Diabetes Cookbook For Canadians For Dummies. Cynthia Payne
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(blood sugar) either because you don’t make enough insulin, or you make enough insulin but it doesn’t work well, or, in some cases, both. Glucose is the type of sugar that the body uses as fuel to provide energy for metabolism, muscle action, and brain function. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, works by acting on muscle and fat cells to allow them to extract glucose from the blood, and by acting on the liver to suppress its production of glucose. You could think of it as insulin grabbing onto the glucose and opening the door to take the glucose into the cells to be used for energy.
There are three main types of diabetes:
✔ Type 1 diabetes
✔ Type 2 diabetes
✔ Gestational diabetes
All three types of diabetes are, by definition, characterized by a tendency for having high blood glucose levels. With proper therapy, however, you can (and indeed, must) bring high blood glucose levels under control.
Diabetes insipidus: The “other” form of diabetes
Although most people (including us in this book) talk about diabetes as if there were only one form, in fact there are actually two. Diabetes mellitus refers to the form of diabetes we discuss in this book: that is, the form of diabetes characterized by elevated blood glucose. The other form, called diabetes insipidus, is an entirely different condition: an uncommon disease in which a problem with antidiuretic hormone puts you at risk of excess urine production and, as a result, dehydration.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, meaning that the body’s immune system malfunctions and creates antibodies that target its own tissues. In the case of type 1 diabetes, the body makes antibodies that attack and destroy the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas. (More specifically, they attack one type of islet cell called a beta cell.)
✔ It most commonly develops in adolescents, but also often occurs in young children and young adults. (Increasing scientific evidence suggests that, in fact, in most cases the first onset is in adults.)
✔ Symptoms typically appear soon after the condition first develops. (We discuss these symptoms later in this chapter.)
✔ It is far less common than type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes accounts for between 5 and 10 percent of all cases of diabetes.
✔ Urgent treatment with insulin is required as soon as this condition is discovered; delaying therapy can be life-threatening.
Type 2 diabetes is caused by a combination of the body’s insulin not working as effectively as it should (a condition called insulin resistance) and the pancreas making insufficient quantities of insulin.
✔ It most commonly occurs in middle-aged or older individuals, most of whom are overweight and sedentary. (However, many people with type 2 diabetes don’t fit this mould.)
✔ It is often preceded by years of prediabetes, a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to make a diagnosis of diabetes.
✔ It is far more common than type 1 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes accounts for between 90 and 95 percent of all cases of diabetes.
✔ The most important component of therapy is lifestyle, including healthy eating, exercise, and weight control.
Gestational diabetes (GDM) is a temporary form of diabetes that, by definition, occurs only during pregnancy. It develops in anywhere from 4 to 18 percent of pregnancies depending on what criteria are used to make the diagnosis (there are two different sets of criteria in use, each with its pros and cons), and is routinely tested for at about the midway point of a pregnancy. As in the other types of diabetes, women with gestational diabetes have a tendency toward elevated blood glucose levels that, with proper therapy, can be kept under control.
Gestational diabetes does not harm or risk harming the affected woman, per se. Its importance lies in its potential impact on the developing fetus. If the diabetes is insufficiently treated, the fetus can become overly large, which can make delivery difficult. Also, after delivery, the newborn often has low blood glucose. (Medical staff routinely test for this in a baby born to a woman with gestational diabetes.) Low blood glucose in the newborn is not serious and is easy to treat by giving the baby sugar water to drink. Other complications from gestational diabetes seldom occur.
Gestational diabetes is treated by following a special nutrition program (as we discuss in Chapter 4). Regular exercise also helps. If despite these measures the woman’s blood glucose levels remain elevated, insulin therapy is typically used. Because of limited scientific evidence regarding their use in pregnancy, oral hypoglycemic agents (see “Taking Oral Medications to Help Control Your Blood Glucose” later in this chapter) are seldom used. This may change in the future.
Investigating How Diabetes Is Diagnosed
Diabetes – in any form – is a serious disease and, befitting this, is diagnosed according to strict criteria. According to the Canadian Diabetes Association’s criteria, you have diabetes if you have any one of the following:
✔ A random blood glucose level equal to or greater than 11.1 millimoles per litre (mmol/L). Random is defined as any time of day or night, without regard to how long it’s been since the last time you ingested anything containing calories.
✔ A fasting blood glucose level equal to or greater than 7.0mmol/L. Fasting is defined as eight or more hours without calorie intake.
✔ A blood glucose level equal to or greater than 11.1mmol/L, when tested two hours after ingesting 75 grams of glucose as part of what is called a glucose tolerance test.
✔ An A1C level equal to or greater than 6.5 percent. The A1C is measured on a blood test and allows for an estimate of one’s average blood glucose level for the preceding three months. The A1C should not be used as a diagnostic test for diabetes if you are a child, an adolescent, are pregnant, if type 1 diabetes is suspected, or if you have a condition which can affect its accuracy.