Recent research has shown that diabetes is on the rise in Nigeria, as hospitals receive large numbers of patients suffering from the disease on a daily basis.
In this interview with NAJIB SANI, the Medical Director, Pahlycon Clinic, Bauchi, Dr.
Hassan Garba, speaks on the causes and preventive measures of diabetes, as well as how hypertension can cause the disease and vice visa
What is diabetes? When we talk about diabetes, we are basically talking about two types of diseases.
First there is diabetes mellitus; which is the commonly known one, and diabetes insipidus which is less commonly known.
Diabetes insipidus has to do with the problem of movement of water around the body.
That is diabetes insipidus.
Diabetes mellitus is closely related to the breakdown or usage of sugar in the body.
That is what diabetes is all about
Causes of diabetes What causes diabetes are numerous.
First there is an organ in the abdomen called the pancreas.
It has highly specific functionality and produces a certain chemical called insulin, which is responsible for moving sugar from the blood into the cells for use.
If this pancreas is not producing this insulin at all for whatever reason, then you could have diabetes.
Even if it is producing the insulin but the insulin is defective, again you could have diabetes.
On the other hand, if it is producing the insulin, but it is not enough to do the job, you will have diabetes.
Fourthly, if it is producing the insulin adequately but the target areas where it is supposed to function, the receptors are not functioning well, this could also lead to diabetes.
So these are the basic things that could go wrong and cause diabetes.
You could also have sugar accumulated in the blood, absorbed from the intestine and get into the cells for the tissues to function and then the sugar accumulated is too much.
The normal level of sugar in the body is between 4.4 to around 6.7 per litre of blood.
If it rises above 6.7, your blood sugar is too high and you could have diabetes.
So, any one of these situations we have mentioned could allow the sugar to rise above 6.7 per litre of blood and it will then cause diabetes mellitus.
Symptoms of diabetes If a person has diabetes, ther are basic things he may begin to notice.
One, you will discover that you will begin to drink a lot of water and you will still be feeling very thirsty.
You also tend to eat a lot because the sugar is not getting into the tissues and the brain keeps interpreting that you don’t have enough food because it is not getting sugar.
The brain is a very selfish organ; it takes 25 percent of all the sugar you consume.
So in diabetic situations, the sugar is there in the blood cells but the cells are not getting it to use.
Therefore as far as the brain is concerned, the sugar is not there.
So the person will be taking more food and before you know it, he becomes very fat.
In a nutshell, the person will be eating a lot, drinking a lot of water and passing a lot of urine and he will feel thirsty most of the times.
Cure of diabetes It depends on the causative factor.
If the pancreas is not well and that is why there is deficiency in production, it means by the time the pancreas is cured and the functional cells go back to their functions as normal, you can say the diabetes has been cured.
For instance, in pregnancy you could have what we call pregnancy induced diabetes, because in that situation there is sugar accumulation going on.
So once delivery has taken place, sugar level goes back to normal and you are okay.
So if there is no permanent damage to one of the four situations we have earlier mentioned, then diabetes can be cured.
Is diabetes hereditary? Definitely yes.
This is because once we see that you complain that you are taking a lot of water, passing a lot of urine and eating a lot of food, we ask if you have been doing it before.
The next question is does your mother or father do similar things? Or do your grand parents do similar things? We ask such questions so as to find out wether it is genetic in your family.
So diabetes can be hereditary.
What preventive measures First of all if you want to avoid getting diabetes, you have to cut down how much carbohydrate you consume per day.
Stop the abuse of drugs because there are certain drugs that will go and damage the cells in the pancreas and stop them from producing insulin.
Other things you could do to avoid getting diabetes, is if you know you have to consume a lot of carbohydrates, make sure you are doing a lot of physical activities to be burning up the sugar.
But in the situation where it is genetic, there is very little you could do to avoid it.
But any situation you know that will make you have hypertension, you have to avoid it because once you get hyper tension, you tend to get diabetes also.
That is why we call them the twins evils.
Diabetes can cause hypertension, hypertension can cause diabetes.
How to cope with diabetes Coping with diabetes can be a problem because first of all it is something that can take a lot from your pocket in its management.
Adjustment of diet in life must be done.
Infact, if you walk 10km every day, you don’t need any medication because you will be burning up the excess sugar in your body.
You also have to be very compliant with the kind of medicine you are using
