All About Diabetes

Written by: Kariobeary

Why is it important to understand diabetes?

In the 2016 WHO report, diabetes is currently affecting millions of lives in China. More than 224k people have passed away with diabetes, which makes diabetes the 4th leading cause of disease-led death in China. Nowadays, people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are shifted towards a younger population.

In addition, diabetes often has long-term impacts on its patients and can lead to multiple complications (which will also be discussed at a later date). Although both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are influenced by both genetics and environmental factors, a healthy diet, and proper exercise are often considered as proper preventive measures of type 2 diabetes.

Therefore, understanding diabetes and implementing proper preventive measures are extremely important to help reduce the cases of diabetes in our country.

What is diabetes? 

Diabetes is a disease where the regulation of blood glucose level is disrupted due to problems in insulin production.

Diabetes is usually used as a general term; however, it includes 4 categories: prediabetes (though some don’t consider this as the “real” diabetes), Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), and gestational diabetes.

First of all, what’s prediabetes?

Prediabetes is characterized by increased blood sugar levels that are higher than normal, but not yet in the range that would be diagnosed as diabetes. 1

Many clinicians don’t consider prediabetes as diabetes as it only presents the early clinical symptoms of diabetes, without the severity of other 3 categories of diabetes. Therefore, properly taking steps to manage prediabetes become very important. Early diagnosis, treatment, and management can free one from type 2 diabetes. However, if left unmanaged, prediabetes quickly speeds into type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 Diabetes vs Type 2 Diabetes 

Most times, when we talk about diabetes, we are talking about T2D. However, there are still millions of people diagnosed with T1D.

Therefore, below is a table detailing the differences between the two:

In summary, T1D is more heavily influenced by the genetics, leading to the destruction of β cells in the pancreas and lack of absolute production of insulin. In contrast, T2D is under the influence of both genetics and environmental factors, leading to the abnormal production or uptake of insulin. Therefore, in most cases, T2D is preventable and manageable.  In our other article, we will discuss “how to prevent” and “why certain interventions” work!

Why preventing diabetes is so important?

T2D can't be cured. 

Although the discovery and injection of insulin can help reduce the symptoms of T2D, our medicine today still can’t fully cure T2D. Therefore, the best way to avoid T2D and its complications is to prevent T2D from happening in the first place.

T2D has many complications.

T2D can lead to many complications including but not limited to diabetic ketoacidosis, chronic kidney disease, skin problems (such as ulcers), glaucoma, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, nerved damages, cardiovascular diseases, and increased risks for cancer. 1,2

Most of these complications are irreversible and painful to live with. Therefore, avoiding T2D can reduce the risks of such complications, decrease organ burdens, and live a higher quality of life!

Let's talk about the social stigma around diabetes!

Genetics often play a huge role in the onset of diabetes; therefore, diabetes is not entirely avoidable for some due to their genetic components regardless of how healthy their lifestyle or diets may be. With this being said, it’s important for our society to have the understanding of the difficult lives many diabetes patients are living in! A more understanding and empathetic society often allows patients to seek earlier treatment, open discussion, and better management of their diseases, leading to a healthier society!