Diabetes Treatment Tips

Once diagnosed clinically, diabetes has to be treated by interventions devised by healthcare team and doctors. On general, there are three methods available for the Treatment of diabetes; these being the diet alone, diet and oral hypoglycemic drugs, diet and insulin. Diet is the mainstay of Diabetes Treatment as about 60% of patients can be treated and managed effectively by dietary modifications. However, the diet should be balanced that is, it should contain adequate amount of fats, proteins and carbohydrates to maintain the health status and alleviate the diabetic signs and symptoms.

In order to prepare diet regimen, total daily requirement of calories must be taken into account that further depends on the age, sex, weight, activity, occupation and financial resources. However, diabetics who are obese should be treated with a strict low caloric diet. An approximate calorie requirement of obese middle aged or elderly diabetic patient with mild diabetes is 1000-1600 kcal/day. And for young active diabetic the average calorie requirement ranges between 1800-3000 kcal/day. After estimating the calorie requirements, evaluation of proportion of calories derived from carbohydrates, proteins and fats must be done to formulate the daily diet chart. On average, daily intake of protein should be 60-110 grams and for carbohydrates it should be 100-300 grams avoiding readily absorbable carbs such as glucose and sucrose.

Moreover, dietary fibers should also be increased as these help to reduce levels of bad cholesterol (LDL), increase satiety and are beneficial for weight control. After diet, oral hypoglycemic agents are the next line of Diabetes Treatment in diabetics. Patients who cannot treat alone with diet are started with drugs. Sulphonylureas and Biguanides are the traditional drugs which are the mainstay of Diabetes  Treatment. These drugs function by improving early phase of insulin release that is refractory to insulin actions, reducing peripheral resistance to insulin, alleviating hepatic release of glucose and by decreasing glucose absorption from gut. However, there are certain limitations to the use of these drugs as sulphonylureas are contraindicated in obese and biguanides are not given in thin patients while both of these drugs are strictly contraindicated during pregnancy. Therefore, strict professional supervision is mandatory before devising drug regimen.

The third line of Diabetes Treatment involves insulin shots. Insulin is indicated in all patients with type 1 and in type 2 when hyperglycemia is not controlled with combination of diet and hypoglycemic agents. Insulin is available in different preparations and prescribed according to the requirement of the patient. Depending on the duration of action, there are ultra-short acting insulin, short-acting or regular insulin, intermediate acting and long acting insulin preparations. Doctors advise the kind of preparation required to be administered to the patient daily. Patients are educated to administer their daily shots themselves. Prefilled insulin syringes are now made available that eliminate the need for carrying an insulin bottle and syringes, however expensive. Nevertheless, proper technique and careful maneuver with conventional insulin syringe method is equally effective and not difficult to learn.

Summarizing the note; guidelines to therapy for diabetes involves diet, medicines and insulin. Selection of appropriate intervention depends on the disease severity and must be formulated by appropriate healthcare team to have most desirable results of the Diabetes Treatment.