What You Need To Know About Diabetes-How Sweet it Is!
Diabetes-How Sweet Are You?
Diabetes, sometimes called “a touch of sugar” is an illness which affects blood sugar levels and insulin resistance. There are two types of diabetes, type 1 and type 2, both of which are manageable, but with different symptoms, treatments, and health risks. There is also a third type called gestational diabetes, which is only a risk if you are pregnant. The Center for Disease Control reports, “Most of the food you eat is broken down into sugar (also called glucose) and released into your bloodstream. Your pancreas makes a hormone called insulin, which acts like a key to let the blood sugar into your body’s cells for use as energy. If you have diabetes, your body either doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use the insulin it makes as well as it should.”
Diabetes is treatable with insulin injections, and continual blood sugar level testing. Those diagnosed and treated early have an easier time of managing symptoms and less additional health issues. Diabetes, when left untreated can cause permanent nerve damage, kidney failure, heart disease and vision loss.
What is Type 1 Diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes is the least common form of this chronic illness affecting approximately 5-10% of cases. It is often diagnosed in young children, sometimes as early as birth, because of this it’s sometimes referred to as juvenile diabetes. Those diagnosed with this type are unable to produce appropriate amounts of insulin to break down sugars in the blood stream. This doesn’t allow the sugar to be transferred into energy, and as it builds up in the blood stream it can cause serious health issues, including the above-mentioned risks, such as kidney failure and blindness.
Unlike type 2 diabetes which often occurs due to lifestyle choices, type 1 diabetes is genetic, and there is no cure or preventative measure. Type 1 diabetes is controllable with daily insulin injections, constant blood tests, and frequent doctor checkups. It’s important that medication is taken as prescribed. To refill a prescription, you can use a telemedicine based doctor if your family doctor isn’t available. Telemedicine services provide access to American based physicians, who can send a prescription to your local pharmacy for pickup.
What is Type 2 Diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes differs from type 1 in that the body makes enough insulin, but the cells in your body don’t respond appropriately. This is called insulin resistance, and just like in type 1, without insulin properly breaking down the sugar, blood sugar levels become too high and cause the pancreas to make even more insulin, which still doesn’t help, and prediabetes and then diabetes type 2 take hold.
Type 2 diabetes is often caused by lifestyle choices, such as poor eating, overindulgence of alcohol, and not enough physical exercise. When too much sugar is consumed, and not enough exercise occurs to burn the fuel the body makes, the sugar is stored. Too much sugar in the blood stream makes it difficult for the pancreas and insulin levels to keep up. This can lead to insulin resistance.
Type 2 diabetes is sometimes treated like type 1, with insulin injections, but often a doctor will recommend strategies to change your diet and exercise patterns. If your doctor catches prediabetes in the early stages, you can reverse the effect and avoid diabetes altogether.
How Do you Prevent Diabetes?
Diabetes type 2 can be prevented with a few dramatic lifestyle changes. Exercising regularly, eating healthy portions of fresh whole foods, and drinking plenty of water can help lower the risk of diabetes. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, “Excess weight is the single most important cause of type 2 diabetes. Being overweight increases the chances of developing type 2 diabetes seven fold. Being obese makes you 20 to 40 times more likely to develop diabetes than someone with a healthy weight.”
The Online Difference
Just like choosing a conventional doctor, you will need to look at what each physician offers on their online platform. CBS News and Fox Business both have recently featured online doctors on their broadcasts. The great part about a doctor who has a practice online is that there is no traveling cost to see who you want to see. Indeed, many professionals in the field are calling online based doctors the new frontier in the realm of healthcare.
Not only is going online for your healthcare more convenient, but it is often less expensive. Instead of paying high prices to see a doctor in his or her office, you can simply register for a website’s doctor and become privy to their discounted consultation rates. The average cost for a telemedicineconsultation is about $60, give or take. Of course, this is more expensive for someone who has to pay nothing to see a doctor, but the convenience is well worth the price. What’s more is that some insurance companies actually offer incentives for using state-of-the-art healthcare alternatives.
Getting your Diabetes Supplies and Medications
If you or someone you love is dealing with the effects of Type I or Type II Diabetes, then you may want to know that a virtual doctor can send you prescribed medications and supplies just the same as a conventional physician. Online for your disease are sometimes hard to come by, but not when you work with a reputable doctor who has a practice online. Simply ask your doctor what sorts of things he or she can do for so that you can manage your ailment more effectively and conveniently.
By having your virtual doctor fill prescriptions for you online, you can always be sure that you have what you need when you need it. No longer will you have to make an appointment to wait in the doctor’s office, just so that you can walk out knowing the same things as you always knew. You can locate a reputable virtual doctor and they will be able to diagnose many simple issues for you while also being able to fill all of your prescriptions over the Internet.
Get At-Home Diabetes Management
You no longer have to leave the comfort of your home to get diabetes management when you work with a virtual health care provider. Perhaps you have diabetic sores on your feet or trouble getting around due to your weight. Virtual doctors certainly help you maintain your failing health by offering their services from the computer screen. Going back and forth to the doctor’s office is not something that is easy for some people, especially those who are suffering from advanced diabetic symptoms. Because of this, getting at-home healthcare without paying an outrageous price is a wonderful opportunity.
Manage your Weight
It is one thing to get in touch with an doctor for convenience purposes, but what if you have weight issues that are difficult to address in a conventional doctor’s office? You will want to have someone available to you when you have questions, without having to schedule a time-consuming appointment and incurring the cost of an expensive consultation. Those who have weight issues due to their diabetic condition need a healthcare alternative to help them manage their weight.
Diet Planning
Your choice of a health professional is an important one. You need to find one that is willing and able to help you manage your weight through diet planning and implementation. The advantage of a doctor is that you get more of a personal consultation than you would by an overwhelmed conventional physician. In the event of the doctor being too busy with more pressing work, you can always utilize the online nurse practitioners and gain their advice as well. Having someone to ask questions about your diet, exercise, allergies, or lifestyle choices is a priceless asset indeed.
Emergency Help
Sometimes, the amount of time you spend waiting for emergency help can spell the difference between life and death. Those who suffer from diabetes know the importance of quick help, especially when they are having trouble managing their blood sugar levels. Someone passing out from low blood sugar can result in coma or death. You need to be able to have access to your doctor no matter where you are. You can do this when you have a doctor providing your general healthcare needs. In fact, working with the right physician may actually prevent any emergencies from ever happening.
Treatment with Metformin Linked to Lower Risk for Dementia
According to a recent report in HealthDay News, type 2 diabetic patients who begin treatment with metformin have a decreased risk of developing dementia. Metformin is one of the most common oral hypoglycemic medications used in obese diabetic patients. These research results are from a recent study presented at the annual conference of the 2013 International Alzheimer's Association.
The physician researchers analyzed the correlation between type 2 diabetes and dementia in approximately 15,000 patients who were 55 years of age or older. The participants were in a specific diabetes registry and began single oral diabetic medication therapy between 1999 and 2001. During a five year follow up period, almost 1,400 patients (10 percent) developed dementia, and 55 percent took metformin (Health Day, 2013).
When a comparison was made with patients using sulfonylureas, researchers discovered that only those taking metformin had a reduced risk of getting dementia. The hazard ratio was 0.79 after various adjustments were made for age, race, education and length of time with diabetes. A hazard ratio is defined as a measurement of the frequency of a particular event happening in one test group compared to the frequency of it occurring in another group over a period of time.
As compared to the subjects taking metformin, those who took sulfonylureas, thiazolidinediones, and insulin had a greater chance of developing dementia. The hazard ratios ranged from 1.18 to 1.28. Study investigators concluded that type 2 diabetic patients taking metformin had a five year reduced risk of dementia when compared to diabetics utilizing other forms of diabetic therapies. These results are considered to be preliminary evidence that the benefits of insulin sensitizers, like metformin, could go beyond control of glycemia to neurocognitive health as well.
Hypertension and Preeclampsia Doubled Risk for Diabetes in Pregnant Women
According to an article published in Endocrine Today in April of this year, women who have either preeclampsia or gestational hypertension during their pregnancy have two times the risk of developing diabetes when they are followed up to 16 years post pregnancy. This is according to the results of a study done in Ontario, Canada (Feig, 2013).
Gestational hypertension is generally defined as blood pressure in excess of 140/90, with no protein in the urine, diagnosed after 20 weeks of gestation. The accepted definition of preeclampsia is gestational hypertension with proteinuria (greater than 300 mg of protein found in a 24 hour urine specimen). It has already been established that women with preeclampsia or gestational hypertension show resistance to insulin during pregnancy. This is independent of glucose intolerance or obesity (CDC, 2011).
Canadian researchers conducted a study of more than 1 million pregnant women, in the age group of 15 to 50 years, who gave birth in Ontario between 1994 and 2008. Subject categories included having just preeclampsia (22,933 subjects), only gestational hypertension (27,605 patients), gestational diabetes alone (30,852 women), gestational diabetes with preeclampsia (1,476), gestational diabetes as well as gestational hypertension (2,100) or none of the above conditions (925,102).
According to resulting data, the incidence rate for diabetes per 1,000 person-years was 6.47 for subjects who had preeclampsia and 5.26 for those with gestational hypertension versus 2.81 in patients who had neither condition. Additional data indicated that having just preeclampsia or only gestational hypertension were also risk factors for resulting diabetes later on.
Furthermore, women with a diagnosis of gestational diabetes had an increased chance of going on to develop diabetes later in life. However, the presence of either preeclampsia or gestational hypertension, in combination with gestational diabetes, increased the risk for postpartum diabetes even more. These Canadian researchers suggest their results have maternal health implications. Hence, a history of either gestational hypertension or preeclampsia should alert health care professionals to the requirements for preventative counseling and increased vigilance in diabetes screening.
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