Mankind has known Diabetes Mellitus for ages. The word “Diabetes” is derived from the Greek language and means “to pass through, to flow through”, and “Mellitus” means “sweet”.

Thus Diabetes Mellitus is merely a description of what is happening in your body: a fluid containing sugar passes through your body.

Today the incidence of diabetes is on the rise. Urban populations, with their new lifestyles are becoming more and more susceptible to diabetes, hypertension, and heart diseases. This has been shown in many studies published all over the world.

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic abnormality which remains with you for life. It can be well controlled but never cured. But remember that good control of diabetes is almost as good as saying you are normal.

Education is the corner stone of diabetic therapy and vital to the integration of the diabetics into society.

Unfortunately, most diabetics know very little about their disease. Blissful unawareness of complications lulls the patients into complacence leading to poorer control of diabetes.

Today all health care professionals agree on the importance of education in the management of diabetes.

Most people have very wrong ideas about diabetes and consider it a very restrictive condition – probably right so, since generally the advice given is never positive, most advices are only don’t-s do-s’.

Don’t eat this and that
Don’t do this or that
Don’t take sweets etc.

The facts of the matter are totally different. There are very few don’ts to be followed and the diabetic can be as free as normal people in most circumstances.

Adequate knowledge of the disease and an understanding of how to apply this knowledge to daily life can instill greater confidence in the diabetic to lead a better, fuller, and happier life.

The best news is that our new knowledge is making possible the avoidance of many complications.

Until recently, the threat of impaired vision, kidney failure, and nerve damage hung like a dark cloud over the lives of diabetics. Today the cloud is less darker because maintaining near normal blood sugar levels not only helps people fee well, but also offers hope that long term complications can be avoided or minimized and better treated.

Diabetes is metabolic abnormality in which your body is unable to utilize the glucose for its energy requirements. The food that we eat gets digested in the stomach and intestines and is then absorbed into the blood. Digestion of carbohydrates yields glucose, digestion of proteins yields aminoacids and digestion of fats yields fatty acids. These simple substances after absorption from the intestines are carried in the blood to be supplied to all the cells in our body for their day-to-day requirements. For the cells to be able to use these substances, it is essential to have a hormone called insulin in the blood.