Diabetes mellitus is rapidly spreading around the world and it does not care that scientists have not discovered all the reasons why this disease can be. In this situation, one can only be attentive to one's body.
And let the symptom of another disease be mistaken for a manifestation of diabetes - if there is a suspicion, you should immediately seek clarification from the doctor (especially since there is also asymptomatic diabetes).
It is accepted that diabetes mellitus is qualified as an endocrinological pathology with a severe clinical picture. In this case, often the initial stages of the disease are asymptomatic or characterized by polymorphism of manifestations. However, there are certain signs of pathology, which you can learn about 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 (generally);
- psychological readiness for damage to the body (state of stress).
Despite the search for new treatments for diabetes, sucrose continues to take over the world in parallel. Sugar is given the most exotic and seductive images - even a recipe for tomato ketchup is not complete without the addition of sugar, not to mention unthinkable wedding cakes and seemingly innocent children's snacks.
reference. Most natural fruits and berries do not contain sucrose - it is produced from the juice of plants that are not consumed raw by humans. Therefore, it can be attributed to artificially obtained chemical compounds.
Food in general has also become a health threat. One has never eaten so much and so often. Obsessive offers to eat have turned him into a creature that constantly chews - and the load on the pancreas, which has its own rhythm of life, becomes constant and threatening.
Alcoholic compositions serve both as a direct cause of glandular tissue necrosis and as a way to induce organ ischemia.
This applies to:
- smoking tobacco;
- drug use;
- excessive addiction to drugs: sleeping pills, sedatives, painkillers.
The second major cause of diabetes is stress. And one of the levers of stress is the constant reminder of the threat of diabetes chasing a person everywhere. Troubled by such a prospect, the mind creates a subconscious predisposition to illness.
Another factor in the prevalence of diabetes around the world exists because of medical advances. If 100-150 years ago diabetic patients rarely had offspring, now the conditioning of the disease by heredity has increased hundreds of times, 100% diabetics give birth to the same diabetics with a high degree of probability.
The world has become an even more comfortable refuge for diabetes thanks to the lack of physical activity with its inevitable companions: obesity, constipation, osteoporosis, microthrombi and metabolic disorders in all body systems, against the background of which total environmental pollution appears (anothercause of diabetes). like an innocent baby.
Classification of the disease
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 from another plan (due to past infections, drug use or otherwise).
There is a division of the disease into cases of varying degrees of severity:
- light;
- moderate;
- heavy.
According to the level of carbohydrate metabolism, diabetes can be:
- compensated;
- undercompensated;
- decompensated.
Classification according to the presence of complications includes diabetic consequences 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 (a separate isolated syndrome describing the pathology of blood vessels and other structures involving the lower extremities).
The clinical diagnosis, compiled on the basis of the above systematics, gives a concise and voluminous picture of the patient's condition at the very 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 is clear 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 profuse urination.
Doctors of the Middle Ages suspected only an excess of natural grape sugar in the blood - glucose, but they could substantiate the diagnosis in another way - by tasting the patient's urine. Because due to a violation of the renal filtration process, glucose in diabetes enters the urine (usually it should not be there). Later, the assumptions of the fathers of medicine were brilliantly confirmed - the disease also includes hyperglycemia (excessive amount of glucose in the blood).
It is possible to be guided by these canons even in today's age, but remember that it is the presence of the two signs that testify in favor of diabetes: sweet and profuse urine. In diabetes, insipidus can also be present, but this is a completely different disease, the development of which is caused by completely different reasons.
In unmanifest (practically asymptomatic) or slow diabetic disease, the first signs may be its secondary symptoms (uncharacteristic of this particular pathology) in the form of:
- visual disturbances;
- headache;
- unjustified muscle weakness;
- dry mouth;
- itching affecting the skin and mucous membranes (especially often in the intimate area);
- hard-to-heal skin lesions;
- a noticeable smell of acetone coming from the urine.
Their presence does not allow to diagnose type I or II of the disease - only a pathology examination by a specialist doctor, plus an examination of the composition of the blood in combination with other tests, can distinguish them.
Specific characteristics
They are more characteristic of type I, occur suddenly and powerfully, therefore the patient can indicate not only the year of their appearance, but also the month (up to the week associated with a certain event).
They include:
- polyuria (abundant and frequent urination);
- polydipsia (insatiable thirst);
- polyphagia ("wolf appetite" that does not bring satiety);
- noticeable (and increasing) weight loss.
It should be noted that this is not a question of a temporary stay in some difficult period of life, after which everything returns to normal, but a stable malaise of the body for weeks and months.
In addition to glucose, the excess of which turns not into a nutrient, but into a compound that disrupts the established metabolism and disturbs the natural biochemical balance in the body, substances with a toxic effect on the structures accumulate in it:
- nervous tissue;
- hearts;
- kidneys;
- liver;
- dishes.
The most famous of these is acetone, well known to the brain for the state of intoxication that comes after drinking an alcoholic beverage. The accumulation of acetone and other incompletely oxidized metabolic products leads to damage to all body systems, primarily the nervous and vascular systems that provide transport and communication in the body.
In a critical case (with a sharp increase or decrease in blood sugar), diabetes can lead to a coma, when circulatory disorders in the brain can lead to the death of the patient.
In what cases is it impossible to postpone the visit to the doctor?
The answer to this question will become clear after some clarification.
Type I diabetes results from insufficient insulin production, which limits blood sugar levels. In variant type II, insulin is sufficient, but due to the peculiarities of the body, its ability to regulate blood sugar is limited - insulin is simply not able to reduce its content. As a result of an excess of glucose, it turns into a toxin that disrupts the normal flow of all chemical reactions in the body, not only in relation to carbohydrate metabolism.
The level of tissue metabolism disorders and the body's ability to compensate for these disorders determine the severity of diabetes.
In a mild course, the glucose level does not exceed the threshold of 8 units (mmol / l), its daily fluctuations are insignificant.
The moderate form is characterized by an increase in glucose already up to 14 units with episodes of ketosis-ketoacidosis (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 provoke a coma.
From here follow the sensations experienced by the patient, either having the nature of small signs or manifestations typical of diabetes:
- polyuria (diabetes) with sweet urine;
- polydipsia (appearance of thirst that is not eliminated even with frequent and copious drinking);
- polyphagia (unbridled gluttony);
- unmotivated weight loss.
The presence of this syndrome (complex of signs) is a good reason to visit an endocrinologist or, in the absence of this specialist, a therapist who will conduct the necessary initial examinations.
The reason for becoming the object of careful examination may also be disorders of the nervous system caused by diabetes, detected by a neurologist, in the form of unexplained:
- vertigo;
- nausea;
- noise and ringing in the ears;
- vomiting;
- transient sensory or motor disturbances;
- problems with perception and memory.
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 weight;
- drying of the cornea (feeling of dryness, "sand", itching or pain in the eyes);
- blurring the outlines of objects;
- ripples and flies in the eyes;
- periodic appearance of blind spots and loss of entire visual fields;
- unexplained "darkening" in the eyes.
The presence of diabetic vascular disease may cause a primary call to doctors of other profiles:
- with trophic skin disorders (formation of ulcers on the lower limbs) - to the surgeon;
- with non-healing skin lesions - to a dermatologist;
- with bleeding, non-healing sores in the mouth or the appearance of sores - to a dentist.
Any case of sudden loss of consciousness, appearance of a condition characterized by "lost tongue", "numb arm, leg", dizziness accompanied by nausea and vomiting should be a reason for immediate medical attention, even if these symptoms areexplained by alcohol or drug intoxication or taking stable pills prescribed by a doctor.