Diabetes

Diabetes means that your blood sugar is too high. Your blood always has some sugar in it because the body uses sugar for energy; it's the fuel that keeps you going. But too much sugar in the blood is not good for your health. Your body changes most of the food you eat into sugar. Your blood takes the sugar to the cells throughout your body. The sugar needs insulin to get into the body's cells. Insulin is a hormone made in the pancreas, an organ near the stomach. The pancreas releases insulin into the blood. Insulin helps the sugar from food get into body cells. If your body does not make enough insulin or the insulin does not work right, the sugar can't get into the cells, so it stays in the blood. This makes your blood sugar level high, causing you to have diabetes.

Diabetes can lead to blindness, heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, amputations (having a toe or foot removed, for example), and nerve damage. In women, diabetes can cause problems during pregnancy and make it more likely that your baby will be born with birth defects.
Pre-diabetes means your blood sugar is higher than normal but lower than the diabetes range. It also means you are at risk of getting type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The good news is: You can reduce the risk of getting diabetes and even return to normal blood sugar levels with modest weight loss and moderate physical activity. If you are told you have pre-diabetes, have your blood glucose (sugar) checked again in 1 to 2 years.

The three main types of diabetes are:
Type 1 diabetes is commonly diagnosed in children and young adults, but it's a lifelong condition. If you have this type of diabetes, your body does not make insulin, so you must take insulin every day. Treatment for type 1 diabetes includes taking insulin shots or using an insulin pump, eating healthy, exercising regularly, taking aspirin daily (for some), and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common type of diabetes — about 9 out of 10 people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes. You can get type 2 diabetes at any age, even during childhood. In type 2 diabetes, your body makes insulin, but the insulin can't do its job, so sugar is not getting into the cells. Treatment includes taking medicine, eating healthy, exercising regularly, taking aspirin daily (for some), and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol.

Gestational (jess-TAY-shun-ul) diabetes occurs during pregnancy. This type of diabetes occurs in about 1 in 20 pregnancies. During pregnancy your body makes hormones that keep insulin from doing its job. To make up for this, your body makes extra insulin. But in some women this extra insulin is not enough, so they get gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes usually goes away when the pregnancy is over. Women who have had gestational diabetes are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life.

About 20 million Americans have diabetes, about half of whom are women. As many as one third do not know they have diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes occurs at about the same rate in men and women, but it is more common in Whites than in minorities.
Type 2 diabetes is more common in older people, mainly in people who are overweight. It is more common in African Americans, Hispanic Americans/Latinos, and American Indians.

Causes diabetes
Type 1 and type 2 diabetes — The exact causes of both types of diabetes are still not known. Type 1 diabetes tends to show up after a person is exposed to a trigger, such as a virus, which can start an attack on the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. There is no one cause for type 2 diabetes, but it seems to run in families, and most people who get type 2 diabetes are overweight.

Gestational diabetes — Changing hormones and weight gain are part of a healthy pregnancy, but these changes make it hard for your body to keep up with its need for insulin. When that happens, your body doesn't get the energy it needs from the foods you eat.

Things that can put you at risk for diabetes include:
Age (being older than 45); Overweight or obesity; Family history (having a mother, father, brother, or sister with diabetes)
Race/ethnicity — your family background is African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic American/Latino, Asian American/Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian
Having a baby with a birth weight more than 9 pounds
Having diabetes during pregnancy (gestational diabetes)
High blood pressure — 140/90 mm HG or higher. Both numbers are important. If one or both numbers are usually high, you have high blood pressure.
High cholesterol — total cholesterol over 240 mg/dL
Inactivity — exercising less than 3 times a week
Abnormal results in a prior diabetes test
Having other health conditions that are linked to problems using insulin, like Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
Having a history of heart disease or stroke
Should I be tested for diabetes?
If you're at least 45-years-old, you should get tested for diabetes, and then you should be tested again every 3 years. If you're 45 or older and overweight (Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI) you may want to get tested more often. If you're younger than 45, overweight, and have one or more of the risk factors listed in "Am I at Risk for Diabetes?" you should get tested now. Ask your doctor for a fasting blood glucose test or an oral glucose tolerance test. Your doctor will tell you if you have normal blood glucose (blood sugar), pre-diabetes, or diabetes.

Being very thirsty, urinating a lot, feeling very hungry, feeling very tired, losing weight without trying, having sores that are slow to heal, having dry and itchy skin, losing feeling in or having tingling in the hands or feet, having blurry vision and having more infections than usual
If you have one or more of these signs, contact your doctor

More information :
Contacting the National Women's Health Information Center at 1-800-994-9662 or the following organizations:
National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney DiseasesPhone Number(s): (800) 860-8747Internet Address: http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health/diabetes/diabetes.htm
National Diabetes Education ProgramPhone Number(s): (800) 438-5383 (publications ordering)Internet Address: http://ndep.nih.gov/
Centers for Disease Control and PreventionPhone Number(s): (800) 232-4636Internet Address: http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/