Diabetes currently affects 246 million people worldwide. In South Africa, there are about 6.5 million diabetics, and it is estimated that approximately 25% do not know that they are diabetic. In celebration of World Diabetes Day on Saturday, 14 November this article aims to inform you about the disease and give you the necessary management tools to live a healthy happy life. So, read on, get to grips with the facts and do what you can to live your best life.
Diabetes currently affects 246 million people worldwide. In South Africa, there are about 6.5 million diabetics, and it is estimated that approximately 25% do not know that they are diabetic. In celebration of World Diabetes Day on Saturday, 14 November this article aims to inform you about the disease and give you the necessary management tools to live a healthy happy life. So, read on, get to grips with the facts and do what you can to live your best life.
According to Diabetes SA, diabetes is a condition in which your body is unable to absorb the glucose (blood sugar) from the food you eat.
Glucose is found in foods such as bread, cereals, pasta, rice, potatoes, fruits and some vegetables and to use glucose, your body needs insulin. Insulin is secreted by a gland in your body called the pancreas. While glucose circulates in the bloodstream and is used as food for the body’s cells, the cells cannot absorb the glucose by itself.
A hormone called insulin, which is produced in the pancreas, must first bind to the cell surface. When this happens, the cells of the body are activated and are able to absorb the glucose. This process takes glucose out of the blood and into the cells. So, diabetes is a disorder that affects the body’s ability to efficiently utilise blood glucose. In the three different types of diabetes, the body has problems accessing the glucose from the food you have eaten in different ways.
The body’s cells need fuel to provide energy for living, breathing, seeing and thinking and this fuel comes from the food we eat. Food is digested in the stomach and flows into the bloodstream as glucose, a form of energy.
To bind’ with the cells in the body, the glucose needs the help of a hormone called insulin. Usually a gland called the pancreas makes insulin which carries the glucose into the blood cells. In type 1 diabetes the pancreas produces very little or no insulin and as a result the body cannot use the glucose in the food and glucose levels in the blood rise.
This is dangerous because blood sugar should remain at a relatively constant level, and the dramatic surge can slowly damage fine nerves and small and large blood vessels resulting in a variety of complications including heart disease, blindness, amputation, kidney disease and impotence. To treat type 1 diabetes, daily injections of insulin are needed. Although the exact cause is unknown, genetics, viruses, and autoimmune problems may play a role. Type 1 diabetes, unlike type 2, is not preventable.
Type 2 diabetes usually occurs in people over the age of forty who are overweight and may have high blood pressure (hypertension) and high cholesterol. This type is largely a lifestyle illness and between 90 and 95% of diabetics suffer from type 2 diabetes.
Here the pancreas does produce insulin but the insulin does not work efficiently because the body’s cells are immune to it. The cells send a signal back to the pancreas which senses that the blood glucose level is too high. The pancreas then makes more and more insulin to try and move the glucose from the bloodstream into the cells but this can lead to exhaustion of the pancreas over the years and it may stop producing insulin altogether, in which case insulin injections would be necessary.
Some people might think that type 2 diabetes is not as serious as type 1 because you might not need to take insulin injections but this is not the case. Type 2 must be taken seriously.
Although anyone can develop type 2 diabetes, there are many factors that increase one’s risk. These include: Age; a parent or sibling with diabetes; Gestational diabetes; delivering a baby that weighs more than 4.5 kg; heart disease; obesity; inactivity (lack of exercise); polycystic ovarian syndrome; Some ethnic groups – people of African descent are at increased risk.
The third type of diabetes, gestational diabetes, can develop at any time during pregnancy in a woman who has not previously had diabetes. Gestational diabetes usually resolves itself once the child is born, but there is a 40% chance that the mother will go on to develop type 2 diabetes later in life.
All types of diabetes are treatable but type 1 and 2 last a lifetime as there is no known cure. However, the good news is that having diabetes does not mean the end of a normal healthy life. Associate professor at the Rhodes Pharmacy department, Sunitha Srinivas, says people who have diabetes can manage it to live happy lives while those who do not have it can prevent developing it.
“Diet and physical activity are crucial to managing and preventing this disease. Simple lifestyle choices like eating fruits and vegetables and being physically active by walking wherever possible, gardening as much as possible and using stairways instead of elevators are ways of balancing ‘inputs of calories’ with expenditure of energy so that ‘excess’ does not accumulate,” she said.
According to Srinivas a healthy diet is the foundation for good blood sugar control in any type of diabetes. “Even if you are being treated with insulin you should still follow a healthy diet,” she said. According to the Weigh-Less food management programme, three lifestyle changes will have a major impact on your blood glucose levels: what you eat, how much you eat and what you eat with it. By choosing the right types of food in the right quantities you can significantly improve your ability to control your blood glucose levels.
