Chronic Disease Pt.1 – What is Diabetes?
Hi guys,
I will be presenting some information on common chronic diseases and I’ll try and keep it as simple as possible!
Today’s episode is on a chronic disease called diabetes.
Keeping things simple, there’s 2 types of diabetes but I’m going to focus on the most common one – Type II diabetes mellitus.
So what is it and why is a problem?
Diabetes is basically a lifestyle problem.
If you eat and drink too much of the wrong type of food then you will develop changes that are unhealthy within the body.
Think of your body as a car.
If you take the car to get serviced by the mechanic regularly – pump up the tyres, clean the filters, rotate the wheels and check the engine – there’s a higher chance the car will run well for a longer period of time.
If you don’t take the car to get it serviced – it breaks down often, it starts to choke and splutter and it eventually stops working.
That is exactly the same situation with your body.
The food you eat is the fuel for your car (body).
If you eat the wrong things the car (body) will start to breakdown.
Follow me?
One of the key things to understand is what the different types of food (fuel) that your body (car) needs to run (energy).
There are 3 main types of fuel for the body – fat, sugar and protein.
Carbohydrates can be broken down into blood sugar or glucose for the body to use as energy.
Diabetes is the chronic disease problem when the body cannot control blood sugar levels.
This is a serious problem because you are at increased risk of other chronic disease because you cannot control the blood sugar.
Vision is affected with glaucoma and cataracts, poor blood flow can cause nerve problems (neuropathy) and loss of feeling especially in your feet, cardiovascular problems like chest pain (angina), heart attack, stroke and narrowing of arteries (atherosclerosis).
Big words I know but they are BIG problems you want to avoid!
I hope that’s made things a bit easier for you to understand diabetes.
Keep things simple and stay healthy.
Look out for the next chronic disease episode next month!
#MakingHealthySimple
– Leki