World Diabetes Day 2022: All You Need To Know About Diabetes

The international community commemorates World Diabetes Day on 14 November every year, using the opportunity to raise awareness of the growing dangers of diabetes on people and strategies to prevent and manage the threat.

According to World Health Organisation, WHO, this year’s theme is “Access to diabetes care”, it seeks to highlight the importance of prevention and response efforts towards the disease.

According to diabetes statistics, 24 million adults in Africa are currently living with diabetes. Diabetes is the only major noncommunicable disease (NCD) for which the risk of dying early is increasing, rather than decreasing.

Known risk factors include family history and increasing age, along with modifiable risk factors such as overweight and obesity, sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy diets, smoking and alcohol abuse. Unfortunately, these modifiable risk factors are on the rise across most countries in Africa.

AN OVERVIEW OF DIABETES

Diabetes is a chronic health condition that affects how your body turns food into energy.
The body breaks down most of the food eaten into sugar (glucose) and releases it into the 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 when cells stop responding to insulin, too much blood sugar stays in your bloodstream. Over time, that can cause serious health problems, such as heart disease, vision loss, and kidney disease.

TYPES OF DIABETES

There are 3 types of diabetes.
-Type 1 diabetes
-Type 2 diabetes
– The Gestational diabetes.

TYPE 1 DIABETES
As at 2017, There were 9million people with the type 1 diabetes and majority of them were found to be residents in high income countries.

It is characterized by deficient insulin production and requires daily administration of insulin. Neither it’s cause nor prevention is known.

Symptoms include excessive excretion of urine, thirst, constant hunger, weight loss, vision changes and fatigue. They may occur suddenly.

TYPE 2 DIABETES

This results from the body’s ineffective use of insulin. More than 95% of people with diabetes have type 2. It results to excessive body weight and physical inactivity.

Symptoms may be similar to the type 1, but are less marked. It may be diagnosed several years after onset, after complications might have arisen. Formerly, it was seen in adults until recently it was observed in children.

GESTATIONAL DIABETES

Thus develops in pregnant women who never had diabetes and goes away after the baby is born. In such cases, the baby is at higher risk of health challenges and is likely to have obesity as a child, teen and develop type 2 diabetes later in life.

It however, may also increase the mother’s risk of having diabetes later in life.

There has been no cure for diabetes just yet, but certain safety precautions such as;
– Losing weight,
– Eating healthy food,
– Being active etc. can really help.
You can also;
Take medicine as prescribed.
Get diabetes self-management education and support.
Make and keep health care appointments.