The Long-Term Dangers of Diabetes

Manageable as it seems, diabetes still has long-term dangers which every patient with diabetes has to keep in mind. These dangers should encourage the patients to be more keen in managing their disease.

Diabetes, a group of metabolic disease which describes high levels of sugar in the blood, can produce long-term dangers. Diabetes is mainly caused by either insufficient insulin production or the body cells being unresponsive to insulin. Diabetes is a serious health problem that is becoming very common among us. Since it is becoming common, many usually have taken it for granted. Others still succumbed to the joys of those tempting sweets treats, others do not know they have it yet and others have a hard time controlling it. However, the main idea is, there are a number of people with poorly-controlled diabetes that can lead to long-term complications.

These complications include cardiovascular disease, peripheral vascular disease, eye disease, neuropathy, erectile dysfunction and kidney disease. In the top list of fatal long-term dangers of diabetes is the heart and blood vessel damage. It is very dangerous when diabetes comes to this point. When one is pregnant, dangers of bitter complications may also occur.

Cardiovascular Disease

Diabetes can cause cholesterol levels to increase, leading to cardiovascular (heart and vessel) disease. Fatty deposits can block the narrow opening in the blood vessels throughout the body, this increasing the chances of clogging up leading the heart to pump harder to push through the blood circulation and so thus causing the increase of blood pressure.

The heart may be deprived of oxygen and result to angina (heart pain) due to blocked coronary arteries that supply the heart. It’s a very deadly long-term danger of diabetes. Clots may also develop in the narrow vessels to the heart, brain and lungs that could cause a heart attack, stroke and pulmonary embolism, respectively.

Peripheral Vascular Disease

Peripheral blood circulation to the lower legs and feet becomes gradually impaired as the blood vessels narrow in the legs. Tissues can be damaged easily and heal slowly when the blood won’t be able to supply enough oxygen to nourish the tissues. Deficient blood circulation can caused pain in the legs in activities such as walking and running. When open wounds develop, these can become infected and may head to amputation of the foot, toes and sometimes the leg itself.

Eye Disorder

One of the long-term dangers of diabetes is blindness. Retinopathy is the most common disorder in the eye that diabetes can cause. It is characterized as a progressive damage to the small blood vessels in the retina which may lead to vision problems such as glaucoma, cataracts and impaired vision. It occurs when the vessels in the eye are not able to supply enough nourishment to the retina. To compensate, new vessels develop on the retina but these can interfere with vision. Diabetes may also damage the optic nerve and prevent the pupil from reacting properly to light and thus interfere with vision. The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation reports that people with Type 1 diabetes for more than 20 years will show some signs of retinopathy and that is already alarming. Long-term dangers of diabetes which target the eyes in 20 to 30 percent of Type 1 diabetics occurs when the patients develop an advanced form called proliferative retinopathy, which can cause blindness.

Neuropathy

According to the NDIC, up to 70 percent of people with diabetes develop some degree of neuropathy (nerve damage) due to excess glucose levels. Neuropathy may range from slight numbness or tingling in the hands or feet to severe lack of sensation and pain and weakness. Neuropathy can affect the autonomic nervous system, resulting in impaired digestion with nausea, vomiting, constipation and/or diarrhea. It can impair urination so that the bladder fails to empty completely or the person doesn't feel the urge to urinate.

Erectile Dysfunction

One very common long-term danger of diabetes is erectile Dysfunction is primarily caused by diabetes where it blocks the nerve impulses going to the muscles of the corpus cavernosa in the penis, telling it to relax so that the spongy tissue can be filled with blood in order for erection to occur.

Kidney Disease

The kidneys are the filtering system for the body and the filtering part of the kidney is called the glomeruli. The glomeruli can be damaged by high blood pressure and high glucose levels that result from diabetes. And when the glomeruli is damaged, it can’t filter the blood properly. This would results to leakage of proteins into the urine and build up of waste in the blood. In the long run, the long-term danger of diabetes targets the kidney. The latter may completely not function as it accumulates more damage. At that point, one may need dialysis to remove waste from the blood.

Periodontal Disease

As fatty deposits narrow blood vessels to the gums, it will fail to provide oxygen and nourishment; this can lead to periodontal disease and tooth loss.

Complications During Pregnancy

When a mother is diabetic during pregnancy, both the mother and her child is at risk since the baby and the mother’s needs for insulin will increase. Unsupervised diabetes may lead to high chances of high blood pressure (preeclampsia), miscarriage, stillbirth and birth defects. It is recommended that pregnant women should avoid the long-term dangers of diabetes especially during pregnancy by seeking counsel from an obstetrician, a pediatrician or a neonatologist, a registered dietitian and a diabetes educator that are all experienced in caring pregnant women with diabetes.

It is said the prevention is better than cure. Therefore it is advisable to have at least annual medical check-ups to supervise one’s condition and eat a healthy diet to prevent and control one’s diabetes. Controlled diabetes is important to lessen risks of long-term diabetes complications.