Know about diabetes to cure it

Diabetes if sugar appears in urine?

In order to accurately understand diabetes, it is necessary to accurately understand the relationship between the sugar content in the blood and the sugar content in urine. Our body's blood contains glucose. Blood sugar refers to how much sugar is in the blood. If sugar in the blood exceeds normal levels, it is excreted through urine. At this time, the sugar content in urine is called urinary sugar. In this sense, if the sugar content in the urine is high, it can be assumed that the blood sugar level is high. However, diabetes cannot be diagnosed solely based on the sugar content in the urine. This is because even in normal people, when there is a temporary amount of sugar in the blood, it is excreted in the urine, and even in diabetic patients, sugar is detected in the urine only when the blood sugar level is above a certain level (180 mg/dl). Therefore, to accurately diagnose diabetes, the sugar content in the blood must be measured. In the days when blood sugar levels could not be measured, it was called diabetes because a lot of sugar was detected in the urine. To be precise, diabetes refers to a disease in which the sugar content in the blood is above normal. Therefore, some doctors argue that diabetes should be renamed glycemic disease.

What is diabetes?

Humans need energy to carry out their daily lives. The source of that energy is carbohydrates in food. Carbohydrates absorbed into our bodies are normally stored as glucose in the blood, then go to necessary muscle tissue to generate energy, or are stored in the form of fat in adipose tissue. The hormone called insulin plays an important role in this. Insulin, produced by the beta cells of the pancreas, is an important hormone in our body that moves glucose to muscle or fat tissue and generates energy from glucose. Normal people obtain the energy they need by using glucose as an energy source and insulin as a catalyst. Diabetes refers to a malfunction somewhere in this process. in other words,

1) The beta cells of the pancreas have lost their function and insulin is not secreted (insulin deficiency).
2) Even if insulin is secreted normally, the insulin receptor in muscle tissue (receptor: snatches insulin from the blood from the surface of muscle tissue and delivers it to the muscle). It refers to a disease that occurs when the tissue that plays a role loses its function and cannot absorb insulin properly (insulin resistance). As a result, glucose is not utilized properly and continues to accumulate in the blood, resulting in high blood sugar levels. Medically, diabetes refers to a variety of symptoms and complications resulting from the continuation of this hyperglycemic state.

How is diabetes diagnosed?

As mentioned earlier, an accurate diagnosis of diabetes is possible only after checking the blood sugar level, that is, the sugar content in the blood. Doctors usually use three methods:

First, if the blood sugar level is more than 140mg/dl in a fasting state in the morning (Fasting Plasma Glucose Test)
Second, if the blood sugar level is more than 200mg/dl 2 hours after a meal (Random Plasma Glucose Test)
Third, 2 hours after ingesting 75g of glucose If your blood sugar level is over 200 mg/dl (the so-called 75-gram Oral Glucose Tolerance Test),
for reference, a normal person's blood sugar level is 70-120 mg/dl.

What are the types of diabetes?

Diabetes is largely divided into juvenile (Type I) diabetes and adult (Type II) diabetes. Juvenile diabetes refers to a condition in which insulin is not produced properly due to damage to the beta cells of the pancreas due to congenital reasons or viruses. Juvenile diabetes has been treated by injecting insulin. That's why we say `IDDM' in English, or `insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.' In general, this type of diabetes is easy to develop before the age of 15, so it is also called `juvenile diabetes', `infantile diabetes', or `mild-type diabetes.'

On the other hand, adult-onset diabetes refers to cases where the beta cells of the pancreas produce insulin but do not secrete it properly, or when receptors in muscle tissue become weak and cannot properly capture insulin from the blood. That is why this type of diabetes is called `NIDDM', or `non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus'. The former occurs mainly among Koreans, and has been treated by administering insulin secreting agents or injecting insulin. The latter occurs mainly among Western people, and until recently there was no perfect treatment. This type of diabetes is called ‘adult-onset diabetes’ because it usually occurs in people over 40 years of age. Globally, adult-onset diabetes patients account for 80-90% of all diabetes patients, and in Korea, adult-onset diabetes patients exceed 90% of the total.

Why does diabetes occur?

Infantile diabetes occurs when pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin are destroyed or malfunctioning due to congenital causes or viruses. On the other hand, there are many causes of adult-onset diabetes.

The first cause is obesity. If you are obese, the number of insulin receptors in your muscles decreases, making it unable to take in as much insulin as you need. Meanwhile, the remaining insulin in the blood stimulates appetite again, leading to further obesity. It is a vicious cycle of obesity and diabetes.

Second is stress. When you are stressed, various hormones are secreted more than necessary, which interferes with the secretion and action of insulin.

The third cause is drug abuse. Some medications increase blood sugar levels or interfere with the action of insulin. In addition, gastric resection surgery and pregnancy can also cause diabetes.

Ultimately, to prevent and treat diabetes, it is absolutely necessary to eat the right food, reduce stress, and refrain from drug abuse.

What are the symptoms of diabetes?

Diabetes symptoms become increasingly severe over time. At first, it is just a matter of frequent urination or needing water, but gradually abnormal symptoms appear in blood vessels and develop into various complications such as neuralgia, high blood pressure, and renal failure. The most common symptoms are frequent urination, drinking plenty of water, and overeating. When you have diabetes, your blood sugar level rises, and you have to urinate frequently to expel blood sugar quickly. As a result, you become dehydrated and drink a lot of water. In particular, people who always drink water when going to the bathroom in the middle of the night should get tested for diabetes.

Also, high blood sugar levels mean that the sugar needed by the muscles is not being properly provided, and the cerebrum interprets this signal as a feeling of hunger and causes the body to continue eating. High blood sugar leads to overeating, and overeating in turn worsens the symptoms of high blood sugar, continuing in a vicious cycle. People who lose weight despite eating a lot of food or who suffer from chronic fatigue also need to suspect diabetes.

If diabetes continues, blood sugar accumulates in the blood, causing abnormalities in blood vessels. This is why there are many vascular-related complications among diabetic patients. In particular, the capillaries spread within the muscles break down first. At this time, if there is an abnormality in the capillaries of the skin, it causes skin itching, if there is an abnormality in the capillaries of the optic nerve, it causes weakened vision and blindness, and if there is an abnormality in the capillaries near the genitals, it causes sexual dysfunction, etc. If the condition worsens, it can cause sexual dysfunction. It starts to rot from the end.

Therefore, people who complain of itchy skin, eczema, athlete's foot, or genital itching should suspect diabetes at least once. Additionally, if this phenomenon continues, diabetic patients frequently experience neuralgia, with long and short leg spasms and sciatica occurring frequently. Therefore, people with severe neuralgia should also be suspected of having diabetes. Diabetes is often called ‘the department store of adult diseases,’ and this statement well represents how complex the symptoms of diabetes are and how many complications there are.

They say diabetes has more scary complications?

As mentioned earlier, diabetes is a disease caused by abnormalities in the most basic metabolism that generates energy. Therefore, if you have diabetes, you cannot avoid experiencing various complications. This is why the medical community calls diabetes ‘the root of all diseases.’ In fact, many diabetic patients suffer from complications such as stroke, retinopathy, myocardial infarction, arteriosclerosis, pyelonephritis, renal failure, and gangrene. In particular, they are characterized by many complications of vascular disorders caused by hyperglycemia in the blood. In severe cases, long-term diabetic patients may suffer from blindness, amputation, and death.

How quickly does diabetes progress?

The speed of progression is slightly different depending on whether it is juvenile diabetes or adult diabetes. In the case of juvenile diabetes, a person may suddenly feel thirsty, urinate a lot, or lose weight. Because symptoms of this type of diabetes can be felt from the onset, it is rather easy to take measures.

On the other hand, with adult-onset diabetes, you may hardly notice any abnormalities in the early stages. The condition gradually worsens internally, and pathological phenomena first appear around the age of about 40, after which it progresses rapidly and falls into a serious condition. If you are diagnosed with adult diabetes, it is safe to assume that the progression of diabetes has already started 7 years ago. To be precise, it varies slightly depending on constitution and management status, but on average, it is known to increase by 100 mg/year. Because it is difficult to feel the symptoms in the early stages of the disease, it is difficult to take measures in advance for adult-onset diabetes.

They say diabetes is inherited?

Diabetes itself is not inherited. However, people whose parents are diabetic have a higher risk of developing diabetes than the average person. If both parents have diabetes, the likelihood of a child developing diabetes is 57.6%, and if one parent has diabetes, the likelihood is 27.3%. In medical terms, it is said that diabetes itself is not inherited, but the predisposition to diabetes is inherited. Therefore, if your parent is a diabetic, you need to be more careful than others.

How many people get diabetes?

The incidence of diabetes increases as income level increases. Until the 1970s, when the economic situation was difficult, the proportion of diabetes patients among adults over 40 in Korea was around 3.1%, but it has increased to 5.1% since the 80s. According to these statistics, it is estimated that there are currently about 2 million diabetes patients in Korea. Some estimate there are more than 4 million. In the United States, the incidence of diabetes is even more severe. The number of adult diabetes patients in 1993 was 7.5 million, but in 1996 it increased to 16 million, or 6% of the total population, and again to 17 million in 1997.

In the future, as income levels rise and lifestyle habits and diets become more westernized, the rate of people developing diabetes will also increase. The rate of increase in the number of diabetic patients has also shown an acceleration in recent years. In Japan, the number of people with diabetes has increased by 39% over the past three years. According to recent statistics, about 135 million people around the world are already suffering from diabetes, and 2.8 million people die from diabetes every year.