DIABETES MELLITUS
1.The term “diabetes mellitus” refers to group of diseases that affect how body uses blood glucose, commonly called blood sugar. Glucose is vital to the health because it’s an important source of energy for the cells that make up muscles and tissues. It’s brain’s main source of fuel.
When a person eats, the sugar — or glucose — from digested food enters the bloodstream. Glucose then moves from the blood into the body’s cells with the help of insulin. Insulin helps “open the door” to cells in the body to allow glucose to enter. As type 2 diabetes develops, the body’s cells resist insulin, and beta cells — cells in the pancreas that release insulin — need to release much more insulin than they normally would.
In people with type 2 diabetes, the beta cells gradually stop releasing enough insulin to help bring sugar into cells, causing higher levels of blood sugar. These beta cells gradually stop working the way they should. As the number of beta cells goes down, the pancreas releases less and less insulin. As a result, glucose does not make its way into the cells and ends up staying in the blood, causing high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia.
2. It is important to maintain normal blood sugar level. Keeping blood sugar under control can help in the prevention of crashes, which contribute to feelings of dizziness, nausea and lightheadedness. For best results, be sure to choose foods which are low in simple sugars, eat frequent meals. The average blood sugar rises gradually and as it rises there is damage occurring throughout the body. Out of control blood sugar levels can lead to serious short term problems such as hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, or diabetic ketoacidosis (an acute, major, life-threatening complication of diabetes, a state of absolute or relative insulin deficiency with blood sugar over 250 mg/dl).
In the long run, uncontrolled blood sugar can also damage the vessels that supply blood to important organs, like the