How Does Diabetes Affect The Digestive System?

How Does Diabetes Affect the Digestive System?

If you’ve recently been diagnosed with diabetes or have been living with the disease for a while, you’re more than likely familiar with possible complications, like kidney disease, vision loss, and even amputations. But it’s important to note that poorly controlled type 2 diabetes can also affect other parts of your body, including your digestive system, and that the longer you’ve lived with diabetes, the more likely it may be that you could experience these types of problems.
In fact, some research suggests 75 percent of people visiting diabetes clinics report having significant gastrointestinal symptoms.
How Diabetic Neuropathy Can Lead to Heartburn and Other Issues
So how might diabetes affect the digestive system? “Advanced diabetes, whether it’s from type 1 or type 2 diabetes, can affect any organ in the body — including those organs in the digestive tract,” says James C. Reynolds, MD, a gastroenterology specialist and clinical medicine professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Dr. Reynolds notes digestive problems may be caused by the very factors that led to diabetes in the first place, such as obesity, but it’s also possible that digestive problems are the result of diabetes-related complications, such as hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar.
One of the most serious diabetes complications that can result from consistent high blood sugar is diabetic neuropathy, or nerve damage. Neuropathy may lead to weakness, pain, and numbness, affecting feeling in your feet, legs, and hands, but the condition can also affect digestive functions l Continue reading

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Alcohol and diabetes: How does it affect blood sugar levels?

For many people, a glass of alcohol here and there does not pose a problem. However, for those with health conditions, such as diabetes, alcohol can affect blood sugar levels and pose a health risk.
Understanding what you are consuming and how alcohol influences blood glucose levels is particularly important for people with diabetes.
Alcohol can interfere with blood sugar levels.
People with diabetes should sip drinks slowly and not drink on an empty stomach.
Alcohol and the body
Alcohol is a depressant; it is classed as a "sedative-hypnotic drug" because it depresses the central nervous system. Every organ in the body can be affected by alcohol. Once consumed, it is rapidly absorbed by the stomach and small intestine and enters the bloodstream.
In an average person, the liver can breaks down roughly one standard drink of alcohol per hour. Excess alcohol moves throughout the body. The amount not broken down by the liver is removed by the lungs,kidneys, and skin in urine and sweat.
How alcohol affects a person's body depends on how much they consume. At low doses, alcohol can act as a stimulant - people may feel happy, or become talkative.
Drinking too much alcohol, however, can impair the body.
Alcohol and blood sugar levels
A person's overall health plays a big role in how they respond to alcohol. People with diabetes or other blood sugar problems must be careful when consuming alcohol.
Alcohol consumption can interfere with blood sugar as well as the hormones needed to maintain healthy blood sugar levels. Frequent heavy drinkers can wipe out their energy storage in a few Continue reading

Diabetes and Nutrition

People who have diabetes have too much sugar in their blood. Managing diabetes means managing your blood sugar level. What you eat is closely connected to the amount of sugar in your blood. The right food choices will help you control your blood sugar level.
Path to improved health
Eating well is one of the primary things you can do to help control diabetes.
Do I have to follow a special diet?
There isn’t one specific “diabetes diet.” Your doctor can work with you to design a meal plan. A meal plan is a guide that tells you what kinds of food to eat at meals and for snacks. The plan also tells you how much food to have. For most people who have diabetes (and those without, too), a healthy diet consists of:
40% to 60% of calories from carbohydrates.
20% calories from protein.
30% or fewer calories from fat.
Your diet should also be low in cholesterol, low in salt, and low in added sugar.
Can I eat any sugar?
Yes. In recent years, doctors have learned that eating some sugar doesn’t usually cause problems for most people who have diabetes — as long as it is part of a balanced diet. Just be careful about how much sugar you eat and try not to add sugar to foods.
What kinds of foods can I eat?
In general, at each meal you may have:
2 to 5 choices (or up to 60 grams) of carbohydrates.
1 choice of protein.
A certain amount of fat.
Talk to your doctor or dietitian for specific advice.
Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are found in fruits, vegetables, beans, dairy foods, and starchy foods such as breads. Try to have fresh fruits rather than canned fruits, fruit juices, or dried Continue reading

Difference between Diabetes Mellitus and Diabetes Insipidus

Diabetes Mellitus It is characterized by hyperglycemia (high blood sugar level), glycosuria (glucose in urine), polyuria ( increased volume of urine due to the osmotic effect of glucose), polydipsia (excessivie thirst), polyphagia (excessive appetite). It is due to the hyposecretion of insulin or lack of insulin.
It is of two types:- Diabetes Type I and Diabetes Type II.
Diabetes Type I (Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus, IDDM): It is cased due to deficient insulin production by pancreas because either beta cells of islets of Langerhans are not able to produce insulin or beta cells are absent.
Diabetes Type II (Insulin Independent or Non insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus, NIDDM): It is an inherited recessive autosomal disorder appearing after the age of 40 years in which the cells fail to take up insulin from blood. It results in deficient passage of glucose form blood into the cell surfaces for storage or for direct consumption. It may occur due to defective insulin receptors over cell surfaces or abnormality on plasma protein amylin. The phenomenon is called insulin resistance. This type of diabetes mellitus accounts for 80-90% of all cases of diabetes.
It is kept under control by administration of insulin in case of insulin dependent diabetes. and hypoglycaemics in case of insulin independent diabetes. Sugar free diet is a pre requisite in both the cases.
Diabetes Insipidus (Drinker’s disease): Hypo secretion of ADH (Antidiuretic hormone or Vasopressin) causes a disorder known as diabetes insipidus (Excretion of large quantity of dilute urine). ADH is released into Continue reading

Blurry Vision and Diabetes: What's the Connection?

Blurry vision is being unable to see the fine details.
Another way of describing it is seeing a lack of sharpness. Blurred eyesight is similar to seeing things as if they are in the out-of-focus parts of a photograph.
The blurriness can be subtle or obvious, can change through the day, and can come on slowly or quickly. It depends on the cause.
Diabetes can cause blurry vision for a variety of reasons. Both short-term and long-term complications can affect the vision of someone with diabetes.
Contents of this article:
How does diabetes affect the eyes?
Long-term uncontrolled diabetes can lead to high blood sugar levels that cause damage to small blood vessels over time. This damage can lead to problems with part of the eye called the retina which can create blurred vision.
Short-term blurriness in people with diabetes is due to a different cause. Fluid shifts into and out of the eye due to high blood sugar levels, causing the lens of the eye to swell.
This change in its shape causes blurriness as the lens is the part that focuses light onto the back of the eye. This short-term issue will resolve once blood sugar levels are lowered.
Can diabetes treatment cause blurriness?
Diabetes can also cause short-term blurriness if blood sugar levels fall too low (hypoglycemia). This can happen due to the timing of food or a change in activity levels in people who take medication that increases insulin in the body.
Rather than being caused by changes in the eye, blurriness from low blood sugars is caused by the effects of hypoglycemia on the brain. Vision affected in this way will retu Continue reading