Diabetes Treatment

Diabetes is considered incurable. Encouragingly though, medical professionals have devised a number of effective diabetes treatments that emphasize managing or avoiding related problems. Several professionals can administer or offer advice on diabetes treatments: general practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, chiropodists, dieticians, physiotherapists, clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners.

Type 1 Diabetes Treatment Type 1 diabetes treatments are few, yet they prove effective in most cases. Medical professionals advise diabetes patients to make lifestyle modifications to control the effects of cardiovascular disease. These changes include exercising more, quitting smoking, adhering to a healthy diet and wearing diabetic socks. Additionally, doctors may prescribe medications that reduce blood pressure. Ultimately, medicals professionals will prescribe insulin as type 1 diabetes treatment.

Insulin must be injected under the subcutaneous fat directly under the skin; if insulin were ingested orally the body would digest it before it was able to take effect. Most diabetic patients administer insulin themselves via syringes; however, pens or pumps work as well. This diabetes treatment can be injected in a number of body areas with varying timelines of effectiveness: abdomen shots take effect the quickest; upper arm shots work a bit slower; and shots administered in the buttocks and thighs take the longest to start working. Injections should always be performed in the same body area, but not the same exact spot—hard lumps or unsightly fatty deposits may form around the injection site.

Insulin injections take four forms; doctors will determine which diabetes treatment is best for each individual patient.

Insulin Type Effective In Peaks In Lasts
Rapid-acting 5 minutes 1 hour 2-4 hours
Regular- or short-acting 2-4 hours 4-12 hours 12-18 hours
Intermediate-acting 2-4 hours 4-12 hours 12-18 hours
Long-acting 6-10 hours 20-24 hours

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 diabetes treatments involve all the same lifestyle modifications as type 1 diabetes: increase exercise, quit smoking, eat healthy and sport diabetic socks. Increasing exercise works as a diabetes treatment by decreasing insulin resistance and burning excess glucose in the blood stream. Additionally, exercise improves blood cholesterol levels and reduces overall stress. Diabetes patients (and everyone, for that matter) should engage in twenty minutes of physical activity three times a week. Healthy diets are effective diabetes treatments because they involve foods that are broken down more slowly, thus releasing glucose slower as well. Recommended diets for diabetes involve a reduced intake of simple sugars, saturated fat and refined carbohydrates, and an increased consumption of fiber and complex carbohydrates, such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

If lifestyle modifications do not help, oral medications are prescribed as a diabetes treatment. Oral diabetes treatments help to lower blood glucose levels in a number of ways. There are five classes of oral diabetes medications:

  1. Sulfonylureas – help the body make insulin; can be taken alone or with other medications; causes few side effects
  2. Biguanides – help the body use insulin more effectively; generally prescribed to overweight patients because it also helps to control weight; may cause diarrhea or nausea
  3. Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors – slow down the absorption of sugar in the digestive tract; often combined with sulfonylureas; can cause stomach and/or bowel problems
  4. Meglitinides – control blood sugar after meals; taken with food; causes few side effects
  5. Thiazolidinediones – make cells more sensitive to insulin; few side effects

If these oral diabetes treatments do not work, an individual with type 2 diabetes must inject insulin like type 1 diabetes patients.

As a last-ditch resort, diabetes patients may receive transplants. Doctors are weary of performing this extreme measure due to common and detrimental side effects, as well as the body’s tendency to reject foreign organs. Three types of transplants may be performed as a diabetes treatment: kidney, pancreas or islet cells. Generally these organs and cells are procured from a deceased or brain-damaged organ donor; this has caused problems in the past due to severely damaged cells. In 2005, Japanese doctors successfully transplanted insulin-producing islet cells from a living mother in the pancreas of her diabetic daughter. This was the first transplant of its kind involving a living donor; the success of the transplant proved extremely encouraging for diabetic patients worldwide.

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