The Different Causes of Diabetes
Diabetes is a life-long condition as soon as you’ve developed it and though it may be tough at first, with time, you may manage and treat it effectively. Treating diabetes and preserving it below a manageable level requires understanding the causes of diabetes. There are two sorts of diabetes, simply known as Sort I and Type II.
Childhood diabetes is associated with Kind I and grownup onset diabetes is Type II. The simpler definitions encompass all previous definitions of what is commonly often called Diabetes Mellitus.
Diabetes attributable to an autoimmune reaction within the human body is classed as Kind I. Pancreatic cells, which are responsible for producing insulin, are attacked by this condition, leading to a significant insulin deficiency. The causes of diabetes leading to autoimmune issues are but to be fully recognized, though some possible triggers are believed to be the important cause.
Infections attributable to viruses and micro organism as well as chemical toxins in trendy meals are linked to triggering diabetes. There’s also the concern that very younger toddler’s consumed cow’s milk are susceptible to creating diabetes type I, though the implications are yet to be clearly defined.
Kind-II diabetes is generally found in adults, and it develops primarily on account of insulin resistance. That’s, in this kind of diabetes, insulin is definitely produced in the physique however the cells that need to make use of it usually are not receptive.
The human body is accustomed to producing insulin until it gets used by the specific cells, and when the cells don’t receive the insulin, the body senses that there is an insufficiency, and begins to provide much more insulin. The end results of that is that the pancreatic cells reach a point after which they’re unable to supply helpful insulin, as they’ve been stretched too much. The causes of diabetes of the Type-II form are many and linked to a series of factors.
The danger elements which might be believed to be the primary causes of diabetes in the sort II class are advancing age, weight problems and lack of bodily exercise.
Secondary components embody particular medications, pregnancy (often temporary and generally known as gestational diabetes) and current diseases related to the pancreas, similar to pancreatitis.
The age-previous myths thought-about as causes of diabetes should not true. Eating an excessive amount of sugar does not straight lead to diabetes, however the dysfunction can affect the individual resulting from weight problems which might set in with an excessive amount of sugar. However, regular exercise after consuming sugary foods will keep diabetes away, as all additional energy will get burned.
Stress is unlikely to develop diabetes in a person, but it does have some impression on people who find themselves already vulnerable to the condition. Thought-about as among the remote causes of diabetes, stress is usually more prone to irritate diabetes, relatively than be a direct trigger to trigger it. It’s largely troublesome in relation to kind I diabetes, where an autoimmune situation is triggered.
Diabetes can’t be classified as a illness and it isn’t infectious. It is generally attributed to people’ unhealthy way of life and habits, and different causes of diabetes embody genetic factors, which make it a hereditary problem. A person with a family history must be careful about his way of life and get regular medical checks performed to make sure his nicely-being. Diabetes requires some care and medical consideration to be kept at bay, and if one does get afflicted, with proper medication and precautions, it can be stored below control.
What Causes Diabetes among Adults
Although, the exact cause or causes of diabetes among adults are still hotly contested by medical scientists, at least there are known common risk factors observed among adults who develop diabetes. And knowing these risk factors is the first step against developing adult onset or Type 2 diabetes, says doctors. Aside from knowing what causes diabetes, it also pays to understand the pathophysiology of Type 2 diabetes to better inform yourself about how you can prevent the disease – or at least work your best to prevent it.
The Pathophysiology of Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes results from the body’s inability to use insulin properly or the cells inability to absorb blood sugar. For a cell to use glucose to produce energy, it must allow blood sugar to permeate pass its wall, and the insulin is responsible for unlocking the cell wall so to speak. What causes diabetes among Type 2 diabetes patients is that the body is said to resist insulin, perhaps dictated by old age or by some genetic factors.
Another reason of the poor absorption of glucose is the cell’s improper shape or mutation, which blocks glucose from permeating through the cell wall. This cause of diabetes is commonly observed among obese people.
What Causes Diabetes, the Risk Factors
While medical scientists continue to unmask the exact pathophysiology that causes Type 2 diabetes, knowing and avoiding the risks factors is the first defence against this potentially deadly disease. Although you cannot control your gene’s makeup, which is the biggest determiner of Type 2 diabetes, you can, however, control the environmental risk factors such as diet, virus infection, stress, and lifestyle.
You can’t dispute it; what goes into your genes is determined by your parents. If one or two of your parents or their relatives have diabetes, you’re automatically at risk of developing the disease too. It’s all the more reason you have to know what causes diabetes that you can have control over to lower your risk of contraction.
Don’t despair if you’re predispose to diabetes though because capping the other risk factors greatly improves your chances of blocking the disease.
The first you have to watch out for is your diet. Eating balance diet with the right amount of carbohydrates, protein, minerals, antioxidants, and fibre greatly reduces your risk of developing the disease. What causes diabetes if you’re predisposed to it is to trigger it by eating foods high in sugar and fats, so eating healthy is imperative.
Virus infection, too, is said to cause diabetes because viruses destroys the proper pancreatic cellular functions impairing its ability to produce insulin. One virus known to cause diabetes is the Coxsackie B virus, which can be contracted through ingesting food contaminated with faecal matter or bodily secretions of an infected person. And your first armour against infection is to fortify your immune system.
Stress, whether emotional, physical, or psychological stress, can also trigger diabetes. In fact, what causes diabetes among city dwellers is the hectic city life that promotes stress. Stress messes the body’s ability to produce hormones in right quantity, and one hormone affected is insulin. So combat stress by doing exercise or just simply taking a breather and remind yourself that you’re carbon-based, too.
And last, but certainly not least contributor to diabetes is an irresponsible lifestyle: one that is characterized by sedentary and vices. What causes diabetes is also the person’s irresponsible approach to health by eating the wrong foods, smoking, excessive drinking, and not moving around even just to clean the house. You know how to improve your lifestyle to follow the path to wellness – don’t delay it, do it today.
Unintended Weight Loss Causes from Diabetes
Weight loss is generally good when it is brought about by proper diet and exercise. It makes you healthier and in fact if you have diabetes, losing weight is one of the best ways to gain control over your blood glucose levels. However, in some instances unexplained weight loss happens even though there is no effort to lose it.
This should be a cause of concern as it can be caused by underlying conditions that may be harmful to the body. These instances usually merit a visit to the doctor in order to properly diagnose the cause and prevent any serious conditions from escalating.
The body loses weight when there considerably fewer calories consumed while there is an increase in physical activity. This forces the body to use the stored fats as sources of energy eventually depleting the fat levels of the body. Burning more calories during a strenuous activity also helps in burning the fat hence exercise is a good way to manage you weight. The body’s metabolism rate, even while the person is at rest, will still be burning fats and cause continuous weight reduction.
Diabetes as Possible Culprit of Unexplained Weight Loss
Losing weight unexpectedly and doing so with more than 5% body weight lost in a month may be a cause of concern. Weight loss is the most common symptom that leads to the diagnosis of diabetes. Since there is literally no way of telling that you have it unless you take blood glucose tests, a sudden plunge of the body weight could very well be a tell tale sign of diabetes that will prompt you to take necessary measures to address it.
There are several factors on why undiagnosed diabetes decreases your weight:
Lack of calories – when Insulin levels are inadequate or cannot function well, the sugar from the diet will not be used by the cells for energy. This would cause the unavailability of calories to be burned by the body resulting for the need to use stored fats instead. This will reduce the body weight especially if diabetes is left undiagnosed for a long time.
Some people might falsely correlate this weight loss to their activities and even think that they are doing well on their weight loss goal, thus prompting no need to be alarmed. As the diabetes progresses, excessive thirst, hunger and increased urination may take place and when they do, it is just when a person may think something is wrong.
Fluid loss – When sugar is needed by the body but cannot utilize it due to diabetes, the body makes us of proteins as an alternative energy source. This would increase the levels of ketone bodies in the blood. Ketone bodies need a “higher-than-normal” volume of urine in order to be flushed out through kidneys and eventually this would lead to water loss.
Gastroparesis – is a long-term diabetes complication that will deter the ability of the stomach to absorb food. With this case, it usually takes longer for the stomach to absorb the food and delays giving out nutrients for the body to use.
Other causes of unexplained weight loss:
- Gastrointestinal or disorders
- Hyperthyroidism
- Medications
- Cancer
- Old age
- Drug abuse
- Eating disorders
- Painful mouth sores
- Kidney Failure
- Depression
- Laxative abuse
Weight loss, no matter how proud it can make people feel especially those who are conscious with their weight, when due to underlying medical conditions, will never be a good sign. Visit your doctor if you constantly shed weight at a higher than normal rate, most especially if you are not doing anything that could possibly justify the weight loss. Chances are that you have underlying medical problems that need to be addressed right away.
Diabetes Cause and Help
Depending upon how severe an individual is subject with the malady of diabetes will determine how well they will react to holistic cures for diabetes in the long term.
Those individuals afflicted with type 1 diabetes and type 2-diabetes may have an outside opportunity to utilize diabetic products and diabetic herbs to regain control of their personal lives. This will of course depend on the individual too. The support group the individual surrounds him or herself with will also play an important role in this holistic approach.
Using the American diabetes diet is one diabetic meal plan to begin with to see how it will operate. There is always room to make all and any of the necessary adjustments that may be necessary down the road. There are diabetic products and diabetic recipes that are simple meal planning and worth locating to help with the meal planning. The recipes of today have delightful meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in order that no meal is ever bland or boring again. It is simply amazing how far we have come in this area of the world of science and discovery.
Blood sugar control is of vital importance, yet is sort of like breathing and individuals never give it a second thought until something drastic goes wrong. When the body begins to react unfavourably is when the individual begins to take notice and the first appointment with the family medical physician is set. The blood sugar level does fluctuate on a daily basis, but there are specific reasons for this to happen. The way it operates on a normal basis is for the blood sugar level to decrease throughout the evening hours when the individual is asleep. During the morning hours as the individual begins to wake up and move around the blood sugar level begins to rise.
Irritability, extreme fatigue, nausea, and occasional vomiting are only a few of the very early warning signs that the individual must pay attention. Learning how to change the daily menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is the next step to take and a very important step. Removing all the candy, cookies, cakes, and ice cream and filling the refrigerator with wholesome foods like carrots, celery, tomatoes, eggs, broccoli, green beans, milk, turkey, chicken, and other meats is also a good idea.
Adding a variety of fruits to the daily diet like pears, oranges, plums, apricots, bananas, are a good idea for easy snacking when the individual becomes hungry in between meals. This will only enhance the diabetes meal and make it more eye appealing and taste appealing for the individual.
Soon, the individual will read diabetes articles which will sometimes list a few of the early warning symptoms and this will cause the individual to rethink the personal situation. Diabetes treatments can only help those individuals willing to face the possibility they may have one of the four forms of diabetes.
Some of the early warning signs for adult onset diabetes are the following:
- Sensation loss.
- Blurring with normal vision.
- Regular numbness and tingling in hands, feet, toes, and fingers.
- Unquenchable thirst regularly.
- Excessive urination.
- Increasing fatigue.
- Emotional mood swings on a regular basis.
- Unexplained weight loss.
Diabetes is a potentially dangerous disorder especially when the individual who thinks they may have one of the four types of diabetes and consistently remain in denial rather than trying to self educate by reading more diabetes articles and gathering all the diabetes info possible.
Gestational Diabetes – Causes, Risks and Treatment Options
If you are pregnant and have just been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, you are probably filled with concern and uncertainty. What does it mean for you? What does it mean for your baby? What are the risks and complications associated with this condition?
Don’t worry. Educating yourself about gestational diabetes, working closely with your health care professional and taking good care of yourself will help you have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.
What is Gestational Diabetes?
Gestational diabetes, also known as glucose intolerance of pregnancy, is a type of diabetes that begins during pregnancy and goes away after giving birth. It affects approximately 4% of all pregnant women.
Sometimes the development of the baby can cause insulin resistance in the mother. This is when the body cannot use the insulin it produces to get glucose into the cells and convert it into energy. Without being able to enter the cells, glucose builds up in the bloodstream, causing hyperglycaemia, or high blood glucose.
What are the Risks for Developing Gestational Diabetes?
If you have a family history of diabetes, are obese, or are of Hispanic or African American decent, you might have a higher risk of developing gestational diabetes while pregnant.
Other risk factors for gestational diabetes include:
- Gestational diabetes present in a previous pregnancy
- Being of older age when pregnant (over 30)
- Previous delivery of baby over 9 pounds
- Previous miscarriage
Are there Risks for the Baby?
Although gestational diabetes usually occurs between the 24th and 28th week of pregnancy, after the baby has already been formed, there are complications that associated with gestational diabetes that can hurt your baby if you don’t get the right treatment or don’t take care of yourself properly.
Gestational diabetes can lead to macrosomia, or a large fat baby. Babies with macrosomia can have other health problems, like injury or damage to their shoulders when being born (shoulder dystocia), low blood sugar (neonatal hypoglycemia), low blood calcium, jaundice and breathing problems (respiratory distress syndrome) Although, gestational diabetes can cause complications for you and your baby, don’t panic, remember that you can do a lot to prevent them. Controlling gestational diabetes can help you avoid serious complications.
Gestational Diabetes Treatment
Discuss with your health care professional which treatment options are best for you. Controlling your blood sugar levels is essential in gestational diabetes treatment. Your doctor may also suggest a special diet, which you should follow very carefully. Physical activity and exercise are also important in controlling gestational diabetes. Consult with your doctor which exercise routine is right and safe for you. In some cases, insulin shots may also be needed.
Although gestational diabetes goes away after birth, your chances of having it again in a future pregnancy or developing type 2 diabetes are now higher. For that reason, you should keep having a healthy lifestyle after giving birth to help prevent type 2 diabetes. Eat healthy, maintain a healthy weight and exercise regularly.
Knowing that you have gestational diabetes can be scary. But, if you follow your doctor’s advice and take care of yourself the way you should, controlling gestational diabetes will lead to a happy, healthy mommy and baby.
Diabetic Medications that Cause Weight Loss
It has been reported that 80 – 90% of those who have type 2 diabetes are overweight. This is clinical data shows the severity of type 2 diabetes mellitus on obese and overweight individuals. While there are people who are trying their best to control their blood sugar levels by taking prescribed drugs and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, obesity may be one factor that can be very hard to deal with, especially since some common drugs that function to lower blood sugar levels actually promote weight gain.
It is a known fact that lowering the total body weight is very beneficial and a good way to deal with diabetes. For this reason people look for ways to keep their weight down. The good news is there are a couple of prescription drugs for diabetes that will not only help lower blood glucose levels, they also help the body get rid of excess fat. But before we look at those drugs, let us first take a look on the inner mechanisms of the body and how it deals with the medications we take.
How Blood Sugar Levels Rise
Insulin, which is the main mode of transportation for glucose to enter the cells, will actually make you fat if there is too much production of it. Blood sugar levels normally increases after a full meal. Consequently, the higher the sugar levels, the more insulin are produced by the body in order to counter its effect. While this is generally a good body function, insulin triggers your brain and makes you hungry. This makes your liver produce more fat, eventually filling the fat cells with…well… fats!
Sugar absorbed from the intestines will be sent to the liver where it will be processed, and will eventually be returned to the bloodstream causing blood sugar levels to rise. The normal response of the body is to produce insulin to enable faster absorption of glucose to the cells. Therefore, drugs to treat diabetes are made in such a way to stop or limit the liver’s release of sugar which limits insulin production.
This is the main reason why people who are diabetic are encouraged to eat less while eating more frequently, as fasting and then eating a full meal again could be devastating to your weight loss regimen.
Medications
There are 2 known diabetes medications that can significantly help decrease body weight. A third one is in the works but still has no complete approval by the FDA.
Studies about the drug however, show promising results.
Metformin – this is probably the most common drug prescribed by the doctors to combat and help maintain blood sugar levels. Their main function is to increase insulin sensitivity of the body thereby promoting faster absorption of blood glucose from food and those manufactured by the liver. “Glucophage” the generic drug name, is known to reduce appetite.
Based on the above explanation on how the sugar levels rise, increasing insulin sensitivity with this drug will help the body to use insulin to its maximum capacity. Therefore the body does not need to produce it in excess; hence insulin’s effect on weight gain will be normalized.
Byetta – While metformin works by reducing appetite, this drug primarily makes you feel “full” faster by delaying movement of food from the stomach into the intestine.
Its active ingredient is actually a synthetic form of a protein that is produced from the spit of the Gila Monster, a lizard found in Mexico and South western US.
Lyxumia/Lixisenatide – this drug is still waiting for FDA approval before it is released on the market. This works by attaching itself to basal insulin enhancing its capacity to absorb glucose and transport it inside the cells.
Other medicines like sulfonylureas, alpha-glucosidase inhibitors, meglitinides and a lot more are also effective in helping keep the blood glucose levels low, however, they are known to cause weight gain. An increase in weight would not benefit a diabetic who is attempting to make healthier lifestyle changes.