How Diabetes Affecting Senior Citizens

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes, also known by the term diabetes mellitus, can be best described as a type of metabolic disorder where a person is diagnosed with consistently high blood sugar levels (above 120 mg/dl). 

This generally happens either due to the lack of production of insulin (DM type I) or inability of the body cells to respond to insulin (DM type 2), resulting an abnormally high blood sugar levels. The disease is therefore categorized as under:

· Type I DM - diagnosed due to the lack of production of insulin in the body

· Type 2 DM – diagnosed due to the resistance of body cells to respond to insulin

What is insulin?

Insulin is a hormone secreted naturally in the pancreas by the islets of Langerhans. It enables the body cells to absorb glucose from the blood stream and releases energy. It also helps to maintain the normal blood sugar levels. 

How insulin affects blood sugar levels?

Insulin is secreted by the beta cells of the pancreas called islets of Langerhans. It plays an active role to regulate both carbohydrate and fat metabolism and thus helps to remove excess glucose from the blood. This further helps to maintain blood sugar levels to permissible limits.

· Insulin is regarded as one of the crucial metabolic regulatory hormones required to maintain low blood sugar levels by countering the concerted actions of some other vital hormones meant to produce hyperglycemia.    

· In case, if the patient’s body is unable to produce enough insulin naturally, then it would restrict glucose to get into the cells resulting an excess accumulation in the bloodstream prevailing hyper glycemic condition that may lead to diabetes.

Diabetes Affecting Senior Citizens

It's quite pivotal, especially for older adults and senior citizens to lead an active life after they are diagnosed with diabetes. As per the recent research conducted among these group of people,  it has been confirmed a better glucose level for them after they started taking part in regular fitness programs.

It's therefore quite beneficial to incorporate a healthy regime in your lifestyle which eventually helps you to not only maintain a healthy weight but also promote insulin function and strengthen the muscles of the heart and lungs. Doing this would make you more energetic as ever.