Life Begins At.....
Issue link: http://ebook.aprs.com.au/i/47118
TYPE 2 DIABETES Risk factors and symptoms Unlike a heart attack or a broken leg, type 2 diabetes doesn't actually have many signs or symptoms. Most people are diagnosed without any significant signs other than putting on weight and finding it hard to lose weight. Mostly there are just risk factors: 1. A family history of type 2 diabetes. 2. Being 55 years of age or over. 3. Being aged 45 years or over, if you have high blood pressure or overweight. 4. Being over 35 years of age if you are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background. 5. Little or no physical activity. 6. Carrying excess weight around their stomach. The main symptoms of type 2 diabetes usually come on when the condition is quite progressed and severe: • being very thirsty for no obvious reason • being very tired and lethargic • slow healing cuts and sores • passing more urine than usual • headaches • blurred vision • mood swings Diagnosis People are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes with a blood test and for some it will require something called an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). The blood test can be done at your GP and is the usual first step. 106 THE RETIREE SUMMER This can be clear enough to diagnose type 2 but should your GP need further clarification, they'll send you off to have an OGTT which takes a few hours and examines the way your body responds to a large amount of sugar and helps them clarify if you have type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes. If you do have type 2 diabetes, your GP or a specialist called and endocrinologist will monitor your blood glucose levels every three to six months with a blood test called HbA1c. We want this to sit as close to six per cent as possible for optimal control. Prevention and management While prevention is better, it is still very possible to manage type 2 diabetes. Don't underestimate what you can do! In fact, what we do to prevent type 2 diabetes is what we need to do to manage it! Unlike any other disease like cancer or polio, we have so much influence over type 2 diabetes. While type 2 diabetes has a genetic component, it's very much a lifestyle disease. What we put in our mouths and how much we move has a massive impact both on our chances of developing it and how well we manage it if we do. Let's look at these lifestyle changes in more detail. Benefits of exercise for type 2 diabetes Exercise has many benefits for people with diabetes, but specifically it assists with blood glucose management and insulin sensitivity. Imagine glucose is a person trying to get into a house (a cell of the body). It needs a key to get in, and that key is insulin. In type 2 diabetes it's like the house's lock is rusted and the insulin key doesn't work. Exercise is like the graphite in the lock – making it all work smoothly by increasing your insulin sensitivity, and glucose gets into the cell. When a person's insulin sensitivity is high it makes the process of glucose entering the cells easier and so reduces the amount in the blood, and keeps your HbA1c under control. HbA1c is a three month measure of how well you are managing your blood glucose levels. A decrease in HbA1c as small as 0.9 per cent has been shown to reduce the risk of diabetic complications such as heart disease, foot problems etc. by up to 35 per cent. Another study has shown that regular and sustained exercise can reduce a person's HbA1c by 0.74 per cent even without a change in body weight. Dr Fraser's PhD showed that a person's insulin sensitivity peaks 24 hours after a session of exercise, however at 48 hours this improvement has reduced to the level before the person exercised. What this tells us is that exercise has a repeated acute effect, so the moral here is don't let more that 24 hours come between you and exercise to maintain high insulin sensitivity. The benefits of improved insulin sensitivity don't just stop with improved blood glucose levels. Increased insulin sensitivity also speeds up weight loss and improves our energy levels. In addition, certain types of exercise such as resistance