Let's talk diabetes

What the hell is diabetes?

"Don't do that or you might get diabetes". 

In this post I will teach you what it is and what it does to your body.

Like with all of my posts. I am not saying that it is a scientific article. If there are parts of the text that you want to learn more about, go read texts written by doctors. 
I do however know a lot about it and face it basically every day. I believe that the general public are getting a lot of warnings about it, without the information about what it actually is.

Why would you care to avoid something that you don't know what it is? 

I am not intrested in explaining to satisfy doctors. I am just trying to scratch on the surface, creating an intrest for the subject. 
So if you consider some explanations to miss certain things or just not being detailed enough. Go and read on other sites as well. I am translating my thoughts into english which means that I am not fully confident in the language surrounding these medical terms and facts.


This will give you a basic idea about what it is and might give you some motivation to avoid it. Because like with everything in life, to do something - you need the motivation!

What is diabetes?

This is simplified to the point of absurdness because there are so many things on a cellular level at work here. 

Diabetes is a disease that affects your blood and in particular the glucose levels. Your body can't get the glucose out from the bloodstream and into your body. This can lead to serious complications.

  There are two kinds of diabetes. Type 1 and type 2. The type that your lifestyle might give you, is the second one. 

Type 1 is something you will live with forever while the type 2 can be reversed. That is probably why the first part of treatment is to control your diet.

Insulin is the big thing here. Insulin is a hormon that allows the glucose to exit the bloodstream. To simplify it, think of insulin as a key that open the door from the bloodstream.

When having diabetes type 1 you don't have any keys at all. Your body is not producing any insulin.

When having type 2, the keys are working fine at first but as the disease gets worse, the body will need help. At first most people are trying to balance their diet in order to keep the glucose at an okay level.

The next step is to start taking medicine, pills that will help your body produce insulin.

If the disease gets worse, your own production gets too low or even stops completely - you will need to inject insulin.

The people with type 1 diabetes will have to do this from the beginning since they don't produce any of their own.

How to avoid diabetes

Even if you have started to develop type 2 diabetes, you have a chance to get better. When exercising you will help your body to deal with the glucose in your body. 

Obviously the diet is a big part of this. There are a lot of different ideas on this. But according to this official info I am reading right now, these are some of the things that will have a positive impact on your diabetes:

- Fruit
- Vegetables
- Root vegetables
- Fish
- Nuts
- Coffee

Living with diabetes

Since your body won't be able to control your glucose levels - you have to do that manually.

By having routines and be alert on how you feel when high or low in blood sugar, you will be able to live a good life even with diabetes type 1. 

To know your current level of glucose in the blood you will take a drop of blood from the tip of your finger. Then a small machine will measure it, giving you a number.

Then you will decide how much insulin you will need. 

There are many factors weighing in. For example level of activity, diet and what kind of insulin it is. There are some sorts of insuling that is giving a direct effect while some will affect your body over time. 
People that has had diabetes for years are often experts on their own body and how they will handle their insulin.

You will be able to work out and live an active lifestyle with diabetes. You always have to plan ahead though and make sure that you have some candy or such nearby in case you drop too low in blood sugar.
And to know how your body reacts to hard workouts you will need to figure that out - and you will.

You will need to check your blood pressure, take samples of your blood lipids and scan your eyes regurarely to find risk factors that comes with the diabetes.

Consequences of a mistreated diabetes

The fact that you run the risk of getting too low in blood sugar and get unconscious is bad enough. 

If the body has suffered from high glucose levels for a long period of time the veins will get affected. They might get arteriosclerosis, narrower passage for the blood. The things that makes it narrower can also break free and cause a stop in veins causing a stroke (if it is in the brain) or a heart attack.

Since it affects the blood vessels, even the smaller ones are affected and that could lead to these examples:

- Your eyes might get damaged

- Your sensor nerves in the feet and legs might get less effective. So if you have a stone in your shoe and walk around, you might not feel it until you have a big wound. And when having wounds on feet and legs, they will heal really slow since the blood vessels won't transfer blood as efficient. 

It can be bad enough to amputate serious wounds when you have a serious diabetes making healing difficult.

- As a man you might get problems with your erection. Yea guys, the boner is depending on blood flowing to your most precious body part.

- You are getting a higher risk of getting diseases that makes you lose teeth. So make sure to visit the dentist regurarely.

Like with most diseases they are recommending not to smoke. In this case it is because of the increased risk of getting damages on small bloodvessles. And that in turn might cause strokes or heartattacks.

Don't ignore this disease. Life can be unfair and some may not suffer at all by living a crazy lifestyle while some might get it even though they are living a perfectly healthy life.

But give yourself good odds! Even small changes are positive changes, remember that!