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Diabetes Basics Part 7: How Can The Long-Term Health Consequences of Diabetes Be Delayed or Prevented?
In the last piece of this blog series, we listed the long-term health consequences of diabetes. Because diabetes is, by definition, a disease that is defined by high glucose levels, exposure of the body to higher-than-normal glucose over long periods of time does cause many of these serious health consequences. But like everything in medical...
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Diabetes Basics Part 6: What Are the Long-Term Health Consequences of Diabetes?
As discussed previously, diabetes is very common and can cause a variety of non-specific symptoms. These may be obvious and interfere with sleep or daily routines. Or they may be so subtle that affected people may ignore them. As a result, about 1 out of 4 Canadians with diabetes do not know that they have...
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Diabetes Basics Part 5: What Are the Symptoms of Diabetes and When Should it Be Suspected?
Diabetes is a disease defined by an elevated glucose level. The symptoms that people experience as a result depend on the degree of elevation – higher levels usually mean more symptoms, but this varies from person to person. Unfortunately, these symptoms are not specific. Thus, they could be due to a wide variety of different...
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Diabetes Basics Part 4: How Common is Diabetes and Why Does it Develop?
Unfortunately, diabetes is extremely common. Approximately 1 in 10 people aged 20 and over throughout the world have diabetes. This is an average with numbers varying by age, country, ethnic origin or ancestry, weight, weight distribution, socioeconomic status, and medical history. In Canada the number is 1 in 10 adults, and 1 in 5 over...
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Diabetes Basics Part 3: How is Glucose Measured?
Diabetes is diagnosed when the level in the blood is persistently higher than the thresholds described in the last blog. So how is the glucose level measured? First, the glucose level at a point in time can be measured in a standard blood sample, in which the amount of glucose is detected by another chemical...
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Diabetes Basics Part 2: The Definition of Diabetes
The first piece in this blog series describes how someone without diabetes maintains glucose levels within the tight normal range of 4 to 8 mmol/L. Persistently higher glucose levels mean the beta cells of the pancreas can’t make enough insulin to keep glucose from rising. A diagnosis of diabetes is made when the glucose level...