This article will provide you with the essential information about diabetes, which you should know. This is so important because Diabetes Mellitus affect many million people around the world and every year there are about 800,000 new cases only in USA.
Other thing, the diabetes mellitus is a disease of high risk ranking.

WHAT IS DIABETES?

Diabetes Mellitus (or simply diabetes) is derived from the Greek word 'Diabeinein', meaning 'To pass through' describing copious urination, and Mellitus from the Latin word meaning 'Sweetened with honey'. These two words signify sweetened urine or sugar in urine.

According to the definition of WHO, Diabetes is a chronic disease, which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. This leads to an increased concentration of glucose in the blood (hyperglycaemia).

Diabetes changes mainly the way used by the body to benefit from food.
Insulin is the cause of the problem - The role of insulin in the body is to help the glucose to enter body cells where it is used for energy production.

TYPES OF DIABETES:

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), five classes of diabetes are recognized, these are; Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus or Type I Diabetes, Non Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (NIDDM) or Type II Diabetes, Gestational Diabetes, Diabetes Insipidus and Bronze Diabetes.

And here I will discuss the three basic types of diabetes:

Type I:
Type I diabetes is the case of life-long, and it is treated by injections of insulin that are given every day and some patients may require several injections per day to maintain the level of sugar in the blood.

type I appears when "autoimmune reaction" destroys beta cells in the pancreas.
the auto-immune reaction Means that the body creates antibodies to its cells, and as a result of this (in diabetes) insulin will not be produced from pancreas at all or not in sufficient quantities. The therapy includes daily insulin injections in addition to the adoption of a healthy way of feeding and exercise regularly.

Symptoms of Type I diabetes are usually:

• excessive thirst
• frequent urination
• The presence of sugar in the urine
• acetone smell like fragrance of the body
• fatigue, weakness, lethargy
• significant loss of weight within a short period of time and without apparent reason


Although the cause of type I diabetes is unknown, there are some factors that may increase the risk.

the risk factors for type I diabetes include as follows:

• ethnic or racial background (more common among the Caucasian race)
• injury of a parent with type I diabetes

Often the first type of diabetes affect the young people ( not more than twenty years) so it was formerly called juvenile-onset diabetes, or insulin-dependent diabetes.

Type II:
Type II diabetes is a term that describe many disorders. It is the most common type of diabetes.

With type II diabetes, the pancreas secretes insulin, but the body does not use this insulin effectively.

Many of the people with type II diabetes treat themselves through a healthy diet and regular exercise. The patients who suffer from obesity often improve as a result of weight loss in addition to a healthy diet and exercises.

With the progression of the disease, many patients need to take some medicine (drugs), by mouth or by injection.

Type II diabetes is more common than type one.

Although the cause of type II diabetes is unknown, there are some factors that could be considered as risk factors.

The risk factors for type II diabetes are:

• age (over 45 years)
• Obesity or overweight
• the existence of cases of diabetes in the family
• racial or ethnic background (children of African, Asian, and Spanish origins)
• overweight child (over 4 kg)
• glucose intolerance

Symptoms of Type II diabetes are the same symptoms of type one. Also, some people may suffer from slow healing of wounds and bruises or frequent inflammations of the gum and bladder, or tingling sensations in hands or feet.

Other terms that were previously released on the second type of diabetes are non-insulin-dependent or adult-onset diabetes

Gestational Diabetes
Gestational diabetes is another common form of diabetes, and it is a temporary situation occurs during pregnancy.

Some pregnant women may have gestational diabetes because of the additional demands on the pancreas. Often, gestational diabetes disappears after delivery, but it may come back at a later period of life.

Gestational diabetes affects from 2% to 4% of pregnant women and increases the risk of diabetes in the mother as well as the child.

The risk of recurrence type II diabetes increases if a woman gave birth to a child weighing more than 4 kg.

Treatment includes healthy diet and physical activities, and in some cases the patients may be treated by insulin.

Note 1: The International standard for measuring overweight and obesity is based on a value called BODY MASS INDEX (BMI). This value is derived by dividing the body weight (in Kilograms) by the square of height (in meters).

i.e. BMI = Body weight (Kg) / Height2 (Meters).
Note: 1ft = 0.305metres.

For adults, a BMI less than 25kg/m2 is preferred.

25 - 29kg/m2 is considered overweight and above 30kg/m2 is Obesity.

Note 2: there is a situation called PRE DIABETES. A situation where the blood glucose is higher than normal, but not yet enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Saddening, however, you cannot know when you fall into this category, if you have not being monitoring your blood glucose regularly.

Pre Diabetes is itself a serious medical situation, though can still be reversed by making changes in diet pattern and increasing physical activity. To determine one's blood sugar a test called Fasting Blood Glucose has to be conducted. This test measures the amount of glucose (sugar) in one's blood before taking any meal for the day. It is measured in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl).

A value below 100mg/dl is generally accepted to be normal, while a value greater than 100mg/dl but less than 120mg/dl is not full diabetes yet, so it is regarded as Pre diabetes. An individual with a pre diabetes blood glucose level need to take urgent steps to reduce his blood glucose or risk life long diabetes.