Can You Tell Me About Type 2 Diabetes?

2 Comments

1. Owen says:

   June 16, 2010 at 1:42 pm

   Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes. In type 2 diabetes, either the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin. Insulin is necessary for the body to be able to use glucose for energy. When you eat food, the body breaks down all of the sugars and starches into glucose, which is the basic fuel for the cells in the body. Insulin takes the sugar from the blood into the cells. When glucose builds up in the blood instead of going into cells, it can cause two problems:

   Right away, your cells may be starved for energy.
   Over time, high blood glucose levels may hurt your eyes, kidneys, nerves or heart.
   Finding out you have diabetes is scary. But don’t panic. Type 2 diabetes is serious, but people with diabetes can live long, healthy, happy lives.

   While diabetes occurs in people of all ages and races, some groups have a higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes than others. Type 2 diabetes is more common in African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, as well as the aged population.

   Conditions & Treatment
   Arm yourself with information about conditions associated with type 2 diabetes, and how to prevent them. Conditions associated with type 2 diabetes include hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. You will also find helpful information about insulin, oral medications, various diagnostic tests including the A1c test, managing and checking your blood glucose, and tips on what to expect from your health care provider.

   Complications
   Having type 2 diabetes increases your risk for many serious complications. Some complications of type 2 diabetes include: heart disease (cardiovascular disease), blindness (retinopathy), nerve damage (neuropathy), and kidney damage (nephropathy). Learn more about these complications and how to cope with them.

   Your Body’s Well Being
   Make it a priority to take good care of your body. The time you spend now on eye care, foot care and skin care, as well as your heart health and oral health, could delay or prevent the onset of dangerous type 2 diabetes complications later in life. Plus, some of the best things you can do for your body are to stop smoking, and reduce the amount of alcohol you drink.

   Common Concerns
   This section addresses various areas to help you live with type 2 diabetes. What do you do when you’re sick? What do you do when you travel? Can you get a flu shot with diabetes? How do you cope with having type 2 diabetes? Are you being discriminated against because you have diabetes? You’ll find answers to these questions, and more in this section.

   Ask the Pharmacist
   The American Diabetes Association and Rite Aid “Ask the Pharmacist” area is where you can ask a pharmacist a question to help you manage your diabetes. Rite Aid and the ADA have partnered to allow you to access to Rite Aid’s Drug Information Center from our Web site.

   Women and Diabetes
   Learn how to ensure your own health and well-being.

   Health Information For Men
   Learn how to ensure your own health and well-being.

   Related Links
   Want to learn more about diabetes? Visit the Healthy Body Healthy Mind Web site and click on the link for “diabetes.” Dr. Nathaniel Clark, Vice President of Clinical Affairs for the Association, and Dr. James Gavin, former president of the Association, joined other diabetes experts to share their insight on diabetes.

   Physician Recognition Program
   This Recognized Physician Directory helps individuals find doctors who have demonstrated they meet important standards of care.

   Education Recognition Program
   The following diabetes education programs in your area are Recognized by the American Diabetes Association. These Recognized programs meet the National Standards for excellence in diabetes education.
2. rickyoutfield says:

   June 16, 2010 at 2:09 pm

   First, a low carb diet to handle your blood sugars – 20-30 carbs a day.

   There is also a website to help with recipes and articles for better understanding. It is diabete-support.com

   The reason for the diet is that – Carbohydrates are simply long chains of sugar molecules hooked end-to-end. When a person eats carbohydrates their normal digestive process breaks up these chains into the individual sugar molecules, and they pass right through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream, and load up the bloodstream with sugar.

   If this happened every once in a while it would not be a problem. But as diets today are so high in carbohydrates, people have a constant high level of sugar pouring into their bloodstream year after year!

   This requires their body to continuously produce high levels of insulin to keep that sugar level down. (Insulin’s job is to push sugar out of the bloodstream into the cells where it is used for energy.)

   Eventually the cells in their body becomes insensitive to the effects of the insulin (insulin resistance). To handle this problem of insulin resistance their body begins to produce even higher levels of insulin. This continues until their pancreas reaches the maximum amount of insulin it can produce, and when the insulin resistance increases again, their blood sugar begins to rise out of control.

   The result is type 2 diabetes! Type 2 diabetes is actually an extreme case of insulin resistance.