1. What is diabetes? What are the dangers of diabetes mellitus?
Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic syndrome characterized by chronic elevated blood glucose caused by insufficient or relatively insufficient insulin secretion.
A significant increase in blood glucose can lead to acute complications such as diabetic ketoacidosis and hyperosmolar coma, and prolonged disease can also cause vascular and neuropathy, resulting in damage to the heart, brain, kidneys, eyes, nerves, skin and other organs, affecting the patient’s quality of life and even leading to a shortened life expectancy, which should be actively prevented and treated.
2. Is diabetes contagious? Is it hereditary?
Diabetes is not contagious, and living and working with a person with diabetes will not affect your health.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common type of diabetes. It is mainly related to genetic and environmental factors (such as excess nutrition, lack of exercise, etc.), so if there is a person with type 2 diabetes in the immediate family, the chance of developing diabetes is higher than others, and regular checkups and prevention should be carried out.
3. What are the clinical manifestations of diabetes mellitus?
Typical diabetic patients have dry mouth, excessive drinking, polyuria, weight loss, long term diabetes can appear blurred vision, “glove, glove-like” numbness or ant crawling sensation in the limbs, foamy urine, skin or genitourinary system infection for a long time, serious cases of gangrene of the limbs need to be amputated, long term disease is mostly complicated by heart, brain, kidney, eye and other diseases. The disease is often complicated by heart, brain, kidney, eye and other diseases.
4. How to determine if you have diabetes?
To confirm the diagnosis of diabetes, you can take a glucose tolerance test (OGTT), which is a fasting blood test for plasma glucose, dissolve 75g of glucose powder in about 250ml of warm water, drink it within 5 minutes, and take another blood test for plasma glucose at 2 hours, and the test will be finished.
If you have the above clinical manifestations of diabetes, plus any of the following three points to meet the diagnosis criteria of diabetes: fasting blood glucose ≥ 7mmol/L, OGTT 2 hours blood glucose ≥ 11.1mmol/L, random blood glucose ≥ 11.1mmol/L. However, if you have no clinical manifestations of diabetes at all, but only once by chance found elevated blood glucose, you need to recheck blood glucose to determine whether If you have diabetes, you will need to have your blood sugar checked again to determine if you have diabetes.
5. What do I need to do to prepare for a blood test for diabetes?
Fasting blood glucose testing requires fasting for at least 8-10 hours. You may not eat from 10:00 p.m. onwards, but you may drink water and come to the hospital after 8:00 p.m. the next day for a blood test. If you are unable to fast for 10 hours, you can always go to the hospital for a random blood glucose test.
6. What should I do after being diagnosed with diabetes?
If you have just been diagnosed with diabetes and your blood sugar is only mildly elevated, you can try diet-exercise therapy, i.e. control your diet, increase exercise to reduce your weight, and recheck your blood sugar after a period of time.
7. How to control the diet of diabetic patients? How to exercise to control weight?
You can consult an endocrinologist, who will usually make individualized diabetic nutritional meals according to the patient’s body type, physical condition and activity. The Diabetes Center of Endocrinology will hold regular classes to inform patients how to make the most suitable diabetic nutritional meals and the correct cooking method with physical examples, so that the patient’s can lose weight without affecting their life needs.
It is generally recommended to eat regular and quantitative meals, advocate a light diet, increase the intake of edible fiber (such as vegetables, beans, coarse grains, etc.), appropriately control the intake of fat and protein (such as meat, dairy, etc.), and reduce the intake of sweets, fruits with high sugar content, and nuts. Advocate to adhere to 150 minutes of moderate exercise every week, such as brisk walking, jogging, cycling, gymnastics, etc., and try to make their weight close to the ideal weight, ideal weight (kg) = height (cm) – 105.
8. Is it better to take oral hypoglycemic drugs or insulin for diabetes treatment?
There are no strict advantages and disadvantages between the two. Diabetes treatment emphasizes individualized treatment and requires a suitable treatment plan according to the patient’s diabetes type, disease duration and condition. However, if it is type 1 diabetes, or acute complications such as diabetic ketoacidosis, or serious chronic complications of diabetes, or perioperative period, pregnancy, childbirth, etc., insulin therapy is required.
9. Will insulin be addictive if I take it for a long time?
Some patients have very poor pancreatic function and oral hypoglycemic drugs cannot control blood sugar well, so long-term insulin therapy is needed.
10.Why do diabetic patients need to monitor blood sugar regularly?
Regular blood glucose monitoring is an important part of diabetes treatment, and the treatment plan for diabetes is not set in stone. During the treatment period, the function of pancreatic islet cells of some patients will be improved and their own insulin secretion will be increased, so patients may have low blood sugar or even hypoglycemia. At this time, insulin or oral hypoglycemic drugs need to be increased appropriately, and if there is no regular blood glucose monitoring, patients may be in hyperglycemic state all the time, and long-term non-correction will accelerate the emergence of acute and chronic complications.