Overview
Diabetes Mellitus is a disorder of glucose metabolism (the way your body utilizes, and stores glucose). This leads to an increased amount of glucose in your blood stream. Insulin aids in the entrance, and storage of glucose into cells, and it is a problem of the insulin that leads to diabetes There are a few types of diabetes:
- Diabetes mellitus type 1
- Diabetes mellitus type 2
- Gestational diabetes mellitus
Causes
The cause of each type of diabetes is different, hence they they’re discussed individually.
Type 1 – Type 1 diabetes is basically caused by an autoimmune destruction of the beta cells of the pancreas, that are responsible for insulin production. Destruction of these cells leads to a complete lack of insulin in the blood and hence glucose can not be stored, and its level in the blood becomes high.
Type 2 – Type 2 diabetes is caused when the amount of insulin in the blood is enough, but the receptors on the cells of different organs can not detect the insulin, and hence glucose can not be stored by those cells.
Symptoms
The complications of increased blood sugar levels lead to the symptoms of diabetes. Some of these symptoms are listed below:
- Increased thirst
- Increased number of times the patient urinates
- Extreme hunger
- Unexplained weight loss (usually in type 1 diabetes)
- Fatigue
- Blurred vision
- Slow-healing sores
- Frequent infections, such as gums or skin infections and vaginal infections
Diagnosis
Some of the following tests are useful in the diagnosis of diabetes:
- Random blood sugar
- Fasting blood sugar
- Oral glucose tolerance test
- Glycated hemoglobin (A1C) test
Treatment
Treatment of diabetes is a combination of lifestyle changes and medications.
- Exercise 30 minutes a day
- Eat healthy
- Medicines
- Insulin injections