A year ago I was diagnosed with’early’ diabetes of the second type. It is also called Adult onset diabetes and happens to people in their 30’s onwards. Since the diagnosis I have spent a lot of time doing research on causes, prevention and containment. Indians are among the most diabetes prone race in the world and I feel it is very important that I share this information with you.
What is diabetes?
There is a clinical definition and then I realized after doing a lot of research and reading that there is a functional definition. Diabetes is diagnosed by measurement and symptoms. However Diabetes the disease onsets much earlier.
Here is what diabetes is
a). The body does not produce or produces too little
insulin and therefore there is no way of transporting
all the sugar in your bloodstream to your cells. This
leads to a large ammount of sugar circulating in your
blood
b). The body produces enough insulin but the insulin does
not efficiently transport the sugar to your cell. The
malfunctioning of Insulin happens in stages as follows
- The blood sugar levels are in control, because the
islet cells of the Pancreas produce large ammounts
of insulin(far more than a normal person would need)
to transport the glucose from the blood to the cells
The only way of detecting this is a Serrum Insulin
test done after fasting for 8 hrs and if you get
a high Insulin count you are on your way. This is
the last preventable stage because you can do diet
and exercise to get back the insulin efficiency.
- The insulin efficiency becomes worse, so now the
large ammount of insulin that the islet cells of
the pancreas produce are not enough to transport
all the sugar in the cells. This is when your blood
glucose levels start showing up in your lab cells
The doctor typically prescribes metformin at this
stage, a medication that enables the body to use
the insulin more efficiently and coupled with diet
and exercise you can prevent further degeneration.
- Overproduction of Insulin start burning out the
islet cells in the Pancreas thus causing less and
less insulin to be produced and even this insulin
which is produced because of 2) does not work very
well. The doctor now has to prescribe a sulfonurea
medication which will induce the pancreas to produce
more insulin and which along with Metformin will
enable the efficient use of the Insulin thus
produced.
- The final stage is when all insulin ceases to be
produced even with sulfonurea inducement. Now the
only option is to use Insulin directly and club it
with metformin for better absorption.
The key to diabetes management is to determine which
of these 4 stages you are in and ensure that there is
enough diet and exercise in your life everyday so you
can slow the progress to the next stage and even prevent
it.
Another thing one needs to know about is the glycemic
Index of all the carbohydrate foods that one eats. In
lay terms, GI is a measure of how quickly sugar rises
in the blood as a result of eating a particular type of
carbohydrate(all carbohydrates are metabolized in the
body as sugar). Since insulin action is not very
efficient in the body, the more slowly the sugar rises
in the blood the easier it will be for glucose
metabolism and thus transport of sugar to the cells.
The rule of thumb is use as many low GI foods as possible and as few high GI foods. Typically fibrous foods
are lower in GI and refined foods are higher. With the
exception of Pineapple, Mangoes and Bananas, most fruits
have a low GI even though they have high sugar
content. The high GI ones would be potatoes, white
bread, anything made of refined flour etc. Chapathis
and rice have the same GI so one is not better than the
other(contrary to popular belief). If you have a high
GI food have it with something like Oats. The sugar
absorption I have noticed is much lower.
Finally daily exercise improves insulin efficiency
and I have noticed the effect lasts for 48 hours easily.
Hope this helps