The World Health Organisation, WHO, is so concerned
about the worldwide chronic health condition, diabetes that they have decided
to focus on the problem for the Organisation’s World Health day on 7th
April 2016.
World Health Day will be used to highlight the
disease in order to promote strategies to help prevent diabetes and ensure
optimal management for people living with one of the various forms of the
condition. About 350 million people in the world have diabetes and as this
chronic disease becomes more common the importance of learning how to prevent,
detect, treat and manage it becomes more crucial.
What
is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the
body has raised blood sugar - hyperglycamia, which can lead to serious damage,
especially to the nerves and blood vessels. This is caused when either the
pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively
use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar,
which gives us the energy we need to live. If the sugar is unable to get into
the cells to be burned as energy, it can build up to harmful levels in the
blood.
There
are two main forms of the disease.
Type 1 diabetes is characterised by the lack of insulin production
and requires daily insulin injections for survival. The cause is not known and
is not preventable at the moment.
Type 2 diabetes results from the body not producing enough insulin
or the body is resistant to any insulin produced. This form of diabetes
comprises 90% of people with diabetes around the world and is largely due to
excess body weight and lack of physical activity. Until recently, this type of
diabetes was only seen in adults but now it’s found in children. In fact, in
some parts of the world, type 2 diabetes has become the main type of diabetes
in children and adolescents. This is thought to be due to the global rise of
childhood obesity and physical inactivity.
Ultimately, high blood sugars can have devastating
effects on every major organ in the body, leading to heart attacks, strokes,
impotence, blindness, kidney failure and infections that can lead to
amputations.
Other
less common types
Gestational diabetes is hyperglycaemia with blood glucose values above
normal but below those of diagnostic diabetes, when a woman is pregnant. These
women are at an increased risk of complications during pregnancy and delivery
as well as being at increased risk of type 2 diabetes in the future.
Impaired
glucose intolerance (IGT) and impaired fasting glycaemia (IFG)
These are intermediate conditions in the transition
between normality and diabetes but the progression is not inevitable and can be
prevented by following a healthy diet and increasing physical activity.
Symptoms
of Diabetes
- Urinating more frequently, especially at night
- Feeling very thirsty
- Feeling very tired
- Cuts or wounds that don’t heal properly or heal
slowly
- Blurred vision
- Weight loss (more common with type 1 diabetes)
- Itching around the penis or vagina or frequent
bouts of thrush
- Intense hunger which may lead to weight gain
- Irritability due to lack of energy
- Gum disease/infection
- Sexual dysfunction
- Numbness or tingling in hands or feet
Type 1 diabetes symptoms usually
present suddenly and may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting and stomach
pains.
It’s possible to have very mild symptoms or no
symptoms at all with type 2 diabetes. In fact, about half of all people with
type 2 diabetes are unaware of their condition and are therefore undiagnosed.
Also, the condition known as prediabetes, that often leads to type 2 diabetes,
produces no symptoms. Usually, type 2 diabetes and its symptoms develop very
slowly.
Diabetes
Diagnosis
Excess glucose in the urine can be detected by a
simple urine test. This can be followed up by a blood test that measures
blood glucose levels and can confirm a diagnosis of diabetes.
Therefore, if you have any of the symptoms
described above you should visit your GP as soon as possible. It’s very
important that diabetes is diagnosed as early as possible because it will get
progressively worse if left untreated leading to serious health conditions.
If you are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes you will
need insulin injections for the rest of your life. If you are diagnosed with
type 2 diabetes you may be able to control your symptoms by following a healthy
diet, exercising on a regular basis and careful monitoring of your blood
glucose levels. However, you may eventually require medication in the form of
tablets or insulin as type 2 diabetes is a progressive condition.
In the UK there
are 3.9 million people living with diabetes, either diagnosed or undiagnosed,
which is a staggering more than one in 16 people. This figure is constantly
increasing and it’s estimated that by 2025 five million people in the UK alone
will have diabetes. Furthermore, many more people are estimated to have blood
sugar levels above the normal range but not high enough to be diagnosed as
having diabetes. The health implications of this prediction and the cost to the
NHS is frightening.
Overweight and obese people have a much higher risk
of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those with a healthy body weight.
Those with a lot of belly fat or abdominal obesity are especially at risk. That
is why it’s recommended for males to have a waist measurement of less than
94cm(37 inches) and females to measure less than 80cm(31.5 inches). Diabetes
experts are asking world leaders at the G20 leaders summit in Turkey this
weekend to use sugar taxes to fight obesity, arguing that it would save lives
and slash health care budgets . A new report published in the journal Diabetic
Medicine has projected that the NHS’s annual spending on diabetes in the UK
will increase from £9.8 billion to £16.9 billion over the next 25 years, a rise
that means the NHS would be spending 17% of its entire budget on the condition.
Many things can be done to reduce the impact of
diabetes through embracing personal
responsibility by adopting a healthy lifestyle. This
means achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight by being physically
active for at least 30 minutes every day and walking has been advocated in the
press recently as the best way to keep fit. Also, by eating a healthy diet that
includes between 3 and 5 servings of fruit and vegetables daily and reducing
our intake of sugar and saturated fats. Avoiding the use of tobacco is
essential as smoking increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Being overweight, physically inactive and eating
the wrong foods all contribute to our risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Drinking just one can of (non-diet)
soda per day can raise our risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 22%, researchers from Imperial College London reported
in the journal Diabetologia. The scientists believe that the impact of sugary
soft drinks on diabetes risk may be a direct one, rather than simply an
influence on body weight.
There are many diseases which we have no power over
but diabetes is not one of them. Properly treated and managed, the impact of
diabetes can be minimised. Even people with type 1 diabetes can live long and
healthy lives if they keep their blood sugar well controlled.
Medically reviewed by: Superintendent pharmacist Margaret Hudson BSc(Hons)MRPharmS 18/11/15