Myths About Diabetes
Diabetes mellitus is also known as diabetes. In this condition, the affected person has high blood sugar in his / her blood stream. This condition arises when the body is unable to produce enough insulin to regulate the sugar in the blood stream.
It could also be a case when the body is not responding to the insulin. The insulin in the body is produced by the beta cells of the pancreas gland. These cells secrete insulin into the blood stream. If these cells do not produce the required amount of insulin, then a large part of the blood stream’s sugar is still lying there unregulated.
Another case could be if the blood stream’s sugar level is so much that the body’s natural insulin production capacity is not sufficient enough for sugar-level regulation. All these factors promote a diabetic condition in the body.
The common symptoms of diabetes are:
- Uncontrolled and highly frequent urination
- Unquenchable thirst and hunger
- Causes of diabetes are usually due to a lifestyle that is erratic and unbalanced. It can also be inherited within the family.
There are some myths and misconceptions of diabetes doing their rounds. Some of the common myths about diabetes are:
If you are fat, your are diabetic:
Being fat doesn’t necessarily make one a diabetic, but definitely increases the risk to become diabetic. Lack of exercise and a sedentary lifestyle will put undue pressure on the body’s regulation system, and could provoke a diabetic situation in the body.
Diabetes is the small brother of cardiovascular disease:
One has to agree that diabetes is a disease. You could also call it a metabolic disorder. Diabetes is often signed off as a disease that holds a level of importance much lesser than cardio vascular ailments. But this is not true. Diabetes kills more people than AIDS or cancer or cardiovascular diseases.
Eating lots and lots of sugar can trigger diabetes:
Certainly not true. But if eating a lot of sugar is done consistently over a period of time, then you can develop a risk
Diabetes is contagious:
This is the most hilarious of myths. Diabetes is not contagious. It is not like a common cold than you catch with a whiff of your nose!
Diabetics have to have a separate diet:
People affected with diabetes need not have a different diet. They just need to have a balanced one.
Diet can eliminate diabetes:
A healthy diet cannot completely eliminate diabetes; it can only control it.
