How Diabetes Affects Men
Julia Hanf
It is a common belief that the effects of diabetes are the same in all people suffering from the disease. While this can be true to some, it is still factual to say that the effects of diabetes vary from one person to another. There are also some other things that may change the effects of diabetes. These are gender, race, lifestyle, diet, family history and level of activity.
Based on the report published by Circulation in 2006, men are more prone to having diabetes. Moreover, men tend to be unaware of the diabetes symptoms and this increases the chance for complications to develop. Complications that developed because diabetes was not diagnosed and treated early may be the cause of modification of a certain lifestyle. Early stages of complications in males may be visual problems, kidney failures, damages in nerves, cardiovascular and heart-related problems, legs, feet and hand amputation and impotence.
One possible reason why males do not follow lifestyle modification is that they possess the manly or macho image. Unfortunately, these changes are necessary to control level of their blood sugar. Being unable to do this aggravates the risk factors for complications. For unknown reasons, men are still said to be two or three times more prone to have amputation. Moreover, they are also more likely to end up blind more rapidly than females.
Diet plays a very big role in staying healthy much more to those who were diagnosed with diabetes. This is the very first thing diabetic patients have to remember. However, this is also one part of lifestyle changes that males fail to follow. Men tend to stick to their usual diet such as foods that are very high in cholesterol and unsaturated fats, junk foods and others that are proven not to be healthy for the body. It is very rare that men will order vegetables and salads from the restaurant most especially when they are going out with group of males.
Another thing that has been a habit to men and one of the things that men tend to stick on is alcohol drinking. While alcohol may pose good effects in the body, this is only true if alcohol is moderately taken. However, to those who are suffering from diabetes, their livers tend to be very sensitive to alcohol substances. When the liver detects the presence of alcohol in the body, it stops producing glucose and this may lead to the decrease and fall of blood sugar level. This event is fetal and may even be deadly. Because males cannot be easily stopped from drinking alcohol, The American Diabetes Association suggests that it is alright for diabetic males to drink alcohol as long as they do this after eating meals or snacks.
One of the hardest to stop is smoking. Although several lessons and information about how smoking harms the body and about how a person will benefit from quitting, men still do not care. People diagnosed with diabetes are said to be more prone to different types of heart and cardiovascular disease. In worse cases, these are often the cause of death of these people. Cigarettes contain substances that can make the blood pressure rise as well as the level of blood sugar. When this happens, it will be very difficult to control the diabetes from getting severe. Moreover, smoking may damage the blood vessels and continuous occurrence of this may lead to foot ulcers, foot and leg infections and atherosclerosis. People smoking are also very sensitive to infections that may cause colds and respiratory diseases.
Males fail to take the precious minutes necessary to monitor their blood sugar levels if they have faced the fact that they have diabetes. By failing to keep their blood sugar levels under control causes many highs and drops which is extremely unsafe.
Let us face a simple fact; men are stubborn and bull-headed! They do not want to appear weak, so they will not go to their physician when symptoms of diabetes arise. This ends up in them having diabetes for a longer period of time before treatments are initiated, which then results in complications such as blindness, heart attack, kidney disease, and amputation. All of which could have been easily avoided, if men had simply just went to their physician on a more regular basis, or opened up and discussed possible problems that they may be experiencing.
Julia Hanf author of the book How To Play the Diabetes Diet Game and Win Through a real life crisis Julia figured out how to live diabetes free. Visit http://www.yourdiabetescure.com and learn more about your solution for diabetes.
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