Diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder that causes damage to the body systems and organs through an increase in blood sugar levels well above normal. This increase in blood sugar can be the result of two different types of diabetes. In Type-1 diabetes the pancreas shuts down and no longer produces insulin. While in Type-2 diabetes insulin continues to be produced but the body becomes resistant to the hormone and can no longer use it.
Changes to your health happens over years and can sometimes be attributed to the aging process as well. Unfortunately, kidney damage, heart damage and stroke happen at a time when an individual is already facing a decline in eyesight, memory, hearing and energy levels that accompany the process of aging when you may not have made the best lifestyle choices.
Diabetes will also have an effect on the eyesight, heart disease, kidney disease and peripheral vascular disease. The effect of diabetes ends with devastation that leaves an individual debilitated at the end of their life.
These changes can be delayed when you make several lifestyle changes and choices that improve your health. But these changes potentially require major differences in the way that you live, eat and enjoy a social life. In either case the person who suffers from diabetes will go through a grieving process because of both the lifestyle choices that are forced upon them and the potential future they are now facing.
The symptoms of diabetes are sometimes so subtle that people will ignore them and put off diagnosis for weeks and even months. Researchers are now finding that the earlier a diagnosis is made, the longer medical repercussions of diabetes can be delayed. These symptoms are caused by high blood glucose level, or blood sugar level, that affects the way in which the kidney filters urine. (1,2)
References:
(1) PennState Hershey Milton S. Hershey Medical Center: Diabetes Type-1
http://pennstatehershey.adam.com/content.aspx?productId=10&pid=10&gid=000009
(2) American Diabetes Association: Tight Diabetes Control
(3) Kids Health: Long-Term Complications of Diabetes
http://kidshealth.org/teen/diabetes_center/basics/complications.html
(4) Medline Plus: Long-term Complications of diabetes
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/patientinstructions/000327.htm
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