You also may experience damage to the blood vessels in the part of your eye called the retina, a condition known as diabetic retinopathy, which can result in loss of sight. That’s because diabetes can damage the filtering system in your kidneys that removes waste from your blood.Įye problems: Your eyes are also at increased risk of health problems with diabetes, such as glaucoma and cataracts. Kidney disease (nephropathy): Having diabetes makes you more likely to develop chronic kidney disease.
Additionally, nerve damage that occurs in the feet can lead to poor blood flow that can result in increased risk of foot problems like major infections from cuts and blisters. This manifests in symptoms of tingling, pain, numbness, or burning and affects about one-half of people with diabetes.
Some possible complications include:Ĭardiovascular disease: People with diabetes are at increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure.ĭiabetic neuropathy: Over time, having high blood sugar can lead to nerve damage, called diabetic neuropathy. Having type 1 diabetes also puts you at risk for other health problems, especially if left untreated. Most people with type 1 diabetes are diagnosed during childhood or young adulthood, but a small number of people may not develop the disease until their 30s, 40s, or even 50s. It’s thought that a combination of genetics and environmental factors may cause the disease to develop in the first place. Because of this, your body no longer produces its own insulin, so you need insulin injections every day. Have a parent or sibling with type 2 diabetesĪren’t physically active at least three times per weekĪlso called “juvenile” diabetes because it’s often diagnosed in childhood, type 1 diabetes is mostly an autoimmune disorder in which your immune system attacks and destroys insulin-making cells in the pancreas. In some cases, a doctor may also prescribe metformin, a blood-sugar lowering drug to help prevent type 2. Luckily, prediabetes can be reversed: Exercise and diet changes are often prescribed to lower blood sugar and reduce the risk. That’s a problem because people with prediabetes have an increased risk of developing type 2. More than one in three adults in the United States has prediabetes, and the majority of them don’t know it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That means an A1C blood test result between 5.7% and 6.4%. If someone’s blood sugar is higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes, that’s considered prediabetes.
That’s when your doc will tell you that you have “high blood sugar.” As time goes on, the extra sugar in your blood causes inflammation and other major health troubles.Ībout 30 million people in the United States have diabetes, but nearly one quarter of them don’t know it. But if your body is resistant to insulin, or doesn’t make enough of it, the glucose gets stuck hanging out in your blood. If everything is going according to plan, your pancreas releases a hormone called insulin that helps move glucose from the bloodstream into some of the cells of your body to be used for energy. Glucose comes from the protein, carbohydrates, and fats that you eat and drink, as well your liver, which makes and stores the substance. But if left untreated, diabetes can lead to heart disease, vision loss, and even limb amputation.Īt its most basic, diabetes mellitus (the official name) is a group of disorders that cause people to have higher-than-normal levels of sugar-or, glucose-in their blood. Many think that because the disorder is so widespread, it isn’t serious. Yet most people don’t fully understand what causes it or how it affects everyday life. It’s one of the most common chronic diseases in the world and rates are still on the rise.
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