Diabetes
Diabetes mellitus may occur due to decreased insulin secretion or ineffective insulin action. This results in increased blood sugars that may cause serious immediate and long term problems. Diabetes if not treated appropriately may end up in blindness, kidney damage, neuropathy, non-healing ulcers, ischaemic heart disease (Heart attacks), stroke, decreased blood flow to the limbs and sexual dysfunction
Common Disorders:- Type 2 diabetes mellitus
- Type 1 diabetes mellitus
- Gestational diabetes mellitus
- Secondary forms of diabetes mellitus
Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is a test to check if you have diabetes or prediabetes. An OGTT is normally done after a 8-10 hour fast, after drinking 75 grams of glucose. Normal blood glucose at fasting is below 100 mg/dl and is below 140 mg/dl 2 hours after the drink. In pre-diabetes, the fasting blood glucose is between 100 to 125mgs/dl and/or the 2-hour blood glucose is 140 to 199 mgs/dl. If the fasting blood glucose rises above 126mgs/dl and/or 2-hour blood glucose rises to 200 mg/dl or above, a person has diabetes. Also another test HbA1c for diagnosis of diabetes(HBA1C>6.4%)/prediabetes(HBA1C 5.7-6.4%). This can be performed on a random sample. .
How does diabetes affect your health?Uncontrolled blood sugars can lead to complications of various organ systems. People with diabetes are more prone to infections and associated mortality. Sudden increase in blood sugars can lead to ketoacidosis that can present with confusion, convulsions and coma. Unless treated immediately and appropriately, this condition can lead to death.
Is there a cure for diabetes?There are many drugs available to control the blood sugars and to prevent and treat the diabetic complication. In response to the growing health burden of diabetes, the diabetes community has three choices: prevent diabetes, cure diabetes and improve the quality of care of people with diabetes to prevent devastating complications..
Several approaches to "cure" diabetes are being pursued, but most of them have not come to reality and are in research stages. These are examples of some approaches aimed at curing diabetes.
- Pancreas/ Islet cell transplantation
- Artificial pancreas development
- Gene therapy
Each of these approaches still has a lot of challenges.But tremendous research progress is being made in all areas. .