What makes Diabetes Mellitus bad for you? Part 2.
There are many ways that diabetes works against your body to help you live a longer, more functional life. I will try to summarize it for you easily here:
This is part 2 of a 3 part series explaining what diabetes is, why it is bad for you, and what to do about it.
Again using the same analogy as before, Imagine your body is like a town:
Glucose (cars): This is the energy source for your body, like cars moving around town.
Insulin (traffic cops): Insulin is like the traffic cops directing the cars (glucose) to where they need to go.
Cells (houses): The cells in your body are like houses that need energy (glucose) to function.
Traffic Jam in Town:
When there's too much glucose, it's like having too many cars on the road. The houses (cells) don't let them in, and you start feeling tired because your cells can't work properly.
Parking Troubles:
The extra glucose starts parking on the streets (arteries and veins), causing problems. This can slow down delivery trucks carrying important nutrients and make wounds heal slowly.
Restless Cars:
Glucose gets restless and damages things like blood vessels (increasing the risk of heart problems or stroke), nerves (causing tingling or pain), and your retina (making vision worse).
Kidney Gets Involved:
The kidneys see the mess and try to help direct the cars out of town by making you thirsty and urinate more frequently. But the kidney’s roads are not used to the large number of cars, and will start to get damaged leading to kidney failure over time.
Town Starts Construction:
The traffic cops also start to tell the town to build larger infrastructure to deal with the large increase in cars. This can lead to undesirable weight gain further worsening the problem.
