health ABC > Diabetes
Diabetes: symptomes & diagnosis
Diabetes is often called a "silent" disease because many people have no signs or symptoms before they are diagnosed. Symptoms can also be so mild that you might not notice them. More than 5 million people in the Uni...read more
Diabetes: treatment and research
Diabetes cannot be cured, but it can be controlled. Strict control of blood glucose, or blood sugar, as well as blood pressure and cholesterol is the best defense against the serious complications of diabetes...read more
Diabetic travellers
Whenever you travel it is essential to plan ahead. A visit to your Diabetic Adviser or GP as soon as you are aware of your travel schedule is a good place to start. If you plan carefully now, you will save yourself from a lot...read more
Diabetics can walk for life
If you're diabetic, a new study finds that you'll probably live longer simply by strolling. An analysis of 2 900 adults who had diabetes for an average of 11 years found that even two hours of walking weekly ...read more
Diagnosing atherosclerosis
Since atherosclerosis is a pathological or disease process rather than an illness in itself, your doctor wishes to establish whether you are at increased risk or whether you have already developed the clinica...read more
Diagnosing Type 1 & Type 2
Diagnosing Type 1 diabetes Diabetes is diagnosed quite simply by measuring the levels of glucose in the blood. The normal fasting levels are between 3,3 mmol/l and 5,9 mmol/l.The World Health Organisat...read more
Dietary recommendations for diabetics
General Dietary Recommendations The diet advocated for diabetics is not a 'special diet'. It is a healthy diet which is recommended for everyone. Everyone with diabetes has different dietary requirements dep...read more
Do you have diabetes?
Diabetes is on the increase, but it is an easily treatable condition.Our bodies are like a motorcar; they need fuel to provide us with energy. This energy comes from glucose, a type of sugar ...read more
Everything about type 1 Diabetes
Soon after eating a meal, the digestion process begins to turn part of the foods we have eaten (the carbohydrates) into fuel for the body. This fuel is called glucose, which ...read more
Frozen shoulder and diabetes
There are many ways that diabetes can affect the muscles and joints. Sugar sticks to the collagen in cells and affects its ability to function. Diabetes can damage blood vessels and a poor bl...read more
Gestational Diabetes
Diabetes affects approximately 1 out of every 100 women in her childbearing years. Gestational DiabetesApproximately 2 to 5% will develop "Gestational Diabetes" during her pregnancyread moreGestational diabetes and your unborn child
Diabetes mellitus may have very serious consequences for the unborn baby. The chances that a mother with poorly controlled diabetes mellitus loses her baby, is significantly increased. Pregnancies complicated...read more
How to manage Type 2 Diabetes
If you have Type 2 Diabetes, you have the most common form. Either your body nor pancreas does not produce enough insulin in your pancreas, OR your blood cells ignore the insulin present in o...read more
Hyperglycaemia: protect your heart by lowering your blood sugar levels
Is heart health compromised by the high blood sugar levels of diabetes, or by other conditions such as hypertension that can be triggered by diabetes? In short: Which comes f...read more
Hypoglycemia
Glucose, a form of sugar, is the body's main fuel. Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, occurs when blood levels of glucose drop too low to fuel the body's activity.Carbohydrates (sugars and sta...read more
Keeping morning sickness in check
Up to 80% of pregnant women suffer from some form of morning sickness (which can generally be defined as nausea or vomiting that starts in the first trimester and can last anywhere from a few...read more
Key facts about diabetes
What is diabetes? Diabetes means that your blood sugar is too high. Your blood always has some sugar in it because the body uses sugar for energy; it's the fuel that keeps you going. But too...read more
Living with a chronic illness
What is chronic illness? Chronic illness refers to a group of illnesses that are permanent or last a long time. Examples of chronic illnesses include: allergies arthritis asthm...read more
Management of type 2 diabetes
Step 1 Diagnosis This is made by 2 simple fasting blood tests in most cases. If the blood glucose is 7mmols or higher or if you are having symptoms of diabetes and one fasting blood glucose reading 7mmols or...read more
Menstruation and diabetes control
We are all aware of the analogy about one's diabetes control being like riding a roller-coaster. The goal is to turn the roller-coaster into a go-cart running on a flat track. We want to eliminate the extreme...read more
Migraines may increase stroke risk
People who have migraines know only too well how challenging the condition is. To make matters worse, a recent study has confirmed an association between migraine and elevated stroke risk. An...read more
Nutrition and diabetes
Nutrition is essential Aggressive management of your blood sugar (glucose) is essential to prevent further complications of the disease such as blindness, amputations and kidney disease. While diabet...read more
Nutrition myths
Don’t always believe what you hear- especially when it comes to your health. Here’s some nutrition myths we were taught to follow, and according to the experts, we shouldn’t have listened to...read more
Pre-diabetes
Pre-diabetes: impaired glucose tolerance and impaired fasting glucose Prediabetes is a condition that raises the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. People with prediabetes have bl...read more
Prevention of diabetes complications
Diabetes can affect many parts of the body and can lead to serious complications such as blindness, kidney damage, and lower-limb amputations. Working together, people with diabetes and their...read more
Pros and cons of pumping
Advantages Flexibility of lifestyle. You can get up when you want, go to bed when you want, eat when you want. You are no longer tied down by having to do things at set times, or plan things such as ex...read more
Tips for people with diabetics
Summer barbecues, picnics and family reunions can stir up thoughts of good, down home cooking. If you have diabetes, these events can pose special challenges. How can you stay healthy and still enjoy those tr...read more
Treating diabetes
The treatment of Type 1 diabetes The most important aspect of the treatment is the subcutaneous administration of insulin to maintain tightly controlled glucose levels throughout day and night. The tight con...read more
Type 1 diabetes
What causes it ? By the time a person with Type 1 diabetes experiences symptoms, almost all the beta cells in the pancreas have been destroyed. This destruction is almost certainly as a result of an automimm...read more
Type 2 diabetes
What is Type 2 diabetes? Type 2 diabetes is the most common variety of diabetes. It is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism in which the body effectively becomes resistant to the hormone insulin.Initially, ...read more
Veggie health for kids
Animal Products Promote Disease Meat and dairy products promote disease. They are high fat foods, a primary source of unhealthy (and inessential) saturated fats and choleste...read more
What are the diagnostic criteria for diabetes mellitus ?
The American Diabetic Association and medical authorities recently revised the standards for diabetes mellitus and a "borderline" condition known as Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT)...read more
What is diabetes?
Diabetes mellitus is a group of diseases marked by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both. Diabetes can lead to serious complicatio...read more
What we know about Diabetes
To hear from your health care provider you have pre-diabetes, or the disease diabetes, can send shock and fear through you and your family. It doesn't have to be that way, though. Diabetes ...read more
What you need to know about gestational diabetes
You found out you are pregnant. This is such a special time in your life. Everything is progressing along just fine and then you find out you have Gestational Diabetes, specifically, ...read more
When blood cholesterol becomes a problem
Two types of lipoproteins and their quantity in the blood are main factors in heart disease risk: Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) This "bad" cholesterol is the form in which ch...read more
X-syndrome: Diabetes & heart disease linked
More than 3 million South Africans suffer from type 2 diabetes, which strikes particularly people older than 30. But it never rains, it pours. This common type of diabetes is often part of a Metabolic Syndrome read moreYour diabetic child at school
The incidence of Type 1 diabetes in children is about 2 in every thousand. These children mostly attend schools and daycare centres. Parents need to work in conjunction with schools in order to provide a safe...read more
