Diabetes Myths | Dr. Pleșea: “You are in the middle of a hurricane, in which you are crushed by continuous hunger”

doctor Ruxandra Plesea he spoke, inside the column Health advice with Andreea Cigolea from Antena 3 CNN, on the most popular myths about diabetes.

Myth or truth: Diabetes is caused by high sugar consumption

“In part it is true. Lifestyle and diet are a risk factor for diabetes, along with other risk factors. Let us remember that diabetes is a multifactorial disease. There are many things that contribute to this disease.

If the diet becomes unbalanced, it leads to obesity, this is an important risk factor. Thus, excess sweets are associated with obesity. The most important thing is to watch the fats.

According to studies, the correlation is highest for those who consume excess animal fats, processed fats from processed foods. Then it seems that diabetes appears even faster than in association with sweets.

Not everyone gets diabetes from eating sweets. We also need to know that type 2 diabetes doesn’t appear overnight, from one month to the next.

Type 1 diabetes symptoms

• Feeling thirsty/dry mouth
• Sudden weight loss
• Frequent urination
• Lack of energy, feeling tired
• Blurry vision
• Continued feeling of hunger

Type 2 diabetes symptoms

• Excessive thirst/dry mouth
• Recurrent fungal skin infections
• Frequent/profuse urination
• Slow wound healing
• Lack of energy/extreme tiredness
• Blurry vision
• Tingling, numbness in hands/feet

If we talk about type 1 diabetes, it can start in days, weeks, and the symptoms are different. As for type 2 diabetes, unfortunately, the evolution is long and it doesn’t hurt, you don’t feel it. You don’t know you have diabetes unless you get tested.

It is very important to check your blood sugar every year. If you reach any final stage, you can definitely end up with complications. The dangerous complications are the cardiovascular ones, which are fatal.

It’s a silent disease, and the tests make the difference. Warning, this disease does not only occur in the elderly. It can also occur in children.

Myth or truth: Diabetes only occurs in older people

Not true. It can also occur in children. Unfortunately, it’s on the rise in the little ones. The onset of type 2 diabetes, also type 1 diabetes, also occurs in the elderly, although it was said to occur only in children. Therefore, age is not a criterion, but the risk is higher for the elderly.

Myth or truth: Diabetes is contagious

Fortunately, diabetes is not contagious.

Myth or truth: There is moderate diabetes

In its evolution, diabetes has many stages, many stages. It can be unbalanced, it can be well controlled and then if you pay attention to the lifestyle, the treatment, you get some checkups, then you manage to control it. It can be a state in this situation.

We must remember that any form of diabetes, if not controlled at any given time, poses serious problems.

Myth or truth: People with diabetes have to follow a special diet

Yup! This is true. People suffering from diabetes have to follow a special diet. Diet is the first thing the patient has to consider. Diet is part of the treatment, without which things get worse and worse.

No matter how many pharmacological therapies are done, if they are not supported by a balanced diet, things do not improve, on the contrary. The diet of the diabetic patient is similar to the diet of a person who wants to be healthy and balanced.

Myth or truth: Type 2 diabetes only affects overweight people

Yup! The risk is greater. When you are overweight or when you are obese or when you have abdominal obesity, your risk is much higher. At the same time, and when you have insulin resistance, your risk of type 2 diabetes increases.

Myth or truth: Type 2 diabetes is milder than type 1 diabetes

Here it depends on the stage and moment of its evolution. Both can be potentially fatal if left untreated. Type 2 diabetes starts and progresses slowly, without pain, but type 1 diabetes comes on suddenly and leaves you no chance. If you don’t treat it right away, it’s fatal. Therefore, treatment and going to the doctor make all the difference.

Myth or truth: People with diabetes are prone to infections

Yup! It is a different state of immunity and inflammation than in people with diabetes. There is a risk of developing more aggressive forms of some infections.

Serious complications of diabetes

• vision loss
• peripheral nerve damage
• kidney failure
• Difficult-to-treat infections
• impotence
• heart disease

Myth or truth: Diabetes leads to blindness or amputation

We are talking about the complications of type 1 and 2 diabetes, as they affect small or large blood vessels and therefore some target organs will be affected, such as the eye, the kidney, the nerves.

As a precaution, we must go and do our analysis and understand how much stress affects us. We must remember that stress can acutely and violently trigger such a condition. So they’re all important, all the elements of the lifestyle. Everything is a puzzle.

Prevention of type 2 diabetes

1. Weight loss
2. Regular physical activity
3. High consumption of fruit and vegetables
4. Replace animal/trans fats with vegetable ones

We also remember that with any unbalanced diabetes there is a feeling of hunger, since glucose does not enter the cell. The cell feels undernourished and then the person is hungry and loses weight and feels tired.

However, hunger can also be attributed to other lifestyle errors. We are talking about insufficient sleep or excessive consumption of foods with empty calories. In other words, you are not being fed properly. You eat a lot, but badly. You are in the midst of a hurricane, in which you are crushed by constant hunger.

Pay attention to excessive consumption of raw vegetables, because here it can also be a matter of very high digestive stress,” said metabolic disease expert Dr. Ruxandra Pleșea.

Incidence of diabetes

• 537 million adults between the ages of 20 and 79 have diabetes

• An estimated 240 million people have undiagnosed diabetes

• More than 1.2 million children and adolescents have type 1 diabetes

Diabetes statistics in Europe

• 1 in 11 adults has diabetes

• 1 in 3 people have undiagnosed diabetes

• 1 in 7 births affected by maternal hyperglycemia during pregnancy

• the highest incidence of children/adolescents with type 1 diabetes