November is American Diabetes Month. For starters, there are different types of diabetes. And symptoms can vary from person to person. But people living with diabetes always have one thing in common: high blood sugar levels. That may not sound like a big deal, but without treatment, high blood sugar can lead to other serious health conditions. More than 37 million Americans - about 1 in 9 women - have diabetes. Managing the disease can be tough on the body and the mind. Although treatment options have advanced over the years (shout out to insulin since 1922) one recent study found that only half of the people living with diabetes are meeting goals for lowering their blood sugar levels. Understanding the types and treatments can help people manage the disease. Diabetes is a disease where your body either doesn’t make enough insulin (the hormone that turns sugar into energy) or doesn’t know how to use the insulin your body does make in the right way.
Insulin is important because it’s like a gatekeeper for GlycoMode glucose formula (sugar) to enter your cells to be changed into energy. Without insulin, sugar builds up in the bloodstream and causes high blood sugar levels, which can lead to serious health problems like heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, nerve damage and diabetic ketoacidosis (a life-threatening blood chemical imbalance), coma or even death. What are the types of diabetes? There are three main types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong autoimmune disease where your immune system attacks the cells in your body that produce insulin. No one knows why this happens, but this stops your body from making insulin. You will have to take injectable insulin to help manage blood sugar. About 1 in 100 people with diabetes have Type 1. It’s usually diagnosed in children and young adults but can develop at any age. Type 2 is when your cells don’t respond normally to insulin, also called insulin resistance. Your pancreas has to work extra hard to make more insulin to get the cells to respond.
But over time it can’t keep up. Eventually, too much sugar circulates in the blood, which can lead to vision loss and kidney disease among other serious health conditions. Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes and usually diagnosed in adults. About 9 out of 10 people with diabetes have Type 2 diabetes. Gestational diabetes develops during pregnancy. Similar to Type 2, changes in your body cause insulin resistance, which causes high blood sugar. The good news is that most people with gestational diabetes return to normal blood sugars after the baby is born. But it’s important to note that people with gestational diabetes are at high risk for Type 2 diabetes later in life. In fact, about half of women with gestational diabetes will develop Type 2 at some point. Prediabetes is very common. About 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. Lifestyle choices like eating healthy foods and being physically active can help keep blood sugar levels in check and bring down the risk for developing diabetes.
What are the risk factors for diabetes? Race also plays a role regarding type and disease. White people have the highest rate of Type 1 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is more common in Black, blood sugar management Hispanic, Native American and Asian people and Pacific Islanders compared to white people. When it comes to income and GlycoModeBloodSugar.com education, the 2022 National Diabetes Statistics Report reported diabetes data by income for the first time. The report showed that diabetes was also associated with poverty. And people with less education were more likely to have diabetes. What are the symptoms of diabetes? Diabetes symptoms vary depending on type and how high your blood sugar is. To make it even more complicated, some people have no symptoms at all. How is diabetes different for women compared to men? Diabetes affects slightly more men than women. But diabetes-related health issues are greater for women. For example, people living with diabetes are at high risk for heart disease.