* Eat a varied healthy diet. Avoid foods that are high in fat, cholesterol, salt and added sugars.
* Maintain a healthy weight. If you’re overweight, your doctor may advise you how to lose weight without it being dangerous to your health.
* Control your blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
* Be physically active regularly.
* No smoking
* Visit your doctor regularly, even when you are well. Your doctor will test to see if early signs of complications.
* Call your doctor right away if you have any of the warning signs listed in this brochure.

Heart disease is most treatable when caught early. It is important that you go see a doctor regularly. Your doctor can evaluate to see if you have early signs of heart disease.

The recommended cholesterol level for a person with diabetes is like for a person with heart disease. If your cholesterol level exceeds the recommended cholesterol level, your doctor can tell you about changes in lifestyle and medications that can help keep your cholesterol under control.

The risk of kidney disease increases if you have diabetes and high blood pressure, therefore, it is important to control both conditions.

The presence of protein in the urine is usually the first sign of kidney disease. This should be checked every year.

When damage occurs in blood vessels of your retina, they can leak fluid and cause swelling in the macula. The macula is the central part of the retina that gives a clear and sharp. The swelling and fluid can cause blurred vision, and make it hard to see you, if worse retinopathy can lead to blindness.

Laser surgery can often be used to treat or slow down retinopathy, especially if the problem is caught early. People with diabetes should have an eye exam every year.

Warning signs of eye problems
Call your doctor if you have:

* Blurred vision for more than 2 days
* Sudden loss of vision in one or both eyes
* See black or gray spots, cobwebs or threads that move when you move aimlessly eyes, these are known by the name “floaters.”
* If you see flashing lights that are not really there
* Pain or pressure in one or both eyes

For diabetics, it is therefore important to be careful with alcohol. Patients should consider, preferably in consultation with the doctor about the use of alcohol is acceptable.

Here are some facts about alcohol and diabetes:

- Large amounts of alcohol can reduce blood sugar.
- Beer and sweet wine contain a lot of carbohydrates and may increase glucose levels.
- Alcohol stimulates the appetite. This can lead to overeating and keep good diabetes control.
- Alcohol may interfere with the effects of drugs.
- Alcohol can raise blood pressure.
- Alcohol contains many calories and can lead to unwanted weight gain.

If you still choose to drink alcohol intake should be in periods where you have good control of the disease. You should also limit the total alcohol intake.

You may want to follow these recommendations:

- Use only alcohol to food
- Drink slowly
- Avoid alcoholic beverages with sugar
- Mix the liquor with water or other sugar / non-alcoholic beverages
- Drink no more than two units of alcohol a day

A device is the same as:

• a glass of wine
• a shooter glass with liquor
• one bottle of beer

What is it?

Diabetes is a chronic condition that occurs because the pancreas does not produce the insulin the body needs, or the manufacture of inferior quality. Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, is the main substance responsible for maintaining appropriate values of blood sugar. Allows glucose to be transported into cells so that they produce energy or store glucose so that their use is necessary. When it fails, causes an excessive increase in sugar in the blood (hyperglycaemia). In fact, the scientific name of the disease is diabetes mellitus, which means “honey”.

Causes

Diabetes affects 6% of the population. The chances of contracting it increases as a person grows older, so that over seventy suffers about 15% of people. It is essential to educate patients to manage their diabetes properly, it can lead to other diseases as or more important than diabetes itself cardiovascular diseases, neurological diseases, retinopathy (eye condition that can lead to blindness) and nephropathy (disease kidney). The time of onset of the disease and the causes and symptoms presented by patients, depending on the type of diabetes involved.

* Type 1 diabetes. The most frequent age that appear are childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. Usually occur abruptly and often without regard to family history. It is due to the progressive destruction of pancreas cells, which are those that produce insulin. This has to artificially administered from the beginning of the disease. His particular symptoms are increasing the need to drink and the amount of urine, fatigue and weight loss.
* Type 2 diabetes. It usually develops in older age and is about ten times more frequent than before. In general, given the fact that also suffer or have suffered other members of the family. It arises due to low insulin production, coupled with insufficient use of the substance by the cell. Depending on which of the two predominant defect, the patient is there to deal with diabetes pills or insulin (or a combination of both). There used to show any type of discomfort or specific symptom, so it may go unnoticed by the person concerned for a long time.
* Gestational diabetes. Diabetes is considered an occasional basis. You can control like the other types of diabetes. During pregnancy insulin increases for increasing energy reserves. Sometimes, this increase does not occur and may cause diabetes in pregnancy. Nor have symptoms and the detection is almost always performed after the analysis routine to all pregnant women undergo after 24 weeks of gestation.

Visual Problems

When the glucose level is high, it can develop an error of refraction, which causes blurred vision. This blurring of vision may become worse when the treatment causes a very rapid decrease in blood glucose. The glasses should not be adapted until the values of blood sugar has stabilized for 6 to 8 weeks. Diabetics also develop long-term vision problems as a result of impaired circulation in the retina.

At the root of the vision problems of diabetics are changes in the small arteries that carry blood to the retina (the retina of the eye is sensitive to light). About half of diabetics experiencing eye problems after suffering from the disease for more than 10 years. These problems are safe for those suffering from diabetes for 30 or 40 years.

Diabetic retinopathy is the most common, although cataracts and glaucoma are much more common in diabetics. How diabetic retinopathy often show a progression of the disease, it is important to make regular eye exams if you have diabetes. If diabetic retinopathy is the laser treatment can slow its progression.

Other Long-Term Complications

Many diabetics develop kidney disease due to deterioration of the small veins. You may also see diabetic neuropathy (impaired nerve fiber function), especially in the fingers and even hands. In these cases feels a stinging pain from heat. Over time the affected areas become less sensitive and vulnerable to injury and infection.

Ulcers and, secondarily, gangrene are a result of a neuropathy. When the gangrene is the result of arteriosclerosis frequently appears on the toes or on the site of a wound. Finally impotence is also a common complication in diabetics.

Hypertension, Arteriosclerosis and Diseases of The Coronary Arteries

In people with hypertension, the blood circulates through the veins of the body with abnormally high pressure. This can damage the veins, tissues and organs through which blood passes. Atherosclerosis is characterized by intimal thickening and lipid deposition and is a morphological variant that falls under the broad term of arteriosclerosis. Atherosclerosis causes fatty deposits that thicken the walls of arteries and as a result, they shrink and become less flexible in blood flow. The coronary artery disease worsen atherosclerosis in the veins that bring oxygen and nutrients required by the heart. Atherosclerosis is a disease of elastic arteries (eg aorta, carotid and iliac) and large and medium muscular arteries (eg coronary and popliteal arteries). The formation of atheroma, or fibrofatty plaque contributes to narrowing of the lumen and reduced blood flow in distal tissues.

It is more likely that any of these three complications occur in diabetics than in others. To approach the treatment and prevention of hypertension see hypertension, arteriosclerosis, see Arteriosclerosis; and coronary artery disease, see Coronary Disease.

Occasionally, people with diabetes experience cramps while walking or climbing stairs. These disappear when activity ceases. Before this symptom called “claudication” or to the observation of discoloration of the feet, or sores that do not close, the physician should be consulted immediately.

The cumulative increase in blood glucose and the amount of ketones in the urine makes this more acidic. Appears in the course of several hours with increased urination and thirst (more rapidly in children). We are weakness and numbness, including vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Sometimes you notice an odor on the breath or fresh fruit that can be confused with the smell of alcohol. Is acetone, a waste product that is expelled through the lungs. In a later stage breathing becomes deeper and faster and, if he loses consciousness, the call goes into diabetic coma.

These symptoms require urgent treatment because they can cause death (USA statistics suggest that in diabetic ketoacidosis death is 1 in 10). Ketoacidosis is more common in undiagnosed diabetics or people with poorly controlled diabetes. Anyway, all is at risk of diabetic ketoacidosis under certain circumstances such as shock, infections, bleeding, fluid loss in vomiting or diarrhea. In these situations it is very important for diabetic monitor your blood glucose and urine and the concentration of ketones in the urine.

Ketoacidosis is necessary for emergency treatment. This involves injecting insulin and intravenous injections of saline to replace lost body fluids. It is necessary monitoring of blood glucose levels and the state of the fluids to equilibrate. If treatment is rapid restoration of ketoacidosis is usually rapid and complete.

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