When finding out information about diabetes, it is often easy to become confused on the issue of hypoglycemia. Sometimes you will hear the two words interchanged as though they mean exactly the same thing. If you are a sufferer of diabetes, then you should get it straight and make sure you know exactly what all of the terms mean. Here I will describe the distinction between diabetes and hypoglycemia, and hopefully you will finish with a deeper understanding of the medical problems. So read on to find out what the difference is.

Hypoglycemia, type 1 diabetes, and type 2 diabetes all deal with the same things: blood sugar and insulin. Hypoglycemia is when your pancreas produces excess amounts of insulin. As a result, blood sugar drops, and symptoms arise from this. These symptoms include confusion, sweatiness, and shakiness. Hypoglycemic side effects can be cured simply by having a sugary snack, but the excess insulin root problem cannot be cured as far as we know.

Type 1 diabetes is when your pancreas stops producing insulin, since the insulin-producing cells are being attacked by your own immune system. As a result, blood sugar rises, and symptoms come from this. Type 1 diabetes usually comes from genetic predisposition, and is onset by some environmental trigger. This trigger could be excess amounts of sugar, or any number of other things that are not fully understood. So, type 1 diabetes is essentially the opposite of hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia is too much insulin, type 1 diabetes is too little.

Type 2 diabetes is caused by lack of exercise, as well as poor diets. It is when your body becomes resistant to insulin, and you cannot use it efficiently. This lack of insulin results in high blood sugars. This is the most common form of diabetes, and millions of people suffer from it (with millions more who do not realize that they have it). The effects of type 2 diabetes can sometimes be reversed through a severe lifestyle change, including a healthy diet and exercise.

So now you know about the 3 main diseases that mess with blood sugar and insulin. Since they all deal with the same things, they are often confused with each other. Type 2 and type 1 diabetes could be confused with each other, or with hypoglycemia. Now that you know what each of them is, you will be more likely to recognize one if it should occur.

This diabetes education article brought to you by Diabetes Management Software – DiaMed by Chiron Data Systems

A healthy lifestyle that includes weight control, proper nutrition and regular exercise goes a long way towards helping you control diabetes. Here are a few simple everyday steps you can take to keep diabetes at bay.

Lose that weight

Maintaining your ideal weight is vital in controlling diabetes. Studies show that when it comes to losing extra weight, every little bit counts and every kilo you lose could mean a significant improvement in health. Towards this end you should focus on making permanent and improved changes to your exercise and eating habits.

Make smart food choices

Choosing the right foods can help you control your weight as well as your blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Reduce your calorie intake and avoid fats, especially saturated fats. Increase your intake of foods that are high in fiber such as fresh fruits, seeds, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and legumes. Fiber rich foods play a great role in reducing the risk of diabetes. These foods enhance blood sugar control and help you lose weight as well.

Controlling your intake of carbohydrates is essential is maintaining your blood sugar level. Eat complex carbohydrates including potatoes and whole wheat or multi grain breads, pasta and cereal, while avoiding foods that are full of empty calories and refined sugar such as cookies, cakes, pretzels and white bread. The amount of carbohydrates and fat each person requires depends on the individual’s activity level and calorific needs.

Get moving

Regular exercise is a panacea for all medical conditions. Exercise for at least 30 minutes everyday to get your heart pumping and to keep diabetes under control. Physical activity in any form helps you lose weight, enhances the efficiency of insulin and lowers your blood sugar level along with a long list of health benefits. If long boring work-outs are not your thing, engage yourself in some fun activity. Take the dog for a long walk or a run in the park. Go cycling with the kids or swim a few laps everyday. Play beach volleyball, go skiing.

Have a physical check-up and get your doctor’s advice before starting any exercise program. Take it slow and easy in the beginning and increase the intensity and duration gradually to prevent any injuries. Checking your blood sugar level prior to exercising and after you’ve finished will help you determine the reaction of different activities on our blood sugar levels and thus aid in avoiding the incidence of low blood sugar.

Learn about diabetes software for diabetes education at http://www.chirondata.com/

In order to appreciate the cause for the condition known as diabetes, one must first look at what occurs in the body of a healthy individual, particularly after such an individual has recently eaten a food that is high in carbohydrates (sugar or starch). Digestive juices rapidly act on a starch, changing it to a simple sugar. All sugars in digested food mix with all the foods in the stomach. That mix in the stomach then enters the intestines.

The nutrients in the fluid of the intestine must reach the cells of the body. The intestinal wall allows passage of sugar from the intestinal cavity into the bloodstream. That passage takes place in both a healthy individual and in an individual with diabetes.

Once the bloodstream has acquired sugar from the intestines, then special endocrine cells in the pancreas get a signal. That signal tells those cells, located in the Islets of Langerhans, to release insulin (a chemical that acts on the body’s cells). The specific pancreatic cells in a healthy individual respond quickly to the “call” for insulin. The Islets’ cells in a diabetic do not give the proper response.

If a person has Type 1 Diabetes, then his or her pancreatic cells lack the ability to produce even a drop of insulin. If a person has Type 2 Diabetes, then his or her once well-functioning Islets’ cells demonstrate a sharply diminished ability to make insulin. In either case, the body’s cells do not receive the chemical message that facilitates the absorption of blood glucose by those same cells.

Because the cells of a diabetic lack the ability to absorb glucose from the blood, the cells of a diabetic become deprived of a needed energy source. Meanwhile, if the diabetic continues to ingest foods high in carbohydrates, then his or her bloodstream will become “flooded” with glucose. Eventually all of that glucose passes through the kidneys, and it leaves the body in the urine.

The physiological changes that take place in a diabetic patient produce certain tell-tale symptoms. The patient might complain about the need for frequent urination. The patient often speaks about having periods of great thirst. The patient experiences repeated periods of unusual and unexpected fatigue.

The above symptoms show up among individuals with both Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. A few symptoms are type-specific. For example, in Type 1 Diabetes the patient can experience a rapid weight loss. In Type 2 Diabetes, the patient frequently begins to store more fat, and at the same time that patient could well exhibit a growing desire for sweets and starches.

Type 1 Diabetes is an inherited condition. The treatment for Type 1 Diabetes is insulin. Until recently, that insulin had to come in the form of insulin injections. Newer medical techniques now allow patients to wear an insulin pump.

Health professionals struggle to reverse the alarming rise in the reported cases of Type 2 Diabetes. They encourage the eating of high-fiber foods and foods rich in complex carbohydrates. Such foods do not “flood” the bloodstream with glucose.

Optimum Diabetics is scientifically formulated to provide nutritional support for people with diabetes. Each supplement includes a complete, full-potency formulation of vitamins, minerals and standardized herbal extracts. You are allowed to distribute this article with an active hyperlink to www.optimum-diabetics.org.

PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) is a hormone imbalance that occurs in women, and can often be mistaken for something else. Women who have it have high testosterone and high circulating insulin levels. Without diagnosis, women with PCOS risk infertility, persistent weight gain and, if left untreated for a long period of time, Type-II diabetes.

It’s estimated that over 50% of women with untreated PCOS contract Type-II diabetes before their fortieth birthday. Women with PCOS have a five to seven times higher incidence of heart attacks than women of childbearing age without the ailment. PCOS therefore poses an important danger to women, and should be diagnosed and treated as early as possible.

What causes PCOS? Simply put, PCOS represents multiple cysts on the ovaries. Cysts originate in follicles which should be producing oocytes (eggs) for reproduction. Because of a higher level of male hormones, these follicles do not fully mature, and instead remain as cysts in the ovaries. Since the follicles don’t mature, the ovaries put out less progesterone and are less likely to have their periods. With less estrogen and progesterone, a woman’s testosterone secretions increased and PCOS results.

These cysts are sources for testosterone, which counteract a woman’s natural estrogen level and lead to other problems. These problems can include excess facial hair, obesity and a diminished number of periods. Although all women secrete some level of male hormones, PCOS-afflicted women’s levels are much higher, which stimulates other symptoms. Other symptoms can include:

Acne
High cholesterol
High blood pressure
Thinning hair or male-pattern baldness

In more severe cases, patches of brown spots at the elbows, breasts, knees and other points on the body (note: these are also symptoms of Type-II diabetes

In reviewing the symptoms, it is clear that many women with PCOS are at a heightened risk for heart and other circulatory diseases. Of all the symptoms, high and persistent insulin levels may be the most harmful to a woman’s health. This symptom causes blood vessels to constrict, and may lead to insulin-dependent diabetes in some cases if left untreated.

How does one treat PCOS? There is no one perfect therapy. Each woman’s case must be treated in a different way. Those women who suffer from severe symptoms should be given steroids to reduce acute problems. Over the longer term, many women are given one or more of the following:

Birth control drugs, in order to regularize their periods and counteract the increased production of male hormones

Anti-diabetes medicines, including glucophage and Avastin, to reduce the effects of higher levels of insulin being circulated in the bloodstream.

Fertility medications, both to stimulate normal female hormone production and, in the case of infertility, to stimulate a pregnancy. The two drugs most often prescribed are Clomid and mettformin if the Clomid is not enough.

In the case of reduced pituitary output, gonadotropins are also administered.

Anti-androgens, such as Minoxidil (topical) are administered in order to counteract the male hormones’ influence on hair loss. Their secondary effect is to reduce the overall effect of male hormones on the female body.

If these drugs are not enough, a woman with PCOS can undergo surgery to reduce the number of cysts in the ovaries. By “cyst drilling,” the surgeon can reduce the amount of male hormones and insulin secreted by the ovaries and improve the relative output of estrogen and progesterone. Although any surgery is potentially dangerous (particularly with obese patients), this is a relatively non-invasive procedure which can be performed using laparoscopic tools.

It is estimated that five to ten percent of women have PCOS. Women who have a family history, or are obese, are more likely to contract PCOS.

Scott Meyers is a staff writer for Its Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Insulin Resistance, Diabetes, and PCOS.

It used to be clear that Juvenile, or Type-I diabetes, occurred only with children, and Type-II (“Adult Onset”) diabetes occurred solely among adults. While Type-I diabetes remains a problem of the young, and has a different etiology than Type-II diabetes, both are climbing in incidence. Each has a different cause, and can be treated in different ways.

The classic definition of Type-I diabetes was a reduction in the ability of the pancreas to produce insulin. The insulin-producing parts of the pancreas, the Islets of Langerhans (a good trivia question on your college biology exam), would somehow lose their ability to produce insulin. As a result, children of otherwise normal weight and constitution would need to move relatively quickly to treat their affliction, or die in a diabetic coma.

Recently, we’ve learned that much of Type-I diabetes occurs because children develop a form of auto-immune reaction to their own pancreatic cells. This hyperreaction to the body’s own cells results in a destruction of the Islets of Langerhans, and results in a lifelong need to replace insulin production with injections.

Type-I diabetes is a serious pathology, which can lead to much-increased levels of blindness, heart disease and neuropathies. If not treated properly, Type-I diabetics can contract diabetic ulcers of their feet and legs, leading to amputation.

We’ve seen a revolution in diabetes treatment with long-term insulin, better diagnosis, and, more recently, insulin pumps. The longer-lasting insulin gives the body a chance to respond in a more normal way to spikes in glucose levels. Diagnosis has been improved through the institution of glycosylated hemoglobin tests, which are more reliable in predicting longer-term glucose levels. Finally, insulin pumps have allowed Type-I diabetics to better match their insulin production with their food intake, thus reducing the deleterious effects of too high glucose in the bloodstream.

Type-II diabetes has been called “adult onset,” as it is closely linked to obesity caused by consumption of high-sugar, high-fat diets and a lack of exercise. Once exclusively a preserve of adults, Type-II diabetes has become an increasingly-common fixture amongst teens. It’s estimated that 13% of teens today have Type-II diabetes in the US.

This syndrome of early stage obesity and resulting Type-II diabetes was almost unknown 20 years ago. The proliferation of junk foods and a sedentary lifestyle have caused the obesity epidemic, which in turn has resulted in an epidemic of Type-II diabetes throughout the population.

Type-II diabetes affects the body in much the same way as Type-I diabetes over the long term. While some people with Type-II diabetes can become insulin dependent, some drugs (such as glucophages) can diminish the deleterious effects of excess insulin and glucose circulation. People with Type-II diabetes nevertheless encounter higher incidences of heart disease, estimates are three to seven times as high as non-diabetics’ and related diseases, such as strokes, neuropathy and kidney disease.

It is clear that more exercise and weight loss can reverse the diabetic effects of insulin resistance. Since few obese patients are willing or able to increase exercise or reduce caloric intake, many are condemned to suffer the lifelong consequences of diabetes.

Type-I diabetes will be treated in the future by drugs and devices which reduce the body’s tendency in some people to attack its own cells. Anti-inflammatory drugs, immune suppressants and, in the future, more targeted drugs will improve the outlook for such people. Better and earlier diagnosis, coupled with this better therapy, will reduce the overall rate of Type-I diabetes.

Type-II diabetes, on the other hand, will continue to climb dramatically, along with the rate of obesity in this country. Without a clear strategy to reduce obesity, we must resign ourselves to the fact that more and more people will suffer from Type-II diabetes, and the resulting co-morbidities.

Scott Meyers is a staff writer for Its Entirely Natural, a resource for helping you achieve a naturally healthy body, mind, and spirit. You may contact our writers through the web site. Follow this link for more information on Insulin Resistance and Diabetes.