How is Diabetes Diagnosed?

According to current recommendations presence of any of the criteria below indicates that the person has diabetes:

Fasting plasma glucose is above 126 mg/dl;
Diabetes symptoms exist and casual plasma glucose is equal to or above 200 mg/dl; or
Plasma glucose is equal to or above 200 mg/dl during an oral glucose tolerance test.

If any of these test results occur, testing should be repeated on a different day to confirm the diagnosis.

How is diabetes treated?

The mainstay of treatment of diabetes is to maintain reasonably constant levels of glucose in the blood, and mainly two things achieve this: regulating the diet and regulating your insulin dose.

Three methods of treatment are available for diabetic patients:

Diet alone
Diet and an oral hypoglycemic agent(drugs that lower the glucose levels in the blood)
Diet and insulin.

There are certain things that those who have diabetes, whether type 1 or type 2, need to do to be healthy. You need to have a meal (eating) plan. You need to pay attention to how much you exercise because exercise can help your body use insulin better to convert glucose into energy for cells. Everyone with type 1 diabetes, and some people with type 2 diabetes, needs to take insulin injections. Some people with type 2 diabetes take pills called "oral agents" which help their bodies produce more insulin and/or use the insulin it is producing better. Some people with type 2 diabetes can manage their disease with weight loss, diet, and exercise alone and don’t need any medication.

Everyone who has diabetes should have regular eye exams (once a year) by an ophthalmologist to make sure that any eye problems associated with diabetes are caught early, and treated before they become serious.

Also, people with diabetes need to learn how to monitor their blood sugars day-to-day at home using home blood sugar monitoring.

What are the complications of diabetes?

The number of complications poorly managed and long-standing diabetes can cause is enormous. Virtually every system of the body is affected by it and complications related to them start surfacing over a period of time. The following are the more common complications seen in diabetics:

heart attacks
strokes,
blindness
kidney failure
blood vessel disease that causes gangrene of affected limbs necessitating an amputation
nerve damage
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But happily, numerous studies have shown that if people keep their blood sugars as close to normal as possible, they can reduce their risk of developing some of these complications by 50 percent or more.