Many that have diabetes feel that the disease is just a chronic disease to be dealt with over the rest of their lives. After all, what's wrong with a little high blood sugar? As it turns out, diabetes can be just the beginning of a host of other serious complications that include heart disease and stroke, nerve damage and kidney failure. If you're diabetic, it's important to keep your blood glucose levels under control so you can live an active, full life.
Heart Disease and Stroke
Diabetes is considered one of the six primary risk factors for heart disease. The others include obesity, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking, hypertension and a sedentary lifestyle. Diabetics are at higher risk for heart disease and stroke because they accumulate cholesterol on the inside of their arteries at nearly twice the rate of their healthy counterparts. Pre-menopausal women enjoy some benefit due to estrogen, but after menopause they have the same chance of developing heart disease as men. Diabetics are also at a greater risk for a second heart attack once they've had their first. High blood sugar concentrations irritate the lining of the arteries and cause a faster accumulation of cholesterol that can eventually lead to total occlusion of the coronary arteries and carotid arteries.
Nerve Damage
According to the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse, 60 to 70 percent of diabetics are affected by some form of neuropathy, or nerve disorder. While it can happen at any time during the disease, neuropathy mostly affects people with uncontrolled diabetes or those who have had diabetes for over 25 years. The most common types of neuropathy are peripheral, autonomic, proximal and focal neuropathies. Diabetics with peripheral neuropathy experience numbness, tingling, burning and extreme sensitivity in their arms and legs. Autonomic neuropathy causes problems with the heart, blood pressure, digestion, urination and sexual responses. Proximal neuropathy begins with pain in the hips and buttocks and can eventually lead to weakness in the legs and difficulties moving from a sitting to standing position. Focal neuropathy causes problems with double vision, focusing the eyes, chest pain, lower back pain, or other symptoms that are often mistaken for a heart attack.
Kidney Failure
Of the 23.6 million diabetics in the United States, the American Diabetes Association estimates that over 100,000 of them will suffer from kidney failure. The National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse estimates that over 44 percent of newly diagnosed cases of kidney failure are a direct result of diabetes. Even after diabetics learn how to control their disease, they are still at risk for developing kidney failure. Kidney failure in diabetics tends to develop during the first ten years of the disease and can take up to 25 years to develop into kidney failure. Once kidney failure occurs, the only two options are kidney dialysis and transplantation.
