We know a monster in our world of professional pressures and unhealthy lifestyles. It’s malignant, persistent and destructive in it’s work of slowly wrecking lives; often preying on the young and careless. This disease is called Diabetes, a very common name to most people today; yet obscure in it’s integral truths. It has two forms, the more common and predator of the recklessly habituated people is the Type- 2 Diabetes; a ‘lifestyle disease’ that surfaces due to bad diets, excessive smoking and alcohol habits, indifference to high blood pressure and cholesterol. It’s less common, more unpredictable brother, the Type-1 Diabetes, comes due to environmental allergies and infections destroying pancreatic tissue. Both types of Diabetes are incurable, but only the Type-1 is unpreventable. Diabetes of Type-2 is more of a monster due to the fact that predictable lifestyle problems help it brew, and not factors beyond control. Hence, the monster is preventable, but it continues to spread to a large quota of the population in it’s slow malignant path counting for 90-95% of all Diabetics.
A little knowledge and control; combined with precautions and healthy lifestyles can overcome this monster; however, in our world busy lives, we simply ignore the obvious. With fast food sales sky high and tobacco and alcohol consumption at it’s peak due to mental exhaustion, this ugly Monster continues to claim young lives every day. Mostly, it used to a disease of mature adults and the aging, hence it’s names as “mature onset diabetes” and “non-insulin dependent diabetes”. Our youth have however, changed this with bad exercise routines and junk food gorging lifestyles. Hence, the increase of obese and overweight people, specially with the teenagers, indicate to us just how precariously their lives are driving them to play host to this monster. Amazingly, all these little things that pave the way to self destruction are only to be driven back by some careful observation and self-awareness. A good exercise regime, some dietary regulation and motivation are the only requirements to fight this killer.
To understand the work of Blood-Glucose Level, one has to know Glucose Metabolism and the functions of the pancreas and insulin well. Glucose is a form of sugar that is the simplest unit of nutrition and basic fuel to all living creatures. Insulin is a hormone created by the pancreas, a small and vital organ in our digestive system. Insulin opens up Glucose Channels that allow cells to absorb glucose from the blood stream. This process, where glucose is absorbed by cells after digestion is called Glucose Metabolism. In a Type-2 Diabetic, the glucose channels improperly respond to insulin (known as insulin resistance) or the pancreas simply cannot produce enough insulin to meet the requirements of an unhealthy body. Sugary and fatty foods are the most common causes of such a scenario where the Blood-Glucose level builds up to give rise to various health problems in the affected individual known as conditions.
Though there is no singular cause to Type-2 diabetes, and it occurs due to indifference to self and busy, bias lives; some groups have been recognized as more susceptible to the hazard than others. Some factors like Pre-diabetics, who have high blood-glucose levels can prevent future calamity with reformation of lifestyle and diet. Gestational Diabetes occurs during a pregnancy, but disappears after childbirth; it again requires a strict maintenance of precautions to prevent future problems in mother and child. Other groups that have been recognized to be more at risk than others are :-
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders over 35.
• Pacific Islanders, Indians and Chinese over 35.
• People over 45 with high blood-pressure, overweight and a family history of Type-2 Diabetes.
• People with cardiovascular problems like weak hearts, angina, stroke and narrow blood vessels.
• Women with polycystic ovaries and obesity problems.
• Anyone aged above 55 with signs of unhealthy lifestyles.
• People with excessive fat around their waist-lines and people with sedentary lives.
• Smokers and alcohol consumers.
• People with bad dietary habits, involving diets of high fat, salts and sugar foods and low fiber intake.
To sum it all up, a little care by ourselves towards our own well being, self consciousness, control over our own lifestyles and alertness to early diabetes warning signs of risk can stop this common monster from gaining control over us. We only need to be careful to stop the obvious; it’s only our fast, busy and careless lives; or lethargic callous habits that tend to make us victims to the Monster we call Type 2 Diabetes.