Diabetes Mellitus
Diabetes Mellitus, a.k.a. Type 2 diabetes is sometimes referred to as ‘adult onset diabetes’.
One is said to have Type 2 Diabetes when the body’s ability to control the amount of sugar (glucose) in the blood is inadequate or lost The level of blood glucose is maintained at an average level of 6mMol/lt.
After meals, the level may rise to about 8mMol/lt, and when one has not eaten for a while it may fall to about 4mMol/lt.
The control of blood glucose level is under the influence of a chemical in the body called insulin.
Insulin is released in response to a rise in blood glucose level.
The insulin causes glucose to be taken out of the blood by parts of the body including the muscles, liver and certain fatty tissues called adipose tissue.
However in Type 2 Diabetes the blood glucose level can creep well above the upper levels after meals (hyperglycaemia).
This high blood glucose level may have one of two causes:
- Inadequate amount of insulin available
- Loss of response by tissues to take up glucose as requested by the presence of insulin
Type 2 Diabetes is an insidious disease and can go unnoticed for years.
Most people discover they have Diabetes following a routine medical check up, or as a result of testing following unrelated medical condition.
Generally Type 2 Diabetes causes one to urinate a lot (polyuria),
The term ‘Diabetes’ comes from a Greek word meaning siphon.
The urine may be sugary (mellitus means honeyed).
Ancient Greek physicians did taste the urine as an aid to diagnosis.
Give away signs:
- Ants aggregate where one urinates
- Excess urination at night (nocturia)
- Feeling thirst all the time
- Sometimes vision becomes blurred
- One feels generally tired
- There may be weight loss
- Loss of sensation, pain, pins and needle-like sensation
- Women may experience intense itching of external genitalia (pruritus vulva)
- In men they may be inflammation of the apex of the penis causing swelling, itching and pain (balanoposthitis)
- Recurring Infection
A large number of people with Type 2 Diabetes are thought to be undiagnosed, early detection and treatment is vital to reduce the burden and complications.
The inability of glucose to be removed from circulation into muscles and adipose tissue, as stated earlier, causes a reduction in energy production (one feels generally tired).
The body then falls on proteins as a source of energy production (weight loss).
This results in muscle wasting and an increase in fat breakdown.
There is a mobilisation of so much fat that plasma (the fluid bit of the blood) becomes milky (a condition referred to as hyperlipidaemia).
Fatty acids are the breakdown products of fat.
The fatty acids are reacted on to form a chemical compound.
This compound is normally removed from the body, if glucose is being used properly in the body.
However in Diabetes, where glucose cannot be utilised properly, these chemical compounds condense to form what is called ‘ketone bodies’.
These ketone bodies make the body fluids acidic.
When there is so much of these ketone bodies the body fluids get more and more acidic till the body cannot handle it so the person goes unconscious (diabetic coma).
As the glucose in the blood increases it gets to a point, when it escapes from the body through the urine, and it draws a lot of water and potassium from the body with it – (sweet urine, excessive urination).
There is marked dehydration of tissues (feeling of thirst all the time).
The imperfection in the chemical processes of the body, dehydration, electrolyte disturbance, high body fluid acidity, leads progressively to the depression of the central nervous system (thus loss of sensation, pin and needle sensation, and pain), coma and death in untreated Type 2 Diabetes.
The more overweight you are, the more difficult it is for body tissue to respond to instructions from insulin to take up glucose from the blood.
