Archive for February, 2007
Understanding Diabetes and How It Works
To understand diabetes you must know how the body works. Knowing what changes your body goes through, will help you better understand why complications happen. Our bodies break down the food we eat during digestion. Food is broken down to three groups, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Meat, fish, eggs, and other dairy products give us the protein we need. Fats are found in vegetable oils, meat, cheese, and some dairy products. Carbohydrates find their way into our bodies through starches and sugars. Bread, pasta, fruits, and vegetables all have starches and sugars.
Our carbohydrates then break down into blood sugar, this glucose gives us the energy that we need in our body. The energy we need to take a brisk walk, run after a child, or take an aerobics class, all comes from carbohydrates. Blood sugar needs the help of insulin to absorb the glucose. The pancreas puts out insulin and other enzymes important for digesting food. The pancreas is found near the stomach. The pancreas also may stop working because of alcohol abuse, disease, or if removed by surgery.
A diabetic’s body may produce little or no insulin, or the cells become insulin resistant. Glucose will back up into the body if cells don’t absorb blood sugar. The body will then get rid of the excess through frequent urination. That is one of the first symptoms of diabetes. Untreated diabetes causes severe complications, and many who are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes already suffer from some form of complication.
When our body can’t regulate the glucose in our blood, diabetes is the result. The pancreas produces insulin and insulin allows the glucose to flow into the liver, muscles, and fat cells where it’s used for fuel. When someone suffers from diabetes, the glucose in the blood can’t move to the cells and even harms some organs and tissues because of the high levels of glucose in the bloodstream.
When the body doesn’t produce insulin, or doesn’t produce enough to regulate blood glucose levels, Type 1 diabetes is the result. About ten percent of diabetics in the United States have Type 1 diabetes. Also known as juvenile onset diabetes it usually is diagnosed during childhood or early adolescence. It can occur in adults if the pancreas has been destroyed or removed. Diabetics who are Type 1 need daily insulin to stay alive.
About 90 percent of diabetics have Type 2 diabetes. The body resists the insulin the pancreas produces in these diabetics, and usually is discovered in adults after the age of 45. It’s possible for younger patients to have Type 2 diabetes, and some patients diagnosed will need to use insulin daily. Weigh loss, exercise, change of diet and oral medications are used to control Type 2 diabetes.
The statistics of Americans who have diabetes is staggering. About one third of these people do not even know they have diabetes. Damage to the body may occur before the disease is diagnosed. If you have a family history of diabetes, be aware of the symptoms. If you show signs of diabetes, increased urination, increased thirst, and a sudden weight gain or loss, you should contact your family doctor.
Allergy Shots Will They Help Get Rid of Eczema?
In children allergies are the most common reason for chronic nasal congestion. An estimated one third of all American citizens suffer from one form of allergy or another. Some people turn to allergy shots as an option for effectively managing their eczema flare-ups. A general practitioner will often refer a patient with eczema to an allergist. An allergist is a doctor who is trained to help pinpoint the source of a patient’s allergy and then help the person to treat the symptoms, thereby reducing how often flare-ups occur.
Allergy shots are “a form of allergy and asthma treatment in which increasing, controlled doses of an allergen are injected into a patient over a period of time.” The goal behind the use of allergy shots is to increase a patient’s ability to tolerate a particular allergen while at the same time, decreasing the symptoms that come about as a result of an allergic reaction.
Allergy shots (also known as allergen immunotherapy) can be compared to a vaccination. They serve to increase the ability of the immune system to do its job properly and therefore the stronger it is, the easier it will be to block an allergic reaction taking place. An allergic reaction takes place when “the body mistakes a common, harmless substance for an ‘invader’. When the body is exposed to this ‘invader’, it carries out a series of chemical reactions to protect itself.” As long as the person administering them is trained and knows exactly what they are doing, allergy shots can be both effective as well as safe and can often be successfully used on young children of four or five years of age.
Some people believe in their effectiveness to control eczema while other people are less than impressed with the results. Research into allergy shots for eczema has shown that in some cases they can cause the symptoms to get worse. However allergy shots have been found to be very beneficial in treating other problems such as the symptoms associated with hay fever (also called allergic rhinitis), which are a runny nose, sneezing and watery eyes; breathing problems in regards to asthma and symptoms that accompany an insect sting allergy.
Allergy shots contain a form of the suspected allergen that is purified. Generally the shots are given to a sufferer year round and over a five-year span of time. The dosage of the allergy shot begins small and then gradually over the first four to six months is increased, little by little. After that period of time the dosage levels off to what is called a “maintenance dose.” This leveled off amount is then administered to the patient for up to a period of three years.
It is important to go for your allergy shots once or twice a week in the beginning of the treatment. The dose is started slower and then gradually increased to allow the immune system to get used to it as well as allow it time to begin to build an immunity to the invading substance. This is generally referred to as the buildup phase. Once this is reached, the maintenance dose (as mentioned above) goes into play and then the frequency of having to get allergy shots begins to drop. It goes from a weekly shot, to bi-weekly, and then in many cases to monthly.
Allergy shots have been found to work better for some allergens than others. For example, they work best with inhaled allergens such as pet fur, dust, pollens, mold and pollens. That may explain why hay fever and asthma are two conditions that respond better to allergy shots than eczema.