Diabetes mellitus is spreading rapidly around the world, and it doesn't matter that scientists haven't discovered all the reasons why this disease can be. In this situation, a person can only be attentive to his body.
And let the symptom of another disease be confused with the manifestation of diabetes - in case of suspicion, you should immediately seek clarification from the doctor (especially since there is also asymptomatic diabetes).
It is customary to qualify diabetes mellitus as an endocrinological pathology with a severe clinical picture. In this case, the initial stages of the disease are often asymptomatic or are characterized by a polymorphism of manifestations. However, there are some signs of pathology, which you can find out from the material below.
Causes of Diabetes
Despite the apparent abundance of causes of the disease, its main causes are two:
- sugar (specifically) and food (in general);
- psychological preparation for bodily harm (state of stress).
Despite the search for new treatments for diabetes, sucrose continues to conquer the world in parallel. Sugar takes on the most exotic and seductive guises - even the tomato ketchup recipe isn't complete without the addition of sugar, not to mention the unthinkable wedding cakes and breakfasts of seemingly innocent children.
Reference. Most natural fruits and fruits do not contain sucrose - it is produced from the juice of plants that are not eaten raw by humans. Therefore, it can be attributed to artificially obtained chemical compounds.
Food in general has also become a threat to health. A person has never eaten so much and often. Obsessive offers to eat turned him into a constantly chewing creature - and the load on the pancreas, which has its own rhythm of life, becomes constant and threatening.
Alcoholic formulations serve both as a direct cause of glandular tissue necrosis and as a means of inducing organ ischemia.
This also applies to:
- smoking tobacco;
- drug use;
- excessive dependence on drugs: sleeping pills, sedatives, analgesics.
The second main cause of diabetes is stress. And one of the levers of stress is the constant reminder of the threat of diabetes, which pursues a person everywhere. Alarmed by such a prospect, the mind creates a subconscious prerequisite for illness.
Another factor in the spread of diabetes around the world is due to advances in medicine. If 100-150 years ago, diabetic patients rarely had offspring, now the conditionality of the disease by heredity has increased hundreds of times, 100% of diabetics give birth to the same diabetics with a high degree of probability.
The world has become an even more comfortable haven for diabetes thanks to physical inactivity with its inevitable companions: obesity, constipation, osteoporosis, microthrombi and metabolic disorders in all body systems, against which looms the total pollution ofthe environment (another cause of diabetes). like an innocent baby.
Classification of diseases
According to the etiological (causal) classification, diabetes is distinguished:
- Type I (also called insulin-dependent, or "juvenile");
- Type II (which is insulin independent);
- gestational (due to pregnancy);
- occurring for reasons of another plane (due to past infections, use of medications or other).
There is a division of the disease into more or less severe cases:
- light;
- moderate;
- strict.
Depending on the level of carbohydrate metabolism status, diabetes can be:
- compensated;
- undercompensated;
- decompensated.
Classification by the presence of complications includes the consequences of diabetes in the form of:
- micro- or macroangiopathies (vascular lesions);
- neuropathies (damage to nerve tissue and its structures);
- retinopathy (damage to the organs of vision);
- nephropathy (kidney pathology);
- diabetic foot (an isolated syndrome describing the pathology of blood vessels and other structures involving the lower extremities).
The clinical diagnosis, established on the basis of the above systematics, gives a brief and detailed picture of the patient's condition from the first reading. It is enough for a person without special education to know about the existence of 2 types and 3 degrees of severity of the disease.
The first symptoms of the disease
As can be seen from the classic literal translation of the name of the disease from Latin (honey diabetes), diabetes mellitus has two main characteristics:
- sweet taste of urine;
- frequent and abundant urination.
Doctors in the Middle Ages suspected only an excess of natural grape sugar in the blood - glucose, but they could support the diagnosis in another way - by tasting the patient's urine. Indeed, due to a disorder of the renal filtration process, glucose in diabetes enters the urine (normally it should not be there). Later, the assumptions of the fathers of medicine were brilliantly confirmed - the disease also includes hyperglycemia (an excessive amount of glucose in the blood).
It is possible to be guided by these canons even in the present day, remembering, however, that it is precisely the presence of the two signs that testifies in favor of sugar disease: sweet and abundant urine. For diabetes can also be tasteless, but this is a completely different disease, the development of which is caused by completely different reasons.
With unmanifest (practically asymptomatic) or slow diabetes, the first signs may be its secondary symptoms (not characteristic of this particular pathology) in the form of:
- visual disturbances;
- headache;
- undue muscle weakness;
- dryness in the oral cavity;
- itching involving the skin and mucous membranes (especially often in the intimate area);
- hard-to-heal skin lesions;
- a noticeable odor of acetone from urine.
Their presence does not allow to diagnose type I or II of the disease - only a study of pathology by a medical specialist, as well as a study of blood composition in combination with other tests, can distinguish them.
Specific characteristics
They are more characteristic of type I, they approach suddenly and powerfully, therefore the patient can report not only the year of their appearance, but also the month (up to the week associated with a certain event).
These include having:
- polyuria (profuse and frequent urination);
- polydipsia (unquenchable thirst);
- polyphagia ("wolf appetite" which does not bring saturation);
- noticeable (and increasing) weight loss.
It should be noted that this is not about the temporary residence of a difficult period in life, after which everything returns to normal, but about the stable malaise of the body for weeks and months.
In addition to glucose, the excess of which does not become a nutrient, but a compound that breaks the established metabolism and disrupts the natural biochemical balance of the body, substances that have a toxic effect on structures accumulate in it:
- nervous tissue;
- hearts;
- kidneys;
- liver;
- ships.
The best known of them is acetone, which is well known to the brain for the poisoning state that occurs after drinking an alcoholic beverage. The accumulation of acetone and other incompletely oxidized metabolic products leads to the failure of all body systems, mainly the nervous and vascular systems, which provide transport and communication in the body.
In a critical case (with a sharp increase or decrease in blood sugar), diabetes can lead to the onset of a coma, when circulatory disorders in the brain can lead to the death of the patient.
In what cases it is impossible to postpone a visit to the doctor?
The answer to this question will become clear after some clarification.
Type I diabetes results from insufficient production of insulin, which limits blood sugar. In the type II variant, insulin is sufficient, but due to the characteristics of the body, its ability to regulate blood sugar is limited - insulin is simply not able to reduce its content. As a result of excess glucose, it becomes a toxin that disrupts the normal course of all chemical reactions in the body, not just carbohydrate metabolism.
It is the level of disturbances in tissue metabolism and the body's ability to compensate for these disturbances that determine the severity of diabetes.
With a gentle course, the glucose level does not cross the threshold of 8 units (mmol / l), its daily fluctuations are insignificant.
The moderate form is characterized by a rise in glucose already up to 14 units with episodes of ketosis-ketoacidosis (an excess of acetone and similar substances in the blood), which is fraught with vascular disorders.
In severe cases, the glucose level exceeds 14 units, its fluctuations during the day are significant - there are serious problems with the blood supply to the tissues, while interruptions in the nutrition of the brain can cause a coma.
From this follow the sensations experienced by the patient, having either the character of small signs, or typical manifestations of diabetes:
- polyuria (diabetes) with soft urine;
- polydipsia (appearance of thirst, not eliminated even by frequent and abundant consumption);
- polyphagia (indomitable gluttony);
- unmotivated body weight loss.
The presence of this syndrome (complex of signs) is a good reason to consult an endocrinologist or, in the absence of this specialist, a therapist who will carry out the first necessary studies.
The reason for becoming an object of in-depth study can also be disorders of the nervous system caused by diabetes, detected by a neuropathologist, in the inexplicable form:
- dizziness;
- nausea;
- noise and ringing in the ears;
- vomiting;
- transient sensory or movement disturbances;
- perception and memory problems.
Small signs of diabetic vascular disease, manifested by eye symptoms, can also be deviations in the function of the organs of vision in the form of:
- reduce its severity;
- corneal dryness (sensation of dryness, "gritty", itching or pain in the eyes);
- blurring of object outlines;
- ripples and flies in the eyes;
- periodic occurrence of blind spots and loss of entire fields of vision;
- unexplained "darkening" in the eyes.
The presence of a diabetic vascular disease can cause a primary recourse to doctors of other profiles:
- with trophic skin disorders (formation of ulcers on the lower extremities) - to the surgeon;
- with non-healing skin lesions - to a dermatologist;
- with bleeding, non-healing of wounds in the mouth or the appearance of sores - to the dentist.
The reason for seeking immediate medical attention should be any case of sudden loss of consciousness, onset of a condition characterized by "loss of tongue", "numb arm, leg", dizziness, accompanied by nausea and vomiting, evenif these symptoms can be explained by alcohol or drug intoxication or by taking stable tablets prescribed by a doctor.