As blood sugar levels rise, the pancreas releases more insulin. Eventually the cells in the pancreas that make insulin become damaged and can't make enough insulin to meet the body's needs.
Diabetes is a serious disease that can affect your eyes, heart, nerves, feet and kidneys. Understanding how diabetes affects your body is important.
These problems can affect major organs and organ systems, such as your heart and blood vessels, kidneys, lungs, pancreas, digestive system, and brain. Uncontrolled blood sugar can also affect your mouth and teeth, eyes, skin, and sexual organs.
Skin. A skin issue is often the first sign that you have diabetes, and most issues are caused by damaged blood vessels.
Over time, the high levels of sugar in the blood damage the millions of tiny filtering units within each kidney. This eventually leads to kidney failure. Around 20 to 30 per cent of people with diabetes develop kidney disease (diabetic nephropathy), although not all of these will progress to kidney failure.
In type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system attacks cells in the pancreas and stops them from making insulin. In type 2 diabetes, the body is not able to make insulin or the insulin does not work as it should.
Diabetic retinopathy is caused when high blood sugar damages blood vessels in the retina (a light-sensitive layer of cells in the back of the eye). Damaged blood vessels can swell and leak, causing blurry vision or stopping blood flow.
Dairy alternatives like almond milk and flax milk, lean meat, lentils, and beans also help to improve the function of the pancreas. The healthy pancreas helps in stimulating the production of Insulin for better regulation of blood sugar.
In people with diabetes, insufficient insulin prevents the body from getting glucose from the blood into the body's cells to use as energy. When this occurs, the body starts burning fat and muscle for energy, causing a reduction in overall body weight.
Nerve damage (neuropathy): One of the most common diabetes complications, nerve damage can cause numbness and pain. Nerve damage most often affects the feet and legs but can also affect your digestion, blood vessels, and heart.
Many people with diabetes have peripheral artery disease (PAD), which reduces blood flow to the feet. Also, many people with diabetes have neuropathy, causing you to not feel your feet. Together, these problems make it easy to get ulcers and infections that may lead to amputation.
Symptoms can include: Blurry or wavy vision in the center of your field of vision. Floaters. Noticing colors appear faded or washed out.
Many people with diabetes will describe themselves as feeling tired, lethargic or fatigued at times. It could be a result of stress, hard work or a lack of a decent night's sleep but it could also be related to having too high or too low blood glucose levels.
The main symptoms of diabetes are: feeling very thirsty. urinating more frequently than usual, particularly at night. feeling very tired.
feeling or being sick. abdominal (tummy) pain. rapid, deep breathing. signs of dehydration, such as a headache, dry skin and a weak, rapid heartbeat.
A skipped meal alters the balance between food intake and insulin production, and can cause your blood sugar levels to eventually drop. “For diabetic people dependent on insulin or blood sugar–lowering medication, skipping meals can be more dangerous because it can lead to low blood sugar,” says Pearson.
Metformin may have an adverse effect on renal function in patients with type 2 DM and moderate CKD.
Almost all patients with Type I diabetes develop some evidence of functional change in the kidneys within two to five years of the diagnosis. About 30 to 40 percent progress to more serious kidney disease, usually within about 10 to 30 years.
What does diabetes itching feel like? If you have diabetes, itching can be intense. It's an irritating feeling that makes it hard not to scratch, but scratching can make the itch worse. You can itch anywhere, but if you have nerve damage (neuropathy) associated with diabetes, your lower legs may itch.
It can be an early sign of so-called "diabetic belly," a build-up of visceral fat in your abdomen which may be a symptom of type 2 diabetes and can increase your chances of developing other serious medical conditions.