All About Diabetes (An 8-Part Series)

In this All About Diabetes series, we are going to focus on diabetes and cover many aspects of the disease: understanding how it works, about symptoms and how we can treat it.

Here are a few of the things that have got me concerned enough to dedicate ten days of writing to the cause.

382 million people throughout the world have diabetes.
Considering the world’s population, about 1 in 20 people have diabetes.
By 2035, it is expected that the number of people with diabetes will rise to 592 million.
On average, diabetes contributes to the cause of a death every six seconds (5.1 million in 2013).
An estimate of 175 million people with diabetes are undiagnosed.

Where did I get those statistics? Check out the source for yourself here.

The thing about diabetes is that it doesn’t have to be dangerous. With the right knowledge and management, people with diabetes can go on living their lives with minimal inconvenience. On the other hand, if it isn’t properly taken care of there are many nasty consequences that can occur (even losing a leg or your eyesight!) that we’ll go into more detail about later on in the series.

With such serious consequences and great options available for management, we should want to know if we have diabetes. That way, we can take some action.

It is with this in mind that this series will take it’s main direction. I want to give you the information you need to:

know if you have diabetes
understand how diabetes works
recognise different treatment options

Hopefully, we’ll be able to get through it with minimal confusion and a few helpful bits and pieces along the way. If you’ve got any particular questions, please let me know and I’ll do my best to cover it at some point.

Part 1 – Blood Sugar Control in the Body

Part 2 – What is Diabetes?

Part 3 – Why We Need to Treat Diabetes (Is high blood sugar that bad?)

Part 4 – Signs and Symptoms of Diabetes (A quick but thorough guide)

Part 5 – Insulin for Diabetes Management

Part 6 – Hypoglycaemia: Diabetes and a Delayed Christmas Dinner

Part 7 – The First Step in Managing Type 2 Diabetes

Part 8 – Type 2 Diabetes and Oral Medication