Diabetes Management

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Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic disease, and there is no such cure invented which can completely reverse its symptoms back to the normal level. The ultimate goal is to keep the blood sugar levels in the normal range, without causing any undue danger to the patient. Therefore, dietary management along with exercise and medications is the mainstay of treatment. Here, patient understanding, counseling and his/her participation is considered to be of utmost importance, because complications of diabetes stay away from those people who have maintained their blood sugar levels in a healthy manner.

Lifestyle modifications play a vital and imperative role in the management of diabetes. Here, the patient is required to stop smoking, avoid alcohol and the elevated cholesterol levels, blood pressure and obesity should be treated with regular exercising. The reason why lifestyle modifications play an important role in the management of diabetes is because, diabetics are at an increased risk of developing severe cardiovascular events, just because they have not taken good care of their lifestyles.

Dietary modifications, are a sub-component of lifestyle modifications, and serve as a very important part in the treatment of diabetes. Here, the dietary modifications should mainly focus on the decrease in consumption of foods with extra fat and sugar, and a considerate increase in components that are containing proteins (such as grilled, and boiled meat) and good carbohydrates (such as whole grains, cereals, and complex carbohydrates).

Coming to the medications, the goal of providing medications to the patients is also to decrease the chronic complication of diabetes, as well as avoiding the acute problems of hypo/hyperglycemia. The medications can either be oral anti-diabetic medications, or insulin, and there are many medications available in market currently for treating diabetes. Therefore, it is a rational approach to divide the medications into the following main pharmacological groups:

1. Insulin
2. Secratagogues
3. Sensitizers
4. Alpha-glycosidase inhibitors
5. Peptide Analogs

1. Insulin: This hormone is given conventionally via injections and nowadays via a pump. It allows the blood sugar to be absorbed and hence utilized.
2. Secratagogues: These are sulfonylurea and non-sulfonylurea. They are considered to be the first oral anti-diabetic medication and their mechanism of action involves the triggering of insulin release from the pancreas.
3. Sensitizers: Since the Type II diabetes is mainly because of the body showing a resistance to uptake insulin, sensitizers function in increasing the sensitivity of insulin to the body.
4. Alpha-glycosidase inhibitors: they are just required to slow down the digestion of insulin, from the small intestine, so that glucose enters the blood stream slowly.
5. Peptide analogs: They are the stimulators for the release of insulin.

Having briefly mentioned about the medications, it must be pointed out that it depends on the physical condition, tolerance, type of diabetes and the stage of diabetes, and which medication is considered to be an effective choice for the patient. To summarize, lifestyle modifications along with a good choice of anti-diabetic medication sums up the management of Diabetes Mellitus.