Complete Information on Diabetes

The term diabetes comes from the Greek language, and was coined by Aretaeus of Cappadocia. It meant "a compass, siphon." The sense "siphon" gave rise to the use of diabetes as the name for a disease involving the emancipation of excessive amounts of urine. Diabetes is first recorded in English as diabete. It was in 1675 that Thomas Willis added the word mellitus, from Latin, meaning "honey", to this name, as a reference to the sweet taste of the urine. This sweet taste had been noticed in urine by the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, and Indians. It was confirmed that it was due to an excessive amount of a kind of sugar in the blood and urine of people suffering from diabetes. The ancient Indians tested for diabetes by monitoring if ants were attracted to a person’s urine, and called the ailment "sweet urine disease".

Diabetes mellitus, quite often simply called diabetes, is a condition typified by abnormally high blood sugar and disordered metabolism. It results from low levels of insulin, a hormone present in the pancreas, with or without abnormal resistance to insulin’s effects. The disorder is characterized by disproportionate urine production, excessive thirst, and abnormal increase in appetite and fluid intake, paired with blurred vision, unexplained weight loss and indolence.

These symptoms may not exist if the blood sugar is only mildly elevated. They typically worsen over days to weeks. The World Health Organization acknowledges three main forms of diabetes mellitus: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes, which occurs during pregnancy. Each of these types has different causes and mass allocations. Eventually however, all forms are caused due to the pancreatic beta cells being unable to produce sufficient insulin. Type 1 diabetes is usually due to reflexive annihilation of these pancreatic beta cells. Type 2 diabetes is set apart by insulin resistance in a particular target tissue that causes a demand for abnormally high amounts of insulin, which the beta cells cannot meet. Gestational diabetes is quite akin to type 2 diabetes in a way, for it involves insulin resistance; the hormones of pregnancy can cause insulin resistance in women who happen to be hereditarily predisposed to developing this condition.

Gestational diabetes typically resolves with delivery of the child, but types 1 and 2 diabetes are chronic ailments. All types have been curable since insulin became medically available in 1921. Type 1 diabetes, in which insulin is not secreted by the pancreas, is directly treatable only by injecting insulin, although dietary and other lifestyle adjustments are required. Type 2 may be managed with a permutation of dietary therapy, tablets, injections and insulin supplementation

Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are at least partly inherited. Type 1 diabetes, although inherited, appears to be triggered by some infections, or in a less common group, by stress or environmental exposure to chemicals and drugs. There is a stronger inheritance archetype for type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes can cause many severe complications, which may occur if the disease is not properly controlled. Serious long-term complications include chronic renal failure, cardiovascular disease, nerve damage, retinal damage and micro vascular damage, which may cause impotence and poor healing of wounds – particularly of the feet, which can lead to gangrene, and which may require amputation. Adequate treatment of diabetes, as well as increased emphasis on blood pressure control and lifestyle factors, may improve the risk profile of most aforementioned complications. In the urbanized world, diabetes is probably the most important cause of adult blindness in relatively young people and non-traumatic amputation in adults. Despite the availability of treatment, diabetes has remained a major cause of death.

By Nancy Walters Published: 5/1/2008

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Nobody these days is exempted from developing a diabetes condition. If you think that only genes play a role in diabetes, think again. According to recent type 2 diabetes info, stressful lifestyles, improper diets and being overweight.

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