Know Your Diabetes Type?

Diabetes is a disease, which affects your body’s ability to produce or respond to insulin.Insulin is a hormone, which allows blood glucose to enter into the cells of your body and also be used for energy.

Basically, diabetes is of two types. One is type-1 diabetes, which affects during childhood or adolescence and the other is type-2 diabetes, which occurs usually after the age of 45 years.

About 9.1 million American women have diabetes and about one third of them don’t know even they have it.

Occurrence of diabetes is two to four times greater among African American, Asian/Pacific islander women, and American Indian women when compared to white women.

Women who have diabetes are at an increased risk of vaginal infections and various complications during pregnancy.

Pregnancy can also bring the threat of diabetes for the women who don’t have diabetes and is called as gestational diabetes. 2-5% of all pregnancies can get gestational diabetes and it disappears after your delivery. Gestational diabetes can increase the occurrence of type-2 diabetes in later life.

Complications of diabetes in women:

Women with diabetes are at greater risk of cardiovascular disease than men. Death rates from heart disease in women with diabetes are high when compared to women without diabetes.

Threat for diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is 50% higher in women than men. Diabetic ketoacidosis is also called as diabetic coma. This condition occurs when diabetes is poorly controlled and noticeable high blood sugar and ketones are present. DKA is not due to high blood sugar, but it is due to lack of insulin.

Diabetes can keep women 7.6 times higher at risk of peripheral vascular disease (PVD) when compared to women without diabetes. PVD causes less oxygen and blood supply to the tissues in your legs and feet.

Also in pregnant women, diabetes poses special challenges when compared to women who do not have diabetes. Diabetic women are up to five times at greater risk of developing toxemia.

Toxemia is mainly due to high blood pressure, protein in the urine, headache, swelling, and various visual disturbances.

Gestational diabetes can lead babies to born with high birth weight, birth defects and various other complications for the mother.

Babies born to mothers with gestational diabetes are more likely to be overweight or obese in their adolescence and consequently are at greater risk for diabetes in later life. Women with gestational diabetes are at higher risk for getting type-2 diabetes in the future.