Diabetes – Symptoms, Test And Control

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a defect in the body’s ability to convert glucose to energy. It is caused due to insufficient production of glucose by the pancreas. In diabetes patients, the production of glucose is impaired.

What are the symptoms of Diabetes?

Patients with Type-1 diabetes usually develop symptoms over a short period of time, and the condition is often diagnosed in an emergency setting.

Symptoms of type 1 diabetes:

Increased thirst
Fatigue
Nausea
Increased urination
Weight loss in spite of increased appetite
Vomiting

However, because Type-2 diabetes develops slowly, some people with high blood sugar experience no symptoms at all.

Symptoms of type 2 diabetes:

Increased thirst
Impotence in men
Increased appetite
Increased urination
Blurred vision
Fatigue
Slow-healing infections

How to diagnose diabetes?

The diagnosis of diabetes is made by a simple blood test measuring blood glucose level. Usually blood glucose level tests are repeated on a subsequent day to confirm the diagnosis. Your health care team may also request that you have a glucose tolerance test. If two hours after taking the glucose drink your glucose level is 200 or above, you will be diagnosed as having diabetes.

How can I control diabetes?

Gather all the information about diabetes, its symptoms and causes
Check your blood glucose level regularly
If find any symptom of diabetes, visit your health care team for diagnosis of diabetes
Ask your health care team about how to check blood glucose level at home
Stop smoking
Exercise daily
Follow a healthy meal plan
Check your vision at regular intervals, If found blurred visit your health care team
Check your feet regularly for checking the occurrence of diabetes
If you are diabetic, monitor you diabetes regularly
Follow instructions of health care team strictly
Avoid sweet ingredients, use sugar free food

Can diabetes be cured?

As yet, there is no treatment for either type of diabetes, although there are many ways of keeping diabetes in control. Studies have shown that good control of blood glucose (blood sugar) is the key to avoid diabetic complications later.

What are the treatment options to cure diabetes?

Diabetes is incurable. The only option is to prevent ourselves from diabetes or to keep diabetes under control.

Is diabetes a hereditary disease?

You are at higher risk of Type 2 diabetes if you have a parent, brother or sister with diabetes.

Complications of Diabetes

If you have diabetes, you are much more likely to have a risk of stroke, heart disease, or a heart attack. In fact, 2 out of 3 people with diabetes die from stroke or heart disease. There are three conditions that make people with diabetes vulnerable to foot problems. These are vascular disease and foot deformities. About 30 percent of patients with Type 1 diabetes and 10 to 40 percent of those with Type 2 diabetes eventually will suffer from kidney failure. Diabetes also may cause damage to nerves in your body.

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Simple But Effective Home Remedies for Diabetes

Diabetes is a disease that varies the way your body utilize sugar. The food you eat develops to sugar and this sugar travels through the blood to all parts of the body. Generally, insulin assists get sugar from the blood to the body’s cells, where it is used for energy or power in the body. When you have diabetes, your body has trouble making and/or reacts to insulin. So your body does not get the fuel it desires. And your blood sugar goes too high.

Types of Diabetes:

Type 1 or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) occurs when the pancreas becomes unsuccessful to make sufficient insulin. It usually occurs in childhood or adolescence but can expand at any age. These patients need insulin each day.

Type 2 or non-insulin dependant diabetes mellitus occurs when body cells develop into resistant to insulin. This is more general among adults, particularly those who are overweight and over age 40. These people are able to manage their blood sugar levels through weight control, regular exercise and a well-balanced diet. Some people need oral medications or insulin injection to lower blood sugar.

Symptoms of Diabetes

Early Symptoms

Increased thirst, increased urination, increased appetite are the initial signs.

In type I weight loss is seen and in type II obesity is seen.

Additional Symptoms

Other possible symptoms are blurred vision, skin irritation or infection, weakness or loss of strength, and decreased healing capability.

Clinical lab test information reveal glycosuria (sugar in urine), hyperglycaemia, abnormal glucose tolerance tests.

If diabetes is not identified at the right time symptoms like fluid and electrolyte imbalance, acidosis, coma is seen.

Causes of Diabetes

Cause for IDDM

IDDM mostly outcome from a virally initiated autoimmune destruction of beta cells of the pancreas.

Cause for NIDDM

NIDDM is determined heritably and is expressed with age or other factors like obesity, diet and inactivity.

Home Remedies for Diabetes

1. Diabetes treatment with Bitter Gourd

Among the several home remedies that have proved helpful in controlling diabetes, perhaps the most vital is the use of bitter gourd. It has lately been established that bitter gourd contains a hypoglycaemic or insulin-like principle, designated as ‘plantinsulin’, which has been found precious in lowering the blood and urine sugar levels. It should, therefore, be included generously in the diet of the diabetic. For better results, the diabetic must take the juice of about four or five karelas each morning on an empty stomach. The seeds can be added to food in a powdered state. Diabetics can also use bitter gourd in the state of a decoction by boiling the pieces in water or in the form of dry powder.

2. Diabetes treatment with Indian Gooseberry

Indian gooseberry, with its high vitamin C content, is considered precious in diabetes. A tablespoon of its juice, mixed with a cup of bitter gourd juice, taken daily for two months, will arouses the islets of Langerhans, that is, the isolated group of cells that secrete the hormone insulin in the pancreas. This mixture decreases the blood sugar in diabetes.

3. Diabetes treatment with Jambul Fruit

Jambul fruit is another useful home remedy. It is regarded in customary medicine as a specific against diabetes because of its effect on the pancreas. The fruit as such, the seeds, and fruit juice are all helpful in the treatment of this disease. The seeds contain a glucoside ‘jamboline’ which is supposed to have the power to check the pathological conversion of starch into sugar in cases of increased production of glucose.

The seeds must be dried and powdered. One teaspoon of this powder should be mixed in one cup of milk or water or half a cup of curd, and taken two times daily. The internal bark of the jambul tree is also used in the treatment of diabetes. The bark is dried out and burnt. It will create an ash of white colour. This ash must be pestled in mortar, strained and bottled. The diabetic patient must be given ten grams of this ash on an empty stomach with water in the morning, and twenty grams in the afternoon, and in the evening an hour after taking meals. An equal amount of amla powder, jamun powder, and bitter gourd powder also makes a very useful remedy for diabetes. A teaspoon of this mixture once or twice a day would be efficient in checking the progress of the disease.

4. Diabetes treatment with Grapefruit

Grapefruit is a fine food in the diet of a diabetic patient. If grapefruits were eaten more generously, there would be much less diabetes. If you have sugar, use three grapefruits three times in a day. If you do not have sugar, but a propensity towards it and want to prevent it, use three a day.

5. Diabetes treatment with Fenugreek

The seeds of fenugreek have been found useful in the treatment of diabetes. Fenugreek seeds, when given in changeable doses of 25 gm to 100 gm daily, diminish reactive hyperglycaemia in diabetic patients. Levels of glucose, serum cholesterol, and triglycerides were also appreciably reduced in the diabetes patients when the seeds were consumed.

6. Diabetes treatment with Bengal Gram

Experiments have shown that the drinking of water extract of Bengal gram enhances the use of glucose in both diabetic and normal persons. When kept on a diet which incorporated liberal supplements of Bengal gram extract, the condition of tile patient improved considerably and his insulin requirement was decreased to about twenty units per day. Diabetes patients who are on a set diet which does not severely limit the intake of carbohydrates, but includes liberal amounts of Bengal gram extract, have shown significant improvement in their fasting blood sugar levels, glucose tolerance, urinary excretion of sugar, and general condition.

7. Diabetes treatment via Black Gram

For a milder sort of diabetes, two tablespoons of germinated black gram, taken with half a cup of fresh bitter gourd juice and a teaspoon of honey, is said to be valuable. It should be taken once each day for three to four months. A limit should be placed on the intake of carbohydrates. Still in severe cases, regular use of this combination, with other precautions, is helpful as a health-giving food for the prevention of various complications that may arise due to malnutrition in diabetics.

8. Diabetes treatment with Mango Leaves

The tender leaves of the mango tree are measured useful in diabetes. An infusion is prepared by soaking 15 gm of fresh leaves in 250 ml of water overnight, and squeezing them fine in the water in the moming. This filtrate should be taken every morning to manage early diabetes. As an option, the leaves should be dried in the shade, powdered and preserved for use when necessary. Half a teaspoon of this powder should be taken two times in a day.

9. Diabetes treatment via Parslane

The seeds of parslane are helpful in diabetes. A teaspoon of the seeds should be taken each day with half a cup of water for three to four months. It will raises the body’s own insulin and help in curing diabetes.

10. Diabetes treatment via Other Foods

Besides bitter gourd, certain other vegetables have been found helpful in diabetes. These comprise string beans, cucumber, onion, and garlic. Tea made of the pods of string beans is important in diabetes.

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