When talking about diabetes, people tend to over-simplify its description: a problem in regulating blood sugar because of the lack of insulin produced by our body or the resistance of our cells to insulin, preventing them to absorb sugar from blood. This understanding is not completely wrong, in fact it is the key to understanding diabetes. But how does high blood sugar levels really affect our body? What happens if we take it for granted and let it linger longer than it should?
Diabetes is a chronic disease which means that once you have diabetes, it’s there to stay. It requires constant monitoring and long-term treatment in addition to lifestyle changes, to prevent it from causing problems to the body. The slow, hidden, but significant damages it causes are preventable but because of diabetes’ mild symptoms, people tend to disregard it until it is too late.
High blood sugar levels, when left untreated, will cause complications that affect the entire body. These complications involve many organ systems, eventually leading to their failure and making life difficult for those who are sick. It causes a slow and agonizing death, taking away a patient’s life even before he stops breathing.
Here are the complications of diabetes that we should all be aware of.
