Nutrition info 101: What is diabetes?

August 6, 9:29 AMNutrition ExaminerCarol Bardelli

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Nutrition Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Sugar raises blood glucose and isn't appropriate for a diabetic diet.

Diabetes is a disease of the pancreas in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. One of your pancreas' primary functions is to produce insulin.

When you eat foods, particularly carbohydrates,  your blood sugar rises. If your pancreas is normal it produces insulin to shuttle blood sugar into your cells.

Insulin is a hormone and required to convert sugar, starches and other foods into energy. Without enough insulin, blood sugar rises to dangerous levels. See videos below on more diabetes information.

If uncontrolled by diet, exercise, and sometimes drugs, diabetes can cause serious damage and even death. The symptoms of high blood sugar (and diabetes) include excessive thirst, increased urination, unusual weight gain or loss, increased or constant hunger, fatigue, irritability, wounds  that are slow to heal, blurred vision, and mental confusion. The dangers of continued high blood sugar or uncontolled blood sugar are cell and artery damage, limb numbness, blindness, gangrene, loss of affected limbs due to amputation, heart disease, coma and death.

There are two forms of diabetes. The most common and most often diagnosed is type 2 (also referred to as type II,) or adult onset diabetes, or diabetes mellitus. The lesser diagnosed, but more serious form is type 1 (type I,) or juvenile onset diabetes.

While type II diabetes is characterized by the pancreas not being able to produce enough insulin to keep up with increasing demand of blood sugar. Type I is caused by an inherited defect, or damage to the pancreas.

Statistics show at least 23 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes. This means roughly 8 percent of the population suffers from diabetes. Only an estimated 18 million people have been diagnosed with diabetes. It's estimated another 5 million people are unaware that they have the disease.

Diagnosis of diabetes is done by a procedure called a Fasting Plasma Glucose Test (FPG,) or an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). The American Diabetes Association recommends FPG testing as it's easier, faster, and less expensive. Test results showing a fasting blood glucose level between 100 and 125 mg/dl means a patient has pre-diabetes. A person with a fasting blood glucose level of 126 mg/dl or higher has diabetes.

Pre-diabetes is a precursor of diabetes and should be taken seriously. Both careful weight control, diet and exercise can prevent pre-diabetes from becoming full blown diabetes.

When your cells become insulin resistant, they lose their sensitivity to insulin. As a result, large quantities of glucose cannot enter the cells, remaining instead, in the blood stream where it passes to the liver and is converted to fat. This process often leads to weight gain.

Diabetes 2 can be controlled with diet. Dr. David Dahlman discusses a proper diabetes diet and contrasts it with the inaccurate dietary information recommended by the American Diabetes Association.

Dr. Mercola on How My Aunt's Death Can Help You "Cure" Type 2 Diabetes. Not only is type 2 diabetes completely preventable, but it is virtually curable for anyone who is willing to put in the hard time and work and recovering their insulin and leptin sensitivity.

For more info: Carbohydrates and  diabetes.