Unexplained Weight Loss With Diabetes

You might be aware that as a metabolic disorder, some forms of diabetes come with excessive weight. But diabetes might also cause a sudden drop in weight too. In fact, many patients who are ultimately diagnosed with diabetes first go to their doctor with concerns about unexplained weight loss. Several mechanisms are behind this symptom. Weight loss can occur as a consequence of high blood sugar, dehydration, muscle breakdown and problems with your thyroid.

High Blood Sugar

Although both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can involve fairly dramatic weight loss over several days at the onset of the disease, it tends to be more common among people with type 1. In both cases, the cause is that your body fails to adequately deal with insulin. The job of insulin is to transport glucose from the foods you eat into your cells to provide energy for all the work that's required to keep you alive. However, most type 1 diabetics don't produce insulin. Type 2 diabetics either don't produce enough insulin or their bodies don't respond to it properly. Consequently, even if you eat normally, that blood sugar simply builds up and gets excreted in your urine. This causes weight loss, but it could also damage your organs and kill you if you are not treated. If you experience an unexplained weight loss, surpassing 5 percent of your body weight within days, see your health care provider as soon as possible.

Dehydration

Another symptom of diabetes associated with weight loss is frequent urination. When you go to the bathroom more than normal and don't replace the fluids you lose through urination, your risk of dehydration goes up. Consequently, dehydration is another mechanism by which diabetes might cause unexplained weight loss. What happens is that your kidneys have to work harder to filter the excess glucose building up in your system. If they can't keep up, says the Mayo Clinic, not only is the sugar excreted, but additional fluid drawn from your tissues goes with it. You'll sense this is happening because the urge to go to the bathroom will come more frequently. However, when glucose is being shed through your urine, you are also losing calories. This can lead to rapid weight loss.

Muscle Breakdown

Poorly controlled diabetes can cause weight loss through muscle wasting, according to a report published in the "British Medical Journal." By studying the amount of a chemical in urine, scientists learned in the early 1980s that diabetes could contribute to protein breakdown. In addition, the study reported that having an insulin deficiency both decreases muscle synthesis and increases its breakdown. In a later meta-analysis published in the "Journal of Nutrition," these findings were confirmed, with the report saying that insulin replacement helps diminish this effect of the disease. However, as muscle makes up up to 36 percent of a woman's weight and up to 45 percent of a man's weight, it's easy to see a connection between muscle wasting and weight loss through diabetes.

Hyperthyroidism

People with diabetes have a higher prevalence of thyroid disorders than people without diabetes, according to Dr. Patricia Wu. The thyroid is a hormone-producing gland inside your neck that sits above your collarbone, just underneath your skin. MedlinePlus says the thyroid is involved in setting your metabolism. With hyperthyroidism, the glands makes too much hormone and causes weight loss. Wu explains that this dysfunction can worsen blood sugar control and require that you take more insulin. It also makes your liver produce more blood sugar and is linked to greater insulin resistance. In fact, says Wu, excessive amounts of thyroid hormone in the bloodstream might reveal latent diabetes. A major sign of hyperthyroidism is weight loss. It also speeds up your heart rate and causes sweating and tremors, symptoms that look a lot like low blood sugar. Your health care provider will advise you on how to monitor your blood sugar to understand the effects of hyperthyroidism and blood sugar fluctuations.