Having high blood sugar during your middle age or older is referred to as type 2 diabetes. It has no cure, but you can manage the problem to prevent complications. This lifelong disease prevents the body from using insulin properly. So, people developing type 2 diabetes suffer from insulin resistance. Earlier, people used to call this condition adult-onset diabetes. But, this type of diabetes can affect kids and teens. Usually, young people develop this condition as a result of childhood obesity. Getting treatment for type 2 diabetes early is necessary. Hence, you need to know the warning signs of type 2 diabetes to take proper action.
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Causes of Type 2 Diabetes
What causes high blood sugar levels? The pancreas releases insulin in our body. It is a hormone that helps the cells in the body turn glucose into energy. Glucose is a type of sugar present in our blood, but it’s level can increase in the blood when the pancreas fails to make sufficient insulin. Due to a lack of insulin, the cells in our body cannot convert the entire glucose into energy. A combination of factors can result in type 2 diabetes, such as:
- Your genes
- Having an excess body weight
- Suffering from metabolic syndrome
- Inactivity
- Excessive glucose from the liver
- Broken beta cells
Type 2 Diabetes Risk Factors
Not all people suffer from type 2 diabetes. Some people are more prone to suffer from the condition compared to others. The people who can see the early warning signs of type 2 diabetes can manage it effectively. Certain factors may more likely cause type 2 Diabetes:
- Have 45 years or more
- Have a close family member suffering from type 2 diabetes
- Belong to Native American, Asian American, African American, Latino, Hispanic, or Pacific Islander American ethnicity
- Have prediabetes condition
- Suffer from a blood vessel or heart disease
- Have blood pressure (even treated condition)
- Suffer from PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome)
- Have low good or HDL cholesterol
- You are overweight or obese
- Have high triglycerides levels
- Had a baby weighing more than nine pounds
- Suffered from gestational diabetes during pregnancy
- Have depression
- A sedentary lifestyle with little or no exercise
- Have the habit of smoking
- Feeling extreme stress
- Suffer from insomnia or have trouble falling asleep
If you have any of these factors, you need to pay close attention to your body for the signs indicating high blood sugar levels.
Warning Signs Indicating The Presence Of Type 2 Diabetes
When you see the symptoms linked to type 2 diabetes, make an appointment with the doctor. With early medical intervention, you can prevent any complications from developing and manage the problem well.
1. Frequent Urination
If you are making frequent trips to the bathroom that seems more than usual, you need to get your blood tested. Frequent urination is one of the beginning signs of type 2 diabetes. In normal cases, people may pass urine 4 to 7 times a day. With high blood sugar levels, kidneys try to filter out excess glucose levels in the blood via urine. It leads to frequent trips to the bathroom. This is one of the warning signs of type 2 diabetes in adults. It happens due to excess glucose that builds up in your blood.
2. Feeling Thirsty
When you pass urine frequently, your body tries to compensate for water loss. Excess glucose in the blood is excreted in the urine, and it also drags other tissue fluids from your body that makes you dehydrated. So, you feel a thirsty or dry mouth. But, the feeling of thirst continues even after you drink water or other fluids.
3. Feel Itchy
When you lose water in the form of urine, you can suffer from dehydration. It can cause dry skin that feels like itching. You should not avoid this issue as this is one of the warning signs of so many health issues. If you have high blood sugar or diabetes, you may have dry skin and itching problems.
4. Have An Increased Appetite
In the normal digestive process, the body converts food into glucose. In turn, the cells use glucose as fuel or energy to function correctly. With type 2 diabetes, your body fails to respond to insulin leading to trouble in drawing glucose from the blood into the cells in the body. It results in excessive hunger. People with type 2 diabetes feel hungry even after consuming a full meal.
5. Feel Drowsy/Tired
Working too hard or not sleeping well can make you tired. But, if you feel exhausted or tired for no reason at all, then it may point to high blood sugar levels. When you feel exhausted even after taking good rest, you need to make an appointment with the doctor to rule out diabetes as the potential cause. People who take medication for high blood sugar levels can also feel tired or drowsy. It is one of the type 2 diabetes low blood sugar symptoms requiring immediate attention.
6. Experience Blurred Vision
Not seeing everything clearly may not always indicate the need to change your prescription glasses. High levels of sugar can result in fluid leaking into the eye. It damages the small blood vessels or causes swelling in the eye lenses. It leads to having trouble focusing correctly.
7. Numbness/Pain In Legs And Feet
Unusually high blood sugar levels affect blood movement leading to nerve damage. Due to the nerve damage, you can experience pain, numbness, or tingling sensation in your hands or feet. Uncontrolled blood sugar or diabetes can lead to many other complications, so it is better to get your blood sugar tested.
8. Delayed Wound Healing
High blood sugar can affect your blood circulation. Hence, it harms your body’s wound-healing abilities. You can see cuts, sores, and scrapes taking a longer time to heal with high blood sugar. Diabetic people develop poor blood circulation that makes it hard to deliver nutrients and enough oxygen to wounds as blood moves slowly in your body due to poor or slow blood circulation, which can delay the healing.
9. Develop Dark Skin Patches
When insulin levels in your blood increase, you can see dark folds on your skin. These dark skin patches developed are known as Acanthosis Nigricans. It usually develops in the neck, groin, and armpits. It is one of the visible symptoms of diabetes type 2 in adults.
10. Experience Yeast Infections
It is the condition developing in both men and women due to high insulin levels in the blood. It is because candida or yeast thrives on sugar. With high sugar levels in the blood, people with type 2 diabetes offer candida an ideal environment to thrive. You should be very careful while you notice these signs.
When you see more than one symptom discussed here, make an appointment with the doctor. Your doctor can diagnose diabetes with a blood test. With early diagnosis and treatment, you can manage the insulin levels and prevent any complications arising from unmanaged blood sugar. Adapting to a healthy lifestyle always helps in the better management of type 2 diabetes.
