Diabetes mellitus or type 2: causes and symptoms — HealthZigZag

Muhammad Usman Babar
3 min readOct 1, 2019

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Diabetes mellitus, better known as type 2 diabetes, a chronic disease that until recently used to occur generally in adults over 50–55 years. However, nowadays the diagnosis of this pathology in children and adolescents is increasingly frequent. Due to the alarming increase in childhood obesity that has been registered in Western countries during recent times.

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Its most important feature is the presence in the blood of high glucose levels and is one of the main cardiovascular risk factors. To the point that if not treated properly, very serious complications can develop. Such as stroke, myocardial infarction, neuropathy, Retinal conditions that can lead to blindness, amputation of one foot, etc.

Causes of diabetes mellitus or type 2

Under normal conditions, glucose from food metabolization concentrated in the bloodstream to reach the cells of different tissues. including muscles and transform into energy.

This activity is carried out and thanks to the action of insulin that occurs in the pancreas. However, the time may come when cells do not react conveniently to the presence of this hormone.

This is called insulin resistance and is the previous step to the development of type 2 diabetes.

The consequence that the cells absorb less glucose and it accumulates in the blood. Without the insulin produced by the organism. Although the pancreas produces it in greater quantity.

This is enough to make it able to absorb the sugars and keep in the bloodstream. In this way, a vicious circle is produced which is the origin of diabetes mellitus.

What causes this mechanism of insulin resistance that degenerates in type 2 diabetes? The cause must be looked for in the characteristics of the patients who have this disease and in which there are common determining factors:

  • Obesity or overweight (the latter defined by an increase in the abdominal perimeter).
  • Hyperlipidemia, due to the increase in blood cholesterol levels.
  • Arterial hypertension.
  • Inadequate food (hypercaloric diets rich in saturated and polyunsaturated fats).
  • Sedentary (more calories ingested than consumed).
  • The so-called metabolic syndrome. Which characterized by the presence of three or more cardiovascular risk factors.

Symptoms of diabetes mellitus

However, there may also be a genetic conditioner, since the children of people who have this type of diabetes have a greater predisposition to develop it. In its initial phase type 2 diabetes usually does not produce symptoms.

Usually, diabetes type 2 diagnosed after performing routine clinical analytics. However, there comes a time when the organism in part to express the fact that glucose does not arrive in sufficient quantities to the cells of the different tissues and begins to accumulate in the blood:

  • Feeling of fatigue
  • Blurry vision.
  • Regular thirst and need to drink.
  • Hunger at unusual times of the day.
  • Sometimes weight loss.
  • Increased need to urinate.
  • Increase in the number of infectious processes and slower healing in them.
  • Male erection problems.
  • Menstrual irregularities in non-menopausal women.
  • Pain or numbness of feet or hands.

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In some cases, this is very common that mildness of these symptoms attributed to the problems of aging. And, as a consequence, the existence of diabetes mellitus goes unnoticed and continues its progressive evolution.

It is very important, therefore, that adults over 50 years of age, especially if they have a family history, undergo an annual analysis that includes blood glucose measurement.

This will allow the formation of the most applicable treatment in each case, with the aim of controlling the presence of sugars in the blood.

Originally published at https://healthzigzag.com on October 1, 2019.

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