General Nursing©

DIABETES: facts and what we can do about it?

Complications

· Severe hyperglycemia (too much glucose in the blood) with too much acid in the body can cause confusion and the loss of consciousness.

• High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and kidney damage.
• Blindness (due to retinal damage age), cataracts and other eye disorders.
• Poor healing of wounds.
• Gangrene (tissue death due to cut off of blood supply). This usually occurs in the toes and feet.
• Infection in particular skin and soft tissue, like vaginal infection.
• Numbness due to nerve damage, with loss of sensation especially in the feet.

Causes

Not fully known yet. However, it is believed to be due to:

• Heredity.
• An autoimmune disorder. The body's defenses attack and destroy the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin.
• A viral infection that damages the pancreas, which may then set off an autoimmune process.
• Environment: Lifestyle and diet, especially Type 2.

Prevention

Diabetic symptoms beginning for the first time after age 30 can frequently be reversed completely by simple non-medical treatment. Even with the more serious type of diabetes beginning early in life, these approaches help a great deal; however, insulin treatment is usually also necessary in early-onset diabetes. First, weigh loss is important because it decreases food need and intake. Exercise is very important because it helps the uptake of sugar by the cells from the blood. A diet that stresses complex carbohydrates (such as whole wheat grains, cereals, vegetables, and fruits) and that contains adequate fiber is important. The body breaks down complex carbohydrates, as opposed to the pure white sugars, more slowly. These events put out the rate at which the sugars enter the blood so that the body can handle them better.

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