What Will Save You from Diabetes

Diabetes is a silent disease. If it goes undetected, it can become a life threatening disease. People have been known to have their legs amputated due to diabetes. Why is this so? It is simply due to the fact that people are not able to identify the possible diabetic symptoms. Just try asking some people about diabetes and you will be surprised with the answer.

I know because my aunt was one such casualty of diabetes. You see, she was diabetic but did not know about it. Not realizing that she was diabetic, she continued eating whatever she liked. There was no diet because of her ignorance. When she developed a sore in her right leg, not knowing that a diabetic had to take additional care where wounds or injuries are concerned, she ignored it as she thought it would heal itself. After all it was just a small sore. It did not go away, and instead, the sore in her leg became a bigger wound. It was later that she decided to visit a doctor. However, it was too late as the wound developed into gangrene. She had to have her leg amputated. Though this happened in the late 1970's, today in the 21st century, people are still as ignorant of diabetes as in the 1970s.

In most developed countries as well as in the third world countries, access to medical doctors are easier than in the 1970s. So there is no excuse whatsoever to be ignorant about this life-threatening disease. Also, there is always the library that a person can turn to for information on diabetes. If you are still unable to obtain the correct information on diabetes, then turn to the Internet to seek for more information. There are a number of websites on diabetes, ranging from diet to controlling diabetes. There is absolutely no excuse not to be well informed about diabetes.

You may ask why am I so concerned about diabetes? Let's put it this way, ought not we be concerned about a silent killer? There has been a lot of publicity on other diseases such as cancer. But there is not much publicity on diabetes. Yes, I did say that there are a number of ways to obtain information on diabetes, but the publicity to make people more aware of diabetes is sadly insufficient. I believed that there should be more publicity to reach out to a larger crowd of people to educate them on the dangers of diabetes.

The problem with diabetes is that living in this modern world, we are bombarded with advertisement on the different types of food and beverages made available to us. As we consumed these processed food and beverages, guess what happened next? Our body system starts to react to the food and beverages. In processed food and beverages, manufacturers being concerned with the bottom line, will continue to add more refined sugar and salt to make the food and beverages tastier. Imagine, when someone kept on consuming all these stuff, especially if it is full of sugar! What will happen next? Our body will start to fail us. It would not be able to make use of the excess sugar and these will just be in our blood. I'm not talking only about the refined sugar. Almost at fault are food items such as refined rice and potatoes that will make our blood sugar rise faster and if not taken care of, will possibly result in diabetes.

The previous paragraph talks about food and beverage laden with sugar and refined carbohydrates. But there is another aspect to this. As we progressed as a modern society, we have lesser time for exercise. Of course, there will be some amongst us who are disciplined to continue with their exercise routine. This is not so for the majority of us. What will happen? Simply this, with the consumption of all those refined food and beverages, coupled with a lack of exercise, we will see more and more people suffering from diabetes. What makes it scary is that most will not be aware that diabetes is within striking distance of them.

So what is it that we, as individuals can do about it? I will list out a couple of steps here. In future, more will be outlined. Firstly, we need to find out our own genetic history. Trace back to your parents and grandparents. Check whether any of them had histories of diabetes. If no, then the chance of getting diabetes is reduced. I say only reduced because there is no guarantee that diabetes will not strike at a later stage. For those of you who are able to trace back your family history and discover that one of your parents or grandparents had diabetes, your chance of getting diabetes is increased. However, this is not the end of the world. There are many ways and means to avoid or delay the onset of diabetes.

by: Tom Yancy Cove
Source : www.articlecity.com