Quiet and discreet, diabetes is a disease that can long go unnoticed. Thus, five or ten years may elapse between the onset and diagnosis, which can be done on the occasion of a complication. Could you be diabetic without knowing it? How to improve detection?
During digestion, our foods are processed sugar, fuel cells essential to the body. Hormone produced by the pancreas, regulates the amount of sugar stored or "burned" into cells. Diabetes is thus linked to inadequate secretion or action of insulin.
Priority screening
Characterized by excessive standing blood sugar, diabetes results from genetic and environmental factors. But can you be diabetic without knowing it? Yes, as long as diabetes is insidious and painless. It is usually diagnosed only five to ten years after its start. According to experts, between 300,000 and 800,000 people suffer from diabetes without knowing it in France.
In this population, there are overweight more easily in more than half the cases, a genetic susceptibility (the existence of a father or a mother with diabetes increased the risk of disease by two), physical inactivity, hypertension and stress. Some American experts from the American Diabetes Association recommend screening as well in these subjects at risk:
Individuals over 45 years;
Earlier in patients who:
are obese;
Have a diabetic first-degree relative;
are members of a particular risk ethnicity (African American, Hispanic, Indian, Asian ...)
Have given birth to a baby weighing over 4 kg or was diagnosed with gestational diabetes are hypertensive
;
Have a cholesterol over 35 mg / dl or triglycerides over 250 mg / dl;
exhibit impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose.
Screening can be done through a simple blood test or a small finger prick (blood glucose capillary). Glucose greater than 1.26 g / l (measured twice) is synonymous with diabetes. Some signs can alert the doctor: constant fatigue, dry mouth, recurrent infections and lasting, thirst and urination important ...
