Tag: Types Of Diabetes

What Is Diabetes?

Ellen

Unknown to many people, diabetes is actually a very common and chronic disease. But what is diabetes really? Now, to better understand the condition, diabetes is a disorder. It’s a disorder that affects the way that the body uses up the energy it gets from food. In a normal body, the sugar that is taken in breaks it down into glucose or a simple sugar. This is what circulates in the blood and it waits to go into the cells to be used up as fuel.

To better understand what is diabetes, we must also look at how this blood enters into the cells because they cannot do it alone. This is where insulin comes in. Insulin is a hormone and it is made in the pancreas. Insulin will help the glucose move into the cells so that the glucose can be used. A healthy pancreas means that a healthy amount of insulin is made. But with a condition like diabetes, this is not the case because insulin levels then go down and the glucose gets way too high.

So what is diabetes? There are actually two main kinds of the condition. There is type 1 diabetes and this is when a person cannot produce insulin at all. Then there is Type 2 diabetes where people can produce insulin but the cells do not respond to the insulin. In these two types of diabetes, glucose cannot move into the cells and high glucose levels are very dangerous to a persons well being.

What is diabetes mellitus? The word diabetes means siphon in Greek. Mel in Latin is a word that means honey. Now people with diabetes often urinate and have blood that is sweet because of the excess glucose. This is also how the term “Sweet Urine Disease” was also coined. And you may want to read our next article that is about the signs of diabetes and there we will explain to you how to spot the signs of diabetes.

What Is Gestational Diabetes?

Ellen

Gestational diabetes is a kind of diabetes which affects mainly the pregnant woman. How does gestational diabetes develop? When a woman is pregnant, the hormones which are responsible for the development of placenta block the insulin in the mother’s body. It reduces the receptivity of insulin by the cells and this situation is known as the insulin resistance.

It is believed that 4% of pregnant women have the risk of getting affected by gestational diabetes. It has found that around 150,000 cases of gestational diabetes occur every year in U.S.

When a woman is pregnant she requires thrice the amount of insulin to make the glucose to enter into the cells. The shortage of insulin due to insulin resistance transforms to gestational diabetes. When the glucose mounts in the blood, it is called as hyperglycemia.
Too much of glucose may affect the health of the baby when the woman is pregnant.

Gestational diabetes is more frequent in women with late pregnancy. As the insulin fails to cross the placenta, the excess blood glucose passes to the baby. It forces the baby’s pancreas to make extra insulin to meet the excess blood glucose.

As the baby receives more energy than the required level, the excess will be stored in the form of fat. This makes your baby fat at birth and may even lead to hypoglycemia or respiratory problems.

Is treatment for gestational diabetes necessary?

Much care and attention is needed for gestational diabetes as it may severely harm you and your child. The ultimate aim of the treatment is to keep the blood glucose level under control. The treatment includes routine exercise and a planned diet. You have to take insulin injections if required. Frequent check up of blood glucose level helps you to keep the blood sugar under control. If gestational diabetes is treated properly you can even avoid even the cesarean section.

Normally gestational diabetes does not show off after pregnancy. Since you have already had gestational diabetes, your chances for appearing of this disease is more in the next pregnancy.

Sometimes it may become hard to discover whether the woman has gestational diabetes or any of other two type of diabetes. If the pregnancy exposes type1 or type2 diabetes, then that women should continue her diabetes treatment even after the pregnancy.

Also the possibilities of developing type2 diabetes in future are more in the gestational diabetic patients. It is mainly because both gestational and type2 diabetes are insulin resistant in nature. However a change in your normal life style can prevent the onset of diabetes after the gestational diabetes. If you are weighing more, then losing a few pounds can be effective in preventing the diabetes. Also choosing a healthy diet and undergoing routine exercise can give you better results.