Effective Natural Diabetes Treatments, Diabetes Management and
Diabetes Control CAN be achieved.  Here’s how I did it!

Type 1 diabetes:
In Type 1 diabetes the body stops production of insulin or it produces too little  to properly regulate blood glucose levels.

• Type 1 diabetics make up around 10% of the total diabetes cases  in the United States.
   
• Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in childhood or adolescence. It was once known as juvenile-onset diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.
   
• Type 1 diabetes can also occur in older people due to destruction of pancreas by excessive drinking, disease, or surgical removal. It also happens as a result of failure of the pancreatic beta cells, (producers of insulin.
   

Sufferers from type 1 diabetes usually require daily insulin to sustain life.

Type 2 diabetes:
In type 2 diabetes, the pancreas continues to produce insulin, but the body is partly or totally unable to make use of it.  This is sometimes known as insulin resistance.

The body attempts to overcome the problem by secreting increasing quantities of insulin.

• At least 90% of diabetics have type 2 diabetes.
   
• Type 2 diabetes is not usually diagnosed until adulthood, usually after the age of 45. The condition used to be called adult-onset diabetes mellitus, or non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. But type 2 diabetes does occur in younger people,  so these names are no longer used.
   
• Type 2 diabetes is usually controlled by modifications to diet, weight reduction, increased exercise, and oral medication. More than 50% of all patients with type 2 diabetes do also need insulin to control their blood sugar levels at some point in their illness.
   

Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes that occurs during the second half of pregnancy.

• Usually, gestational diabetes goes away after delivery of a baby, but women who have gestational diabetes during pregnancy are prone to develop type 2 diabetes later in life.
   
• Women suffering from gestational diabetes are likely to have large babies.
   

Newborn Baby (17 lbs) born in Russia
(no suggestion that its size is anything to do with gestational diabetes)

Metabolic syndrome (also known as syndrome X) is an abnormality in which type 2 diabetes is present but the patient also has hypertension, raised fat levels in the blood, raised LDL cholesterol, reduced HDL cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, obesity, and abnormal blood clotting. An increased incidence of heart disease is also associated with metabolic syndrome.

Pre-diabetes is a very common condition associated with diabetes. In pre-diabetes, the blood sugar level is higher than is normal but not quite high enough to be regarded as diabetic.
 

• Pre-diabetes increases the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes and of heart disease or a stroke.
   
• Pre-diabetes can usually be reversed without the use of insulin or medication by dieting and increased exercise. Weight loss can often prevent or delay, the onset of type 2 diabetes.
   

The American Diabetes Association recently redefined the criteria for pre-diabetes, by lowering the blood sugar level cut-off point. About 20% more adults are now believed to have the condition and may go on to develop diabetes if they do not exercise and/or maintain a healthy weight.

About 17 million American citizens are believed to have diabetes, and around one third of diabetic adults do not even know that they have diabetes.
 

• About 1 million new cases of diabetes occur each year in the US, and diabetes is believed to be the direct or indirect cause of more than 200,000 deaths each year.
   
• Diabetes is increasing rapidly in the US. This increase is due to many factors, of which the most significant are increasing obesity and increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

Go to other diabetes articles below

Before anyone can start their diabetes management, or find a cure for diabetes, they need to fully understand diabetes.  There are good diabetes treatments available, (and I offer a great one on this site). I offer this article as an introduction to diabetes, in its many guises.