With diabetes, your body either doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use it as well as it should. Diabetes is a chronic (long-lasting) health condition that affects how your body turns food into energy. Your body breaks down most of the food you eat into sugar (glucose) and releases it into your bloodstream.
When your blood sugar goes up, it signals your pancreas to release insulin. Insulin acts like a key to let the blood sugar into your body’s cells for use as energy. With diabetes, your body doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use it as well as it should. When there isn’t enough insulin or cells stop responding to insulin, too much blood sugar stays in your bloodstream.
Diabetes and the body | Diabetes UK
Over time, that can cause serious health problems, such as heart disease, vision loss, and kidney disease, There isn’t a cure yet for diabetes, but losing weight, eating healthy food, and being active can really help. Other things you can do to help:
Take medicine as prescribed. Get diabetes self-management education and support. Make and keep health care appointments.
More than 37 million US adults have diabetes, and 1 in 5 of them don’t know they have it. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. Diabetes is the No.1 cause of kidney failure, lower-limb amputations, and adult blindness. In the last 20 years, the number of adults diagnosed with diabetes has more than doubled,
What happens if diabetes is left untreated?
Costs and Consequences is a blog series examining the health care burden of not treating diseases. Too often, the rhetoric focuses solely on the cost of medicines and disregards the adverse societal and economic impacts of not treating diseases. Stay tuned for the next post in the series and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
- Diabetes is a leading cause of death in the United States and its prevalence is rising at an alarming rate.
- Every 30 seconds a new diabetes case is diagnosed, with almost 2 million Americans newly diagnosed each year.
- Currently, more than 29 million people – one in 10 American adults – have diabetes.
- If trends continue as many as one–in-three Americans could face the disease by 2050.
Diabetes is a complex, chronic condition that requires consistent medical care and treatment to help control blood sugar levels. If left untreated, diabetes can lead to devastating complications, such as heart disease, nerve damage, blindness, kidney failure and amputations.
And the risk of death for adults with diabetes is 50 percent higher than for adults without diabetes. The cost of not treating diabetes is detrimental to the patient, and also to society. According to the American Diabetes Association’s report, Economic Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2012, the total estimated cost of diabetes in 2012 was $245 billion – a 41 percent increase since 2007.
This includes $176 billion in direct medical costs and $69 billion in reduced productivity, such as increased absenteeism, reduced productivity while at work and lost productivity due to early mortality. And people with diabetes, on average, have medical costs twice as high as for people without diabetes. These costs are unsustainable and underscore the need to control diabetes with a proper treatment plan, including diet, exercise and medications. Adherence to treatment is especially critical as improved adherence to diabetes medications could result in over 1 million fewer emergency room visits and save $8.3 billion annually.
How does type 2 diabetes affect you physically?
Type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is a common condition that causes the level of sugar (glucose) in the blood to become too high. It can cause symptoms like excessive thirst, needing to pee a lot and tiredness, It can also increase your risk of getting serious problems with your eyes, heart and nerves. It’s a lifelong condition that can affect your everyday life, You may need to change your diet, take medicines and have regular check-ups. It’s caused by problems with a chemical in the body (hormone) called insulin, It’s often linked to being overweight or inactive, or having a family history of type 2 diabetes.
Page last reviewed: 18 August 2020 Next review due: 18 August 2023 : Type 2 diabetes
Can you live with diabetes without medication?
Some people can control and manage type 2 diabetes without medicine, but many others will need diabetes medications along with lifestyle changes. If you are newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, your provider may first recommend that you manage your diabetes using lifestyle changes only.
- Controlling type 2 diabetes without medication means keeping track of your blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol under the supervision of your diabetes care provider.
- You will also need to follow a diabetes meal plan, get to and maintain a healthy weight, and make physical activity part of your daily routine.
Keeping your A1C, blood pressure and cholesterol in check may help you avoid the long-term complications of type 2 diabetes, which is what treatment is all about. These complications include:
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Nerve damage
- Loss of vision
- Kidney failure
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) outlines several ways you can manage and monitor diabetes:
Can you live with diabetes for years and not know?
Symptoms – Signs and symptoms of type 2 diabetes often develop slowly. In fact, you can be living with type 2 diabetes for years and not know it. When signs and symptoms are present, they may include:
Increased thirst Frequent urination Increased hunger Unintended weight loss Fatigue Blurred vision Slow-healing sores Frequent infections Numbness or tingling in the hands or feet Areas of darkened skin, usually in the armpits and neck