Understanding diabetes

Let’s try toexplain diabetes in a simple, non-exhaustive way, to raise the awareness of those around the diabetic.

Every meal, snack, and treat provides our bodies with carbohydrates—and thus glucose.
These carbohydrates are absorbed from our digestive system into our bloodstream.

A healthy pancreas then produces the right dose of insulin, as finely and precisely as nature knows how. This hormone transports the sugar to our organs and cells.

The pancreas of a type 1 diabetic doesn’t produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. This is insulin-dependent diabetes. Sugar then remains in the blood, causing hyperglycemia.

Le traitement est l’injection d’insuline

Il faut alors calculer combien d’insuline est nécessaire en tenant compte de la glycémie avant le repas, du type de repas qui va être pris, de l’activité prévue après… tant de paramètres précis et une grande part d’incertitude liée aux émotions, aux éventuelles infections bénignes.

The aim is to keep blood sugar levels between 0.70 grams of sugar per liter of blood and 1.80 at their highest. This margin seems wide: meeting this target is actually a real job.

A treatment regimen comprising a slow-acting insulin and a fast-acting insulin is then set up by the diabetologist to replace the pancreas. This schedule is personal and takes into account, among other things, age, weight and response to insulin.

Hyperglycemia

If not enough insulin is produced, hyperglycemia occurs. Blood sugar levels are too high, and organs and cells are damaged in a sugary blood environment. It’s recurrent or chronic hyperglycemia that’s dangerous. A measure of the average sugar bound to hemoglobin over three months, glycated hemoglobin, is an indicator of whether blood glucose levels are within target.

Hypoglycemia

If the amount of insulin is too high, the blood sugar drops too low (below 0.60 gr/liter of blood). It’s important to recognize the signs of hypoglycemia, because you could end up feeling unwell and in danger. Fatigue, dizziness, tremors, sweating… the signs are numerous and often the same for each individual. Family and friends need to be made aware of these signs, as they may be the first to notice hypoglycemia. If blood sugar levels fall slowly, the brain will compensate and adapt; therefore, signs of hypoglycemia may appear when blood sugar levels are already very low, and therefore potentially dangerous.

Le resucrage est alors une urgence

It’s essential to always have the simplest form of quick sugar on hand to raise blood sugar levels, and slow sugar to stabilize them.