Types of diabetesDiabetes is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, but very few people die directly from poorly controlled diabetes or diabetic coma these days. How's that? Consider this. Diabetes itself is simply your body's inability to process the sugar, or glucose, in your bloodstream. There are two types. In type I (also known as immune-mediated diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes), your pancreas stops producing insulin, the hormone you need to get the glucose into your cells. In type II, either your pancreas doesn't make enough insulin or your body doesn't use it right. Type II is the one that you should really be concerned about. Type II’s aliases are "adult-onset" or "non-insulin-dependent diabetes" or NIDDM (the M for mellitus), and it's by far the most common - accounting for 9 out of 10 cases. Fifteen million Americans have it. Eight million have it without knowing it. But the most impressive fact is this: Most of adult-onset type II diabetes doesn't necessarily have to occur at all. "It's important to know that diabetes is preventable," says George King, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and senior investigator of vascular cell biology at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. "Or, if you have the disease, many complications can be prevented." If you were to die from acute complications of diabetes such as a coma, you'd die from too much glucose in your bloodstream. And, sure enough, that's what used to happen before the discovery of insulin in 1922. But these days, diabetics can live happily and healthily ever after, by controlling their sugar intake to avoid complications. Those who have type I diabetes can also control their glucose levels with insulin shots, and those with type II can do so with a diet and exercise regimen, usually without insulin shots. Insufficiently controlled, however, either type of diabetes leads to other diseases - and that's where potentially fatal complications await. The complications of diabetes read like a chamber of horrors. Heart attack, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and kidney failure are the most frequent causes of death. Diabetes also can lead to blindness, nerve disease, gangrene, lower limb amputation, and erectile dysfunction. Somehow, a few minutes on a stationary bike and a strategic pass on the nachos doesn't seem like a lot to ask to avoid all that. *1/36/5* DIABETES «Pain Medications Without a Prescription» |