What is Type 2 Diabetes?

What is Type 2 Diabetes? - Type 2 diabetes is a chronic (lifelong) condition. With diabetes, the sugar level in your blood is too high. Diabetes keeps your body from turning food into energy. That’s why you may feel tired and rundown, especially after eating. Controlling your diabetes means making some changes that may be hard at first. Your healthcare team will help you.

Check Your Blood Sugar

You will most likely need to check your blood sugar each day. This tells you whether your blood sugar is within your target range.

• Your healthcare team will tell you how often and when you need to test.
• When your blood sugar is within your target range, your meal plan, activity plan, and medication are working to keep you healthy.
• If your blood sugar is too high or too low, your healthcare team may make changes in your meal plan, activity plan, or adjust your medication.

Follow Your Meal Plan

Following your meal plan helps control the amount of sugar in your blood. It also helps you control your weight. Excess weight keeps your body from using its own insulin to turn food into energy.

• Your healthcare team will help you create a meal plan that works for you.
• You don’t have to give up all the foods you like. But you may need to eat smaller amounts of some foods. Eating balanced meals with vegetables, fruits, lean meats, and whole grains will help control your blood sugar.
• You need to eat the right amount of food. Eat your meals and snacks at about the same time each day. Do not skip meals.

Be Physically Active

Being active helps lower your blood sugar. It does this by helping your body use insulin to turn food into energy. Activity also helps you manage your weight.

• Your healthcare team will work with you to create an activity program that’s right for you.
• Your activity program will be based on your age, general health, and what type of activity you like to do. For many people, walking after meals is a great start.

Take Care of Yourself

When you have diabetes, you may be more likely to develop other health problems. These include foot, eye, heart, and kidney problems.

• Your healthcare team will tell you how to care for yourself to help prevent these problems.
• You also need to have frequent checkups, including eye and foot exams, and blood tests. At least two times a year, ask your doctor to give you an A1C test. This blood test helps show how well you have been controlling your blood sugar in the past 2 to 3 months.
• If you smoke, quit! Smoking makes your diabetes and the problems you can have from it even worse. Ask your doctor about ways to quit.

Understanding Type 2 Diabetes

When your body is working normally, the food you eat is digested and used as fuel. This fuel supplies energy to the body’s cells. When you have diabetes, the fuel can’t enter the cells. Without treatment, diabetes can cause serious long-term health problems.

How the Body Gets Energy

The digestive system breaks down food, resulting in a sugar called glucose. Some of this glucose is stored in the liver. But most of it enters the bloodstream and travels to the cells to be used as fuel. Glucose needs the help of a hormone called insulin to enter the cells. Insulin is made in the pancreas. It is released into the bloodstream in response to the presence of glucose in the blood. Think of insulin as a key. When insulin reaches a cell, it attaches to the cell wall. This signals the cell to create an opening that allows glucose to enter the cell.

When You Have Type 2 Diabetes

Early in type 2 diabetes, your cells don’t respond properly to insulin. Because of this, less glucose than normal moves into cells. This is called insulin resistance. In response, the pancreas makes more insulin. But eventually, the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin to overcome insulin resistance. As less and less glucose enters cells, it builds up to a harmful level in the bloodstream. This is known as high blood sugar or hyperglycemia. The result is type 2 diabetes. The cells become starved for energy, which can leave you feeling tired and rundown.

Why High Blood Sugar Is a Problem

If high blood sugar is not controlled, blood vessels throughout the body become damaged. Prolonged high blood sugar affects organs and nerves. As a result, the risks of damage to the heart, kidneys, eyes, and limbs increase. Diabetes also makes other problems, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, more dangerous. Over time, people with uncontrolled high blood sugar have a high chance of dying of, or being disabled by, heart attack or stroke.