Comments | the_chanman: Health Bulletin, Chapter IV: Diabetes

the_chanman

Health Bulletin, Chapter IV: Diabetes

Aug 28, 2008 00:24

When most people say "Diabetes," they mean "Diabetes mellitus type 2," which is a different disease than Diabetes mellitus type 1 and diabetes insipidus. I will be talking about Diabetes mellitus type 2 here, since it is the most prevalent and poses the largest threat to American adults. I will also call it DM2, for simplicity.

Simply put, DM2 is ( Read more... )

Comments 5

ruruah August 28 2008, 14:24:44 UTC

haha, can't wait until Ladies' night? =P

cutelittlebug August 29 2008, 23:41:07 UTC

But what does having DM2 actually mean in terms of symptoms? I know you said "hyperglycemia, blood vessel and nerve damage and metabolic dysfunction," but more concretely? Why does it cause kidney failure and blindness and such? Do most people who get diabetes die from it, or is it just a big nuisance to live with for most of them? Addressing those questions might not be the goal of your post, but I'm just interested. There's more motivation to care about not getting a disease when you know how just much it would suck to have it. :)

Nice series, by the way. I, too, am looking forward(?) to ladies' night.

the_chanman August 30 2008, 04:59:09 UTC

Glad you asked. There are two types of symptoms caused by diabetes: those caused by the osmotic pressure of having more of *something* in the blood, and those caused by chemical reactions with glucose. In the first category, glucose keeps water in the extracellular compartment via osmosis, leading to cellular dehydration. Symptom-wise, we are talking coma sometimes leading to death. But even at lower, more chronic elevated glucose levels, symptoms can emerge that may lead to death or severe disability ( ... )

cutelittlebug August 30 2008, 18:00:53 UTC

Thanks.

One other question: if you get diabetes, can you ever get rid of it? I've heard about decreasing insulin resistance through exercise, and that that can help you if you're on the road to diabetes. (Plus the dietary changes you mentioned above.) By the time you get all the way to diabetes, though, is it too late to do that? How do doctors decide, anyway, if someone has diabetes or just pre-diabetes? That is, where's the line?

Sorry, I guess that was more than one question. :)

the_chanman August 30 2008, 21:16:16 UTC

Yay, more questions! As you've stated correctly, insulin resistance is a continuum, and it is rather arbitrary where the line falls. Insulin resistance can never be reversed, unfortunately. It can, however, be slowed. The dietary and exercise measures we've discussed all help to control glucose spikes either by its control through insulin or by slowing the rate of glucose absorption in the first place. But if someone with insulin resistance stops these measures, the resistance will continue to increase. In that sense, diabetes can never really be "cured," just managed ( ... )