DIABETES - A SUMMARY

Diabetes is a group of diseases marked by
high blood glucose levels due to defects in
insulin production, insulin action, or both.

Diabetes can cause serious complications
and premature death. However, diabetics
can take steps to prevent diabetes and
control the disease, through a special
diabetic diet thereby lowering the risk
of complications.

There are many recipes available to prepare
a suitable diabetes diet

TYPES OF DIABETES

Type 1 diabetes develops when the body's
immune system destroys pancreatic beta
cells, the only cells in the body that make the
hormone insulin that regulates blood sugar.
For diabetics to survive with type 1 diabetes
means they must have insulin delivered by
injection or a pump.

This form of diabetes usually strikes children,
known as juvenile diabetes, and young adults
although the disease onset can occur at any age.
Type 1 diabetes accounts for 5% to 10% of all
diagnosed cases of diabetes.

Symptoms of diabetes type 1 tend to develop
quite quickly, over a few days or weeks.
They include: excess thirst, passing large
amounts of urine, tiredness, weight loss,
and feeling generally unwell. After treatment
is started these symptoms soon go. But, without
treatment, the blood glucose level can go
very high causing you to become very ill,
lapse into a coma and even die.


Type 2 diabetes usually begins as insulin
resistance, a disorder in which the body cells
cannot use insulin properly. As the need for
insulin rises, the pancreas gradually loses its
ability to produce it.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form.

Type 2 accounts for around 90% to
95% of all diagnosed cases of diabetes.

Symptoms of type ii diabetes include:
excess thirst, passing large amounts of urine,
tiredness, weight loss, and feeling generally
unwell. Type 2 diabetes symptoms tend to
develop quite slowly, over weeks or months.

Gestational diabetes is a form of glucose
intolerance that occurs in some women
during pregnancy. Women who have had
gestational diabetes have a 20% to 50%
chance of developing diabetes in the next 5
10 years.

Other types of diabetes result from specific
genetic conditions, surgery, drugs, infections,
malnutrition, and other illnesses, accounting
for 1% to 5% of all diagnosed cases