Sugar coated day for Awareness!- World Diabetes Day. The worlds call.

Diabetes a sugar coated disorder comes with life threatening challenges and has marked its fear in

one and all of us. Owing to its presence in crores of people all over the world, 14th November has been marked as World diabetes day. Diabetes has affected 42.2 crore people in the world and kills 22 lakh every year.

So with such high numbers the day commands our focus on diabetes.

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a disorder, where the body’s ability to use glucose (sugar) for energy is affected. It is categorized in two types:

Type-1: In this condition the body’s own cell destroy the cells that secrete insulin. The insulin molecule is required by the body to use glucose.

Type-2 : This type represents most cases of diabetes in the world. Owing to our body’s inability, where the cells stop responding to insulin and slowly insulin production decreases or stops, brings about this condition.

What can pose a Risk?

Stress, the root cause of most disorders in the world can also cause diabetes.

Stress in our lives has pushed us to find an escape through food. This is where we have lost balance in our diet and have consumed in excess. Fast foods, desserts, sweets and carbohydrates are known agents to cause this condition.

Complementing this is our life style that involves very little physical activity and sleep deprivation, which has moved us away from healthy conditions.

To add on to this are the already existing risk factors of diabetes like genetics and family history.

Risks keep growing

Obesity is the excessive fat around our waist and can also manifest diabetes in us. So if you are obese you must be cautious and understand these risks very carefully. It just does not stop here diabetes if ignored can cause heart attack, kidney failure or could also lead to loss of vision and nerve damage.

So it is imperative to know these risks and be an active participant towards regular testing.

Know the tools for diagnosis

Blood glucose test- It can identify and screen diabetes. Monitoring the glucose levels is essential for diabetic patients to know of rise and fall of glucose levels before and after having a meal.

HbA1C test- This test helps to know the pre-diabetic condition and also tells you the history of past 90-120 days. It is a comprehensive test that gives overall result.

Fructosamine test- The test is used for anemic patients or pregnant women and also, normal individuals to identify and reveal diabetes history of the past 14-21 days.

Can we prevent it?

Oh yes you can !!! But will require a balanced diet with a balanced life.

We will have to include fruits and raw vegetables in our diet along with limited amount of carbohydrates and fats. It is also important that we provide proper rest to the body and give it the exercise it needs.

If we regularly do check ups and testing we could foresee many maladies and diabetes is no exception to that.

‘Walking the extra mile will not only shed that extra kilo but also draw a healthier tomorrow ’