Diabetes is understood to take place when the endocrine system of your body fails to maintain the level of blood sugar at the optimum level for the purpose of good health. Recently diabetes has become a very common problem. 10 to 12% of urban population and 4 to 6% of rural population of India are diabetic while the numbers in the United States is much greater. Due to diabetes there are a number of other health problems that arise as well. When the pancreas which is the producer of insulin in the body fails to produce enough insulin, the blood sugar levels in the body increase. There are two kinds of diabetes. Diabetes mellitus occurs when the blood sugar level begins to rise and diabetes insipidus occurs when there are problems in water reabsorbtion. Both of these can be caused by a number of factors, some of which are known and others which we are still unaware of.
Many diabetic patients are clueless about their disease for the first couple of years and only when the symptoms get aggravated and cannot simply be ignored any further do patients check for diabetes and undoubtedly are diagnosed positively. This usually stems from a high blood sugar level during routine check ups. Diabetes mellitus brings along with it symptoms such as increased hunger, increased thirst as well as increased urination. Other symptoms would be blurred vision, fatigue, sense of weakness, impotence, slow healing of wounds etc. diabetics often experience fat depositing in their blood vessel walls which eventually causes blockage of circulation and gangrene. Smoking tends to worsen the condition. Hyper tension and atherosclerosis as well as heart diseases are common too.
Urinary tests can be performed to confirm diabetes but sometimes they too are not very accurate or reliable. The diagnosis is carried forward only after fasting and post prandial blood sugar level analysis. If your fasting blood sugar level is in excess of 100 – 120 mgs/dl and your post prandial blood sugar level is in excess of 180 mgs/dl, it is an indication that further tests have to taken to confirm if you are diabetic or not. Later tests would include Glucose Tolerance Test or GTT which would confirm the findings of blood sugar levels, serum, cholesterol, low density lipoproteins, very low lipoproteins and triglycerides.
At home too, a diabetic patient can test his own urine sugar with the help of Benedict’s solution. There are available digital electronice meters too that make it very easy for diabetic patients to measure their own blood sugar levels. If you can measure your glycosylated hemoglobin level, that tells you a lot about your blood sugar control. With innovations creeping in all the time, now there are several tests that you can conduct on your own to know other blood sugar related details about yourself. Consult your doctor to find out.
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