Can you visualize the response of a ‘healthy’
person when he finds out in a random blood test that his blood glucose is
elevated? It is initially disbelief, anguish, anxiety, worry and mix of many
other emotional expressions! In a few days, however, many of these feelings and
expression vanish except the few ones which appear and disappear depending upon
family and peer pressure regarding consuming a particular type of food or not.
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This is as much concern we have about the
condition that is called ‘diabetes’ and how we take care of our selves after
becoming a patient of diabetes. The little knowledge or rather lack of it
regarding the high glucose condition in blood and how to respond to it and
regulate it makes many people prone to becoming diabetics besides the early
diagnosis in random tests. In addition to high glucose level, one must notice the symptoms as well which indicate towards the diabetic condition, some of which are mentioned in the cartoon below.
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According to International Diabetes Federation’s ‘Diabetes Atlas’, there are 382 million people suffering from
diabetes globally and this number is likely to increase to nearly 600 million
by 2035, which is alarming. Initially, diabetes considered a disease of rich
and affluent, but now 80% of patients presently live in poor – or –
middle-income nations. China and India are on the top of the chart with 98 and
65 millions sufferers, respectively. Majority of the patients are from active
work force between the ages 40-60 years.
Irony is that most of these cases are
preventable and/or manageable. But the lack of right education, resources and
awareness plays key role in increasing the incidence of diseases. Thus,
knowledge of the disease and awareness about how to prevent or delay it or live
with it subsequent to diagnosis is crucial factors in fighting with this global
health menace.
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Diabetes (type 1, 2 or gestational), sugar or
high glucose condition, by whatever names you may know it, the common factor is
increased blood glucose level even though the causes may differ from person to
person.
In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas does not
secret insulin, a hormone that regulates the level of glucose in blood. In type
2 diabetes, either insulin is not secreted by pancreas or if secreted it fails
to function due to various reasons, one of them being insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance develops due to many reasons, and obesity is one of the
reasons. The gestational diabetes is a specific condition where some women
develop diabetes like condition during the third trimester of their pregnancy
due to increase levels of estrogen hormone. Metabolically, hormones estrogen
and insulin work in opposition to each other.
Gestational diabetes, although in many cases
disappears after delivery, in few cases it remains and leads to type 2
diabetes. The relation ship between the two is however not very clearly known
at present.
In all these cases the insulin is either not
formed or is not functional, and thus is not able to control the glucose level.
So main culprit here is insulin.
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Insulin is a hormone that helps the body
organs like liver, muscle and adipose tissue take up glucose from the blood
after the meal. In a healthy person this is the way that carbohydrate we
consume as food or drink is channeled to these organs where they are stored and
utilized as and when needed by the body.
Diabetes develops from our careless lifestyle
and food habits. As physical activities get narrowed down due to conveniences
created by extraordinary technological advances in recent years, body’s energy
requirement has drastically decreased. On the other hand our meals have become
heavy, nutritious, rich in calorie and increased consumption of such food
quickly makes us obese.
Consumption of more food than the body
requires for daily activities and maintenance, will lead to storage in body,
which slowly but steadily results in obesity.
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Obesity is an unhealthy state as has been proven
scientifically. It creates a chronic inflammatory condition in the body which
acts as breeding ground for many diseases such as cancer, asthma and
cardiovascular diseases, and also creates conditions like insulin resistance,
which leads to diabetes.
Thus, what we eat, how we eat, when we eat
and how we utilized what we have eaten determine and plays important role in
our health as well as diseases. Basically, we become what we consume as our
food. Personal and social eating behaviors decidedly play role in what and how
much we consume. People often end up eating in excess due to individual
temptation as well as family and peer pressure. Tendency to convince the self
or persuade the other that one day of splurge will not matter much often lead
to overeating. One incidence of indiscipline in eating makes one prone to
splurge often, which deteriorates the health and leads to obesity and disease
development.
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Although some people may be genetically predisposed to
develop diabetes, but awareness and vigilant dietary habit can help delay the
disease development and can certainly help manage the disease and prevent
health deterioration.