estimates that by 2030, the already-staggering 380 million people with diabetes worldwide will double.

According to the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation, diabetes kills more people than AIDS and breast cancer combined and is the leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, amputations, heart failure, and stroke.

About a third of people with diabetes don’t even know they have this life-threatening disease.

What Is Diabetes?

Simply put, diabetes is too much sugar in the bloodstream. To understand diabetes, you first have to understand how the body uses and regulates sugar.

Your body turns much of what you eat and drink into glucose, or simple sugar.

This glucose travels through your bloodstream.

The pancreas, an organ behind the stomach, continuously releases a hormone called insulin. When the pancreas senses too much glucose in the bloodstream, it releases more insulin to push the glucose into the body’s cells, which use the glucose to produce the energy we need for normal daily activities. The bloodstream’s glucose level then drops. When glucose levels in the bloodstream get to low, your body signals you to eat. It also releases glucose stored in the liver to raise blood sugar to a normal level.

In people with diabetes, one of three things happen:

No insulin is produced by the pancreas (type 1 diabetes).
The insulin that is produced is insufficient (type 2 diabetes).
The cells are insulin resistant and don’t respond to the insulin by allowing glucose to enter the cells (type 2 diabetes).

The Difference Between Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes

With both types of diabetes, the bloodstream accumulates too much glucose because the glucose is not absorbed and converted into energy by the cells. The cells begin to starve and the high sugar levels in the blood cause devastating damage to organs and nerves, leading to coma and death.

What is Type 1 Diabetes ?

Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease and is the more severe and less common of the two types. It usually starts in childhood or the teen years, hence its alternate name, “Juvenile Diabetes.” It is a lifelong disease for which there is no cure. People with type 1 diabetes must take insulin to regulate blood sugar because their immune systems attack the pancreas, which releases insulin to regulate blood sugar, and destroy the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Their pancreases produce no insulin at all. Therefore, those who suffer type-1 diabetes take insulin injections their entire lives.

What is Type 2 Diabetes ?

Type 2 diabetes is far more common than type 1, accounting for about 90% of people with diabetes around the world. It develops mostly in adults after age 40, and until recently was called “Adult Onset Diabetes.” It affects about 18 million Americans. Contributing factors to the development of type 2 diabetes are being overweight; a diet high in fat, refined grains, oils, sugars, and animal products; and not getting enough exercise.

According to the World Health Organization, type 2 diabetes “is largely the result of excess body weight and physical inactivity.” Shockingly, this type of diabetes was seen only in adults until recently. Now it is also seen in children because of the increase in obesity among children.

The precursor to type 2 diabetes is often a condition called “insulin resistance,” or “pre-diabetes,” usually caused by prolonged high levels of insulin that desensitize the body to the hormone. The bodies of afflicted people produce insulin, but the body’s cells no longer respond to the insulin, often causing the pancreas to work harder to produce more insulin. Therefore, these folks don’t usually take insulin injections. Insulin resistance greatly increases the risk for obesity, high blood pressure, the onset of type 2 diabetes if the disease is not already present, heart disease, high cholesterol, and breast cancer. Insulin resistance has also been linked to Alzheimer’s disease [place a link to previous Alzheimer’s blogs].

Some of the same things that follow from insulin resistance can also cause it. Abdominal fat is especially linked to insulin resistance. Also, a diet rich in processed foods and fats, lack of exercise, and vitamin-D deficiencies are probable causes. In the majority of cases, type 2 diabetes is preventable and even reversible with weight control, regular exercise, and a balanced diet to lower blood sugar levels. Sometimes medications that assist the body in using insulin and insulin injections are also needed.