Early Symptoms OF Diabetes

According to WHO, there are around 77 million people under the age of 18 suffering from type 2 diabetes and around 25 million people who are pre-diabetic.

The question is: Why is there an alarmingly high amount of people becoming prey to this condition and how can we detect the early symptoms of this disease?

What is Diabetes? What causes it?

In simpler terms, Diabetes is the presence of high glucose {sugar} in your blood, which can lead to fatal problems like Kidney failures, Heart Attack , Eyesight problems, Stroke etc, but how does high sugar ends up in your blood? And why is someone diabetic even though they don’t consume any sugar or sugary products?

Your body needs energy to do work which it obtains from the easiest access of glucose {sugar} from the food we eat, and even though the food that we are eating has no sugar as such but have carbohydrates that can be converted into glucose {sugar} by our body. So the food we eat despite not having sugar can be converted into one by our body ,which is primarily done by Insulin {hormone} released by a gland called pancreas in our body. The job of insulin is to maintain the blood sugar level and turn food into energy .If there is less insulin which means there is more sugar level in our body which over time ultimately leads to Diabetes . Sedentary lifestyle with habits like eating fast food, alcohol consumption, smoking makes us prone towards this disease. Family history is of great importance in this disease. People with first degree relatives (grandparents, parents, siblings) are at greater risk of developing this disease than those who do not have any family history of it.

There are 7 different types of diabetes but the most common are type 1 and type 2 diabetes. So let's know more about them.

 Type 1 - It generally occurs when pancreas in our body do not make any insulin that helps to absorb the glucose {sugar} by cells of our body. This type is more common in the younger age group.

 Type 2 - It occurs when the pancreas in our body do produce insulin, but not effective enough  to absorb large amounts of  glucose{sugar} by the cell ,thus increasing the amount of sugar in our blood .

 Common symptoms of Diabetes:

• Urinating (pee) a lot, often at night.
• Increased thirst.
• Losing weight without trying.
• Increased hungry.
• Have blurry vision.
• Have numbness or tingling sensations on hands or feet.
• Feeling very tired.
• Dry skin

 But more importantly, to check whether someone is diabetic or not, one should have a regular blood test done, or a pretty common HbA1c test which is done at regular labs.

The blood test can be done at home using a glucometer machine. It is usually done after fasting of 7-9 hours, so the best time to do it is before breakfast .According to the test if your blood sugar level is between 70- 100mg/dl that means your blood sugar levels are normal and not diabetic. While if it ranges between 100-125 mg /dL ,that means you are on pre diabetic and should take care of your body. If it ranges above 125mg/dL, then you should get other appropriate tests done to confirm your diagnosis.

 Some of the ways which someone can follow for a healthy lifestyle and avoid this disease are:

1. A good diet for which generally consists of food with a low glycaemic index and low sodium. One should avoid foods that have high glycaemic index because they have large amounts of carbohydrates and thus high glucose content.
2. Regular exercise of at least 30min/day for 5 days a week.
3. Avoiding bulk eating and preferring eating at regular intervals.
4. Quit smoking and alcohol