Diabetes: Sweet and Sour

EVERY YEAR A day is marked out to create awareness about a lifestyle disease that is increasingly leaving very few untouched. This awareness day happened on November 14, 2024, with World Diabetes Day. Yet, despite so much limelight thrown on this ailment, most people don’t know enough even though it concerns them. For instance, diabetes, the type 2 adult onset variety which is the overwhelm­ing majority of cases, does not come suddenly. There was a time when it was thought to be hereditary. If any of your parents had it, you were part of the risk group. Considering the explosion in cases now, everyone seems to be in potential danger. Many reasons are adduced for it but the correlation with modern diet and the absence of physical fitness is strongest. Earlier, diabetes was a middle- age issue. Now it is common for those in their 20s to find their blood sugar readings going haywire.

Diabetes is essentially the body not processing the glucose in it as it should. This then floats around drenching the organs and over time whittling them away. Diabetics who don’t keep their glucose levels within limits eventually find different parts of their body get af­fected. Amputated limbs, blindness and heart attacks are all a corollary to that ex­cess of a lifetime. Every diabetic needs to monitor blood glucose levels regularly. What non-diabetics don’t realise is that they should also be doing it. Before dia­betes is full blown, there is a stage where the body’s tolerance is impaired. Blood glucose tests can tell you this. If this stage is caught early, then by good life­style changes you can keep the disease at bay. At the least it can be postponed for a long time. If young people would do a simple blood test, they would know what is waiting for them and be able to do something about it. It could make a difference to their future.

The second thing that many, even diabetics, don’t know is that the disease is not a life sentence of medication. Lately, many studies have shown that diabetes, even if incurable, can be put in remission, or a suspended state, again by lifestyle changes. For instance, modi­fication of diet. The main pathway for glucose to get into the blood is through the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar. Reduce them to the bare mini­mum, while increasing other nutrients like protein, then automatically the body does not have to negotiate the im­mediate trigger of the ailment. Another route is by physical fitness, which burns glucose in the body. Apply both strategies together and the dependency on medication comes down. Cases of patients who got off medication by doing this are common now.

A reason for the lack of such aware­ness is because of the simplicity of it. We are enamored by grand solutions, like new medications that cutting-edge science creates. Eating better and exercis­ing more is boring and also takes effort. But if you do that, it doesn’t just make you free of diabetes, but makes life better in other ways too.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

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