Within the last ten years or so, the number of people being diagnosed with diabetes has increased drastically. Unfortunately, children are not immune to the symptoms of diabetes mellitus these days. There are essentially three forms of diabetes: Type I, Type II, and Gestational. Gestational diabetes develops in some pregnant women at about 24-28 weeks. Diabetes occurs whenever the body does not produce all the insulin needed for maintaining normal sugar levels, or when the body does not respond to insulin as it should.

Many people who suffer from Diabetes I need insulin shots and oral medications. The majority of diabetics has Type II, and do not need insulin. However, they can still experience some symptoms, including fatigue, abdominal pain, weight gain, sluggish, and so forth. They also feel an overpowering craving for carbs. No matter how much they eat, they always feel as if they are hungry. Obviously, this type of problem can lead to obesity. Many diabetics are now searching for ways to go about reversing diabetes naturally.

Natural treatments

The main idea behind reversing diabetes naturally is to consider why the illness occurred in the first place. Diabetes is usually brought on as a result of poor dieting and lack of exercise. Thus, it is essential that one must begin eating healthily and exercising in order to reverse diabetes. Naturally, eating healthy foods and exercising are always the best things we can do for our bodies. Thus, not only will reversing one’s diet and amount of exercise help treat diabetes, it will result in better health overall.

Natural remedies ideas

The following are some remedies that may help with reversing diabetes naturally. However, they should never be used as a substitute for medical care. Diabetics should always listen to their doctors first and foremost, although some of the remedies may aid in the treatment.

?Amla is believed to be effective in controlling diabetes. A tablespoon of amla juice mixed with fresh, bitter gourd juice, taken every day for a couple of months is believed to enable the pancreas to secrete insulin.

?Bitter gourd is considered by some people to be the best natural remedy for diabetes. It is also known as “karela”. It helps reduces sugar levels in urine and blood.

?Powdered fenugreek seeds, along with milk, is a common home remedy for many ailments and conditions, including diabetes. Two teaspoons of powdered seeds along with milk need to be taken every day.

?Eating ten fully grown curry leaves every single morning for a few months helps treat diabetes caused by obesity. It is also believed to help prevent diabetes in those whose family has a history of it.

?Butea tree leaves are said to be useful in reversing diabetes naturally. They help bring down blood sugar and are useful in glycousia.

Reversing diabetes naturally is believed by many to be a real possibility. Still, there is no one “magical cure”. It takes a regime of proper diet, exercise, and natural remedies to treat diabetes. Also, no natural remedy should ever be used as a substitute for insulin injections in Type I diabetics.

Nearly 8% of Americans suffer from Diabetes. Unfortunately a large number of people are unaware they have this disease. It is highly recommended to get your blood sugar checked if you are age 40 or older once every three years.

It is a simple blood test done by fasting and without fasting. If you experience any symptoms listed below, consult your doctor immediately immaterial of your age. Diabetes is manageable if diagnosed at the right time. Many people have diabetes but lacking the knowledge of symptoms they fail to take action at the right time.

Some of the major symptoms associated with diabetes are:

Extreme hunger: If you feel extremely hungry and feel it often, it can be one of the symptoms of diabetes. When insulin is unable to move the glucose from your blood into your cells, you feel hungry, even after eating.

Excessive thirst: Extreme thirst can be another symptom of diabetes. When glucose builds up in your bloodstream, fluid gets pulled from your tissues and may make you feel thirsty.

Frequent Urination: Since you feel very thirsty you drink fluids to quench your thirst, you also urinate more frequently.

Unusual weight loss: You eat more because you’re hungry more frequent but you may still keep losing weight. The energy from glucose isn’t getting to your muscle tissues and fat stores, so they diminish and results in weight loss.

Tiredness and fatigue: Without energy from food in your cells, you feel tired, weak, & irritable and this results in excessive fatigue .

Blurred vision: When blood sugar levels are too high, your body takes fluids from body tissues, including your eyes. This makes it hard to focus resulting blurred vision .

These symptoms are just indicative that you may have diabetes but if you experience one or more of these symptoms you should check with your doctor for an accurate diagnosis.

Type 2 Diabetes is Really Not a Mystery!

Posted by admin in Prescription Diabetes Drugs on December 08th, 2010

Obesity continues to be the number one risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes. Worldwide, the incidence of type 2 diabetes is increasing, and so is obesity … this trend is not coincidental. Two thirds of adult men and women diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the United States, have a body mass index (BMI) of 27 or more. Extremely obese people (those with a BMI of 40 or higher), are seven times more likely than normal weight people to develop this form of diabetes.

The hallmark of type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance. This means that even though there is adequate amount of insulin in your blood, the receptors that make the insulin act are resistant to it’s stimulus. As one becomes obese, the cells become less sensitive to the insulin being secreted by your pancreas. The reason could be the number of fat cells exceeds the number of muscle cells, and the former are more resistant to the action of insulin than the latter.

Another way of looking at it is that type 2 involves a two-step process that first affects the body’s response to, and later, the production of insulin:

  • the reduced sensitivity to insulin, known as insulin resistance, compels the pancreas to work harder and produce more insulin. The pancreas of a lean person might release 40 units of insulin a day. Now if that individual becomes overweight, those same 40 units are inadequate to clear sugar from the bloodstream
  • in order to compensate, the pancreas starts to produce more insulin to match the increased demand, but there is a limit as to how much of an extra load an individual’s pancreas can handle.

This is when type 2 results … because the pancreas fails to keep up with the insulin requirement to control your blood sugar levels.

Another important aspect is the distribution of fat and how it affects the development of diabetes. It has been found that losing the waist hip ratio is an even more important factor than body weight itself. Typically, what is described as apple shaped obesity with more fat accumulation around the waist, is more harmful than pear shaped obesity where fat is predominantly accumulated around the hips and thighs.

In addition, new theories have emerged about the likely associations between obesity and diabetes. It has been found that fat cells secrete many hormone-like substances that circulate through your bloodstream and can affect other body systems. This includes leptin, and free fatty acids that may be additionally responsible for the creation of type 2 diabetes.

Fortunately type 2 diabetes is very sensitive to weight reduction and may even disappear with weight loss.

What Are the Warning Signs of Diabetes?

Posted by admin in Prescription Diabetes Drugs on October 24th, 2010

It is often difficult to tell if you have diabetes. The signs and symptoms can easily be confused with some other medical condition, and besides you don’t think they pose serious threats to your life. So you tend to overlook the signs and symptoms, not knowing that your life is at stake.

The two most common types of diabetes are Type I and Type II, and although the situations that result to either type are different, presenting signs and symptoms of both diabetes types are more or less the same. Type I diabetes results from the destruction of cells that produce insulin, and this type of diabetes commonly occurs in children and young adults. In the case of Type II diabetes, insulin is produced but then there is an inability of the cells this time to make use of the insulin. This type of diabetes is common among the older generation.

Notwithstanding the type of diabetes, it is very important that you know how to spot the warning signs of diabetes for you to be able to immediately take the necessary precautions. Remember that the earlier diabetes is diagnosed, the better are the chances of controlling it, thereby reducing risks of complications.

If you happen to go to the bathroom more often than before, that should already cause you to wonder if you have diabetes. You see, when you have diabetes, the insulin produced by your body may not be enough for the kidneys to filter the sugar back to the blood. To compensate, the kidneys become overactive and there is a need to extract more water from the blood. The extra water makes the bladder full, the reason why there is an urgency to urinate when you have diabetes.

With frequent urination comes another tell-tale sign of diabetes — thirst that cannot be quenched. In response to the extra water that is extracted from the blood and out of the system in the form of urine, the diabetic drinks more water than necessary.

Rapid weight loss can also occur especially in the case of Type 1 diabetes when not enough insulin is produced by the pancreas. Thus, instead of using insulin to produce energy, the body makes use of fat cells, and because the cells are starved of energy, fatigue can be a common problem.

Slow healing of wounds, itchy skin and blurry vision also occur with diabetes.

Lastly, there may be numbness or tingling of the hands and feet. This symptom usually develops over a period of time.

Other warning sign of diabetes are itchy skin, slow healing cuts and blurred vision.

Signs of Diabetes Type 1

Posted by admin in Prescription Diabetes Drugs on August 02nd, 2010

Diabetes type 1, also known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic disease. Generally, in this condition, the pancreas generates very little insulin. It some cases, it does not even produces insulin. Insulin is a hormone that permits sugar- glucose to enter the cells and generate energy. Diabetes type 2 is very much common compared to this. In the case of diabetes type 2, our body is unable to generate insulin utilize in proper ways.

Numerous factors such as genetic mutation and exposure to several infections cause diabetes type 1. Even though it is generally found in adults, diabetes type 1 can occur in any age. Even with extensive development in medical research, scientists have not still found any cure on diabetes. Diabetes is incurable and chronic, but it can be controlled and managed. Proper medical treatment with sensible acts will increase the life expectancy of diabetic individual. If implemented certain simple measures, you can live a happy and healthy life with diabetes.

Generally, the signs of diabetes show up very easily. Thus it is very much essential to understand the signs of diabetes type 1, so that you can start the treatment. The symptoms of type 1 diabetes are as follows:

Extreme hunger: As body is not able to generate insulin; sugar enters into cells without the help of insulin. Thus, our body moves sugar into cells without insulin, which weakens our muscles and organs. They loose lot of energy and hence our body demands food at small intervals.

Frequent urination and excessive thirst: Due to excess deposition of sugar in the bloodstream, lot of water is absorbed by tissues. Thus makes us drink ample of water. Hence, we frequently need to visit restroom.

Sudden loss of weight: Even though we eat more than our normal appetite- we may lose excessive amount of weight. As our body is unable to receive energy - the fats stored by your muscles and tissues gradually disappear.

Extreme weakness: Due to insufficient supply of sugar- cells become more weak and irritable

Blurred vision: As the level of sugar in bloodstream increases, it extracts out the fluid from our tissues. They also pull away fluid from eye lenses. This will impair our vision power.

Even though if our medical research is unaware of the reasons that contribute for diabetes type 1, scientists have found that people with diabetes type 1 experience malfunctioned immune system. In this case, the immune system mistakenly destroys the insulin generating cells. Not many risk factors of diabetes have come into limelight; scientists have mentioned few of them. Certain factors that increase the risk of diabetes are as follows:

Family history of diabetes

Genetic mutation

Environmental factor

Climatic condition

Excessive exposure to virus

Deficiency of vitamin D

Obesity

Low intake of omega-3 fatty acids

Water containing nitrate

All these are the possible factors that cause diabetes type 1. The signs of diabetes type 1 will definitely help in diagnosing the disease. This kind of diabetes can be managed with proper nutritional diet, adequate rest, regular exercise, and medicated drugs.

What is Diabetes? A Brief Summary

Posted by admin in Prescription Diabetes Drugs on May 23rd, 2010

There are three main types of diabetes that people are thinking of when they ask, “What is diabetes?” These types of diabetes are the most common forms found in the United States and affect a majority of individuals at some time in their life.

In the United States, about 5-10% of children and young adults are found to have Type 1 diabetes yearly. It is the result of an auto-immune disease. When the immune system attacks the beta cells that produce insulin in the pancreas and kills them, the pancreas can not produce insulin. This results in no insulin being produced for the body.

The symptoms for this diabetes are rapid and extreme. A person will have extreme hunger, fatigue, thirst, frequent urination, weight loss and blurred vision. If no medical intervention is provided the person can go into a diabetic coma. Type 1 diabetes can be a life-threatening condition and is very serious if it is not diagnosed and treated quickly.

The National Institute of Health has found that 95% of the adults in the United State who are over age thirty-five suffer from Type 2 diabetes. One reason for this is that 80% of the people who have Type 2 diabetes are overweight. A person with this type of diabetes is not getting insulin because their cells have become resistant to it.

Obesity, lack of exercise, some ethnicity’s, and age are just a few of the triggers for Type 2 diabetes. It is also triggered by genetics, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The greatest cause of Type 2 diabetes is unhealthy eating habits. People who do not eat properly and have daily exercise are highly susceptible to Type 2 diabetes.

People will develop the symptoms of this diabetes gradually over a long period of time. They will feel extreme fatigue, blurred vision, increased thirst and hunger, slow healing of wounds and sores, and frequent urination.

Most of the time if a person changes their lifestyle, loses weight, and begins to exercise, they will be able to resolve their Type 2 diabetes. In some cases people must continue medication for the diabetes, but this rarely occurs.

Women in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy can get gestational diabetes. This diabetes occurs in 3-8% of pregnant women and is resolved when they have the baby. Many women who develop this diabetes during pregnancy are instructed on the proper exercise and diet to keep the diabetes in control when they are pregnant.

Many women who have gestational diabetes when they are pregnant, will develop it with later pregnancies. They also have a 40% risk of developing Type 2 diabetes later in life.

By now, you probably know a lot about Diabetes if you suspect you are showing symptoms. You’ve read up on how you’re going to have to constantly test your blood, take insulin shots, and even having to change your diet to accommodate your new friend. People with Type 1 diabetes are insulin-dependent, which means that the body no longer makes the insulin it needs to break down the sugar in the blood, and they have to take at least one shot of insulin per day just to not die.

Type 2 Diabetes is a little different. The body is capable of producing the actual insulin, but their bodies are resistant to its use. Both types are considered autoimmune because its just like the body shooting itself in the foot - which isn’t too far from the truth because after a while your body will start to break down like a car without oil.

It can be quite scary to be diagnosed with diabetes, and if you HAVE been you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s important to arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can, because knowledge is not only king, but is also liberating as well.

Should you be suspecting that you have diabetes, here are the top 5 warning signs:

1.) Unquenchable thirst:

Ever feel like no matter how much water you drink, you just CAN’T get enough? This is a telltale sign, because your body is pulling extra water from your blood and it physically feels impossible to replenish the depleted water. And if you are urinating more frequently as a result of drinking more water, but yet you still can’t seem to hydrate, see a doctor. Which leads me to the next symptom.

2.) Frequent Urination:

Theres nothing worse than not being able to properly hydrate. Well maybe theres a few things, but lets pretend for a moment that there isn’t. It can be ironic to put yourself into the position of constantly drinking water without having the benefits of hydration, and having it all go to waste by spending most of your time in the bathroom.

Having to to always “take a leak” becomes more frequent when there is an excess of glucose in the blood. And we all know what happens when you are resistant to insulin, right? The kidneys cannot filter the glucose to the blood and becomes overwhelmed, thus they draw water out of the blood to dilute the glucose which keeps you always heading for the bathroom.

3.) Weakness/Fatigue:

Remember our good old friend, glucose? Well in todays action packed episode when insulin does not aid the glucose into turning the foods we eat into energy, or the cells don’t react to it anymore, the glucose stays in the bloodstream and the cells become energy starved. Thus the endless cycle of weakness and fatigue.

4.) Sudden Weight Loss:

This would strike anyone as strange given the level of fatigue they would be experiencing. However, this symptom seems to be more noticeable in people with Type 1 diabetes. Because the pancreas decided it was time to quit and move on to other things, the body looks for new energy sources as the cells aren’t getting any glucose.

What happens when the body looks for alternative energy? Well I’m glad you asked! The body starts to break down muscle and fat tissue for energy, essentially cannibalizing itself. It is important to note, however, that people with Type 2 Diabetes wont notice sudden weight loss as quickly as people with Type 1, because they are only gradually becoming increasingly resistant to insulin.

5.) Tingling/Numbness of your extremities:

Although it sounds fun, it is generally a sign that your body is starting to become the “engine with no oil” and is showing signs of breaking down in the nervous system. Also known as neuropathy, it occurs over time as high glucose levels becomes more and more frequent. People with Type 2 Diabetes often aren’t aware that they have it because it occurs over time, much like the “frog in the boiling pot” story.

Other Symptoms

There are also numerous other signs that can send up a red flag such as itchy/dry skin, blurred vision, cuts/bruises that take forever and a day to heal, and frequent infections. Although these can be attributed to high glucose levels in the body, they can be a result of something completely different; so it’s best to check with your doctor and get a diagnosis written in black and white.

Diabetes can be very bleak to live with, but it’s not the end of the world. There is a reason that a cure for diabetes hasn’t yet been discovered by “medical science.” And the cure in which “they” are talking about is yet another drug/prescription for you to purchase. Pharmaceutical companies make BILLIONS of dollars every year by keeping you dependent on their drugs and they spend MILLIONS in advertising costs, because there just simply is NO MONEY in providing the knowledge necessary finally CURE diabetes.

However, what the pharmaceutical companies DON’T want you to know is that there IS a way to completely reverse your diabetes. All it takes is a major change in your dietary lifestyle and daily habits by eating the foods God intended for your body, and exercising more often. Our bodies are the only machines on the face of this earth that “break down” as a result of inactivity, and I have personally seen dramatic reversal in diabetes because of these changes.

Being diagnosed as a diabetic means a large amount of changes in your daily life. A new diet, more exercise, and monitoring of your blood sugar will all become part of your daily routine. One thing that many newly diagnosed patients want to know is if they will have to take medication as part of their diabetes treatment. While there are rare cases of diabetes that respond well to only dietary and lifestyle changes, many patients require at least occasional medication to keep their diabetes under control.

A large percentage of diabetic patients require medications as part of their diabetes treatment, to help them manage their blood sugar levels. If you have been diagnosed, your doctor may prescribe insulin injections or other medications that can help you with your diabetes treatment. Insulin is often used only when blood sugar levels are outside of the normal range, but other medications may be taken regularly to help the body maintain healthy levels of insulin.

Many diabetic patients as part of their diabetes treatment also take medication to control complications and symptoms that are affected by diabetes, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. Whether you will need these medications will depend on your symptoms and only your doctor can help determine what medicines are right for you. Many patients are able to control these symptoms through lifestyle changes, and every case is different.

Taking diabetes treatment medication means taking a close look at all supplements and over the counter medicines you take as well as prescription medications for other illnesses and problems. Because many drugs can interact or change blood sugar levels, it is important to discuss all new medications and supplements with your doctor before taking them to ensure that they are safe and will not counteract or interact with one another. Mixing in some of the over the counter medication into your diabetes treatment, can some times have a devastating result. Tell your doctor about these medications.

Whether or not you will need drugs to control your diabetes will depend on your individual symptoms. Talking to your doctor will help you determine if medication is right for you. If you do have to take medications, do not lose heart. Many drugs have little or no side effects, and taking them every day soon becomes routine.

Not all diabetic patients require daily medication, and some require only medication when insulin levels fall too low. Your medication needs can change over time. Improving your lifestyle can decrease your need for drugs as part of your diabetes treatment, and certain complications may necessitate taking additional medications. As with all illnesses, each case is different. Talking with your doctor can help you understand more about what the best treatment will be for you.