Diabetes is a condition that affects millions of people across the world. It’s a deadly disease if left untreated. Diabetes relates to a failure to produce or manage insulin. Typically, your body breaks down sugars and carbohydrates that you eat into blood glucose. Blood glucose is what your body consumes to give it the energy it needs to run a mile, think through problems at work, and carry out a range of bodily functions. It’s what keeps you moving.
There are two kinds of diabetes, type 1 diabetes, and type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes affects people of all ages, body types, and genders. For whatever reason, the pancreas, where insulin is produced, fails and, without insulin, your body fails to convert foods into blood glucose the way it should. Type 2 diabetes, on the other hand, typically affects obese and overweight people. It’s the most common type of diabetes and often requires medical intervention.
Diabetes is a common condition. You likely know people in your life who live with or who have lived with diabetes in the past. Understanding diabetes and different treatment options can help you or someone you know live better with the condition. Here is some helpful information on diabetes to get you started.
Type 1 Vs. Type 2 Diabetes
In type 1 diabetes, people experience failure of the pancreas. Sometimes, some other medical condition can trigger pancreatic loss, and other times doctors have no clue why it’s happening. People young and old deal with type 1 diabetes, and while challenging, it’s perfectly possible to live a whole life while managing the condition with insulin therapy and other medical options.
Type 2 diabetes happens when the pancreas still works, but the body has difficulty using it properly. Controlling the sugar level that you eat and maintaining a healthy lifestyle with diet and exercise are keys to overcoming many of the symptoms of type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes can be delayed or prevented altogether with profound lifestyle changes.
Symptoms of Diabetes
There are around 40 million diabetics in the United States. Many people have diabetes but don’t know it. Learning to spot the signs and symptoms of diabetes will help people seek treatment faster and experience better health results. Here are some of the symptoms of diabetes:
Thirst
Frequent urination
Unplanned fluctuations in body weight
Irritability
Numb fingers or toes
Poor circulation
Loss of vision
These symptoms typically start relatively minor, but as the condition worsens, so do the signs. In severe cases, people with diabetes have to amputate limbs, go blind, and suffer worse effects.
If you notice these symptoms in yourself or someone you love, you should seek immediate medical attention.
Learning to Manage Blood Glucose Levels
When the pancreas doesn’t deliver the insulin, you need to process food into sugars and get insulin from an external source. The most effective way to do this is via either insulin injections or a pump that attaches to your body. People with diabetes must learn how to manage their sugar levels and continually balance the amount of insulin in their bodies to stay healthy.
Thankfully, significant strides have been made in recent years related to diabetes treatment. There are faster, more accurate blood glucose monitors that work with your phone and stay attached to your body. They give you regular blood glucose measurements and alert you when your glucose levels are too high or too low.
Treating Diabetes
When you have diabetes, you must be prepared for long-term treatment. For a lot of people, this isn’t something that goes away. Of course, maintaining a healthy BMI is an excellent way to give your body a leg up when it comes to processing food and sugars.
In addition to a healthy lifestyle, there are other things you can do like watching what you eat. Eating whole foods high in protein and fiber and staying away from refined carbs and sugary foods make things easier on your body.
Peptides & Diabetes
Oxytocin is a natural protein hormone that is becoming widely available. It increases glucose uptake by boosting insulin sensitivity. It’s a potential diabetes treatment, and research in mice shows that this https://www.peptidesciences.com/oxytocin-10mg-6000iu peptide can help control obesity even with normal levels of food intake and exercise. Studies in both fat and lean mice showed that oxytocin treatment positively affected glucose, insulin, and body composition levels in just the obese mice while having little to no impact on the lean mice. It could point to exciting potential treatment for people with type 2 diabetes.
Finding the proper treatment and building a healthy lifestyle around diabetes will help you or someone you know to live a happy, whole life. While receiving a diabetes diagnosis can be frustrating, advances in medicines and other treatments make a living with diabetes more accessible than ever.
