Almost everyone knows about the existence of diabetes. Do you know how it appears? What are the first signs of this disease? Can a person suspect that they have diabetes?
Of course, there are probably those who suffer from this disease and know almost everything about this disease. However, there are also a huge number of people who simply do not suspect that they have diabetes.
According to some statistics, for every patient who has diabetes, there are 3-4 people who suffer from this disease, but do not suspect it!
According to who, the incidence of diabetes in the world is approximately 347 million people. The high prevalence of diabetes is due to factors such as aging of the population, reduced physical activity, poor nutrition – excessive consumption of sweet and fatty foods.
Dangerous complications of diabetes – heart attack and stroke. Damage to blood vessels and nerve damage can lead to foot disease, gangrene, and even amputation. More than 60 % of amputations occur not because of injuries, but as a complication of diabetes. Diabetes can cause eye diseases and even lead to vision loss. Diabetes is a common cause of kidney failure.
According to the State register of diabetic patients, as of January 1, 2014, 3,964,889 patients were registered. The most common type 2 diabetes, which most often occurs in people with overweight and low physical activity. The number of patients with type 1 diabetes was 339,360, including 20,373 children, 10,038 teenagers, 308,949 adults, and the number of patients with type 2 diabetes was 3,625,529, including 409 children, 342 teenagers, and 3,624,778 adults.
According to estimates of the International diabetes Federation (IDF), the real number of patients, including undiagnosed cases, is more than 12 million people.
Another important point: the manifestation and dynamics of vascular complications depend on how well people are informed about diabetes, its initial, not very noticeable signs, and how timely they go to the doctor. After all, the main problem of diabetes is not the presence of sugar in the blood itself, but the appearance of vascular complications. In some cases, because of them, there is a need to amputate a limb, significantly increases the likelihood of stroke and myocardial infarction.
"Diabetes" is a word of Greek origin. Diabetes, which means "siphon" or "leak", because it is accompanied by a large intake and excretion of fluid from the body.
The first description of diabetes was made by Egyptian doctors 1500 years before our era. Until the discovery of insulin in 1921, the only treatment for diabetes was diet.