This disease is originally known as “Diabetes Mellitus,” the word diabetes, from the Greek for excessive urination, a symptom the ancients noticed, and mellitus, from the Latin for honey-diabetic urine is filled with sugar and is sweet. Diabetes Specialists, Doctors, and medical books use the term diabetes mellitus, but informally, it’s just called diabetes mellitus. Diabetes is a disease, which makes it difficult or impossible for a person’s body to properly use glucose, a form of sugar. During digestion food is broken down into glucose which is caused by the body to create energy.
This process is called metabolism. A person with Diabetes cannot convert this glucose into useable energy because their body either cannot produce enough insulin or cannot use the insulin it produces. This results in glucose building up in the bloodstream. Insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas, a gland near the stomach.
Insulin regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates by controlling the entry of glucose into the cells of the body. Without insulin, glucose cannot be transported into the cells to be used for energy. There currently is no cure for diabetes but it can be controlled. There are three types of diabetes.
1) Type 1, IDDM, Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus 2) Type 2, NIDDM, or Non Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus 3) T0003 or Gestational Diabetes. These types are all different but anyone with diabetes has one thing in common: little or no ability to move sugar-or glucose-out of their blood into their cells, where it is the body’s primary fuel. There are different causes of Diabetes. Diabetes is caused by a lack of the hormone, insulin.
Insulin maintains normal amounts of sugar in the blood. The hormonal changes in pregnancy increases your blood sugar levels and most pregnant women produce extra insulin to cope with it. Gestational diabetes is the term used for diabetes, which appears for the first time in pregnancy. It occurs in up to five percent of pregnant women.
It usually disappears once your baby is born, but you will be monitored closely and your blood sugars will be rechecked six weeks after birth. Some other causes of IDDM are autoantibodies, viruses, chemicals, and drugs, cow’s milk. Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes sufferers are genetic. It seems to run in the family.
Researchers are finding out that obesity and age could be the onset of (NIDDM). In Gestation diabetes (Type 3), genetics seems to the culprit because it tends to run in the family. And obesity because it increases insulin resistance. It is important to exclude secondary causes of diabetes mellitus, which may be curable.
Such causes include hemochromatosis, chromic pacreatitus, hormonal tumors, durgs, and some genetic disorders. In addition to helping to establish the initial diagnoses by laboratory analysis, pathologists are more often called upon to evaluate the ravages of the disease upon the end organ systems. An amputation of the lower limbs is a frequent complication and histology examination often reveals advanced atherosclerotic vascular changes coupled with gangrene. The non-functioning kidney.
Even the skin shows rare changes such as necrobiosis lipoidica diabeticorum, and unusual degenerative change occurring within the dermis. There many different symptoms in different types of diabetes: Frequent urination, excessive thirst, always hungry, sudden weight loss, weakness, drowsiness or exhaustion, blurry vision, nausea and vomiting, numb or tingling hand or feet, itching of the skin and genitals, vaginal infections, recurring or hard to heal wounds on skin, urinary tract infections, fungal infections, boils, or abscesses, erection impairment in men, unusual vaginal dryness in women. In addition, in some cases tremors, breathlessness, sometimes followed by fainting. Some are hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic. Hyperglycemia is when a person with diabetes has high blood sugar.
Hypoglycemia results when a person who takes insulin or oral medication does not have enough glucose in their body in comparison to the amount of medication. The reason behind this imbalance is usually because the person didn’t eat enough food, the food was not eaten soon enough or too much medication was taken. Sometimes in hypoglycemia, one or more symptoms may occur and some people shows no symptoms and some people do not even know they have it. The signs of hypoglycemia are inappropriate responses, confusion and inattention, .
