By Janet Kim
Photo by Will Morgan/Corbis
As we grow older, it’s normal to feel sluggish or experience some hearing loss, right? Not quite. These “typical” signs of aging could actually be symptoms of type 2 diabetes. More than 8 million Americans are unaware that they have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association, and those 45 years or older are at highest risk. “A lot of people have prediabetes or diabetes for quite some time before it gets diagnosed,” said Melissa Joy Dobbins, MS, a registered dietitian and diabetes educator for the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE). Because diabetes is a condition that progresses very gradually, “you could feel perfectly fine and have diabetes,” she added.
Before writing off the following symptoms as aging-related, consider that they actually may be warning signs of type 2 diabetes.
Hearing Loss or Blurred Vision
When people find it more difficult to hear conversations clearly or their vision is more out of focus when they read, they simply may chalk it up to the downside of aging. However, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), people with diabetes are twice as likely to have hearing loss than people without the condition.
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Diabetes harms blood vessels and nerves, including those found in the ears and eyes. “When the blood sugar is higher than what’s normal, that damages your circulation,” Dobbins said. Eyesight becomes impaired because high blood sugar changes the shape of the lens, a structure in the eye that affects the ability to focus.
Low Energy and Irritability
Older people may lack the energy they used to have, which could cause some of them to become grouchy. But type 2 diabetes might explain the exhaustion and irritable mood. “Our body needs fuel in order to function,” said Dobbins. “The body prefers glucose, and so when we don’t have enough of that — it’s staying in our circulation and it’s not getting into the cells where it’s needed — then we are going to feel tired, hungry, sluggish, and low energy, because that fuel pathway isn’t working the way it’s supposed to.” So the calories from food are not being processed for use as energy or stored as fat in people with diabetes, she explained, and instead this glucose stays in the blood and is eventually excreted in the urine.
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Frequent Urination and Extreme Thirst
People may urinate more often as they grow older, and diabetes could be a cause. For people with diabetes, sugar in the blood is staying in the bloodstream and not getting into the body’s cells. “The only way to get [the sugar] out of the body is to flush it in the urine,” said Dobbins, “and that dehydrates you and makes you really thirsty.” People with diabetes often try to quench the extreme thirst by drinking orange juice, milk, soda, or something that has a lot of sugar in it, she added, and this causes a vicious cycle. Over time, this perpetual problem of overworking the kidneys can lead to damage of its very small veins and arteries.
Unexplained Weight Loss
Some people start shrinking as the years go by, and that weight loss might be attributable to aging. “But any sort of unexplained weight loss — if somebody is not trying to lose weight — really needs to be looked at,” noted Dobbins. People with uncontrolled diabetes lose weight because they’re not getting all of the fuel from the food they’re eating, but are losing these calories in their urine, she explained.
With aging, hands and feet might feel numb or tingle, skin may become dry and itchy, or wounds can take a long time to heal. According to Dobbins, these signs could actually point to circulation damage caused by long-term diabetes or uncontrolled diabetes. “Many of these symptoms occur because the blood vessels and nerves are damaged by the excessive amounts of glucose,” she said. This damage prevents nutrients, fluids, oils, and oxygen to get to where they need to go in the body, she explained.
Knowing Your Diabetes Risk is Important
Given that the symptoms of diabetes can be subtle, it’s essential to assess risk or get tested for diabetes at your health care provider’s office than to wait until an early sign is noticeable. “What we want [people] to do is look at the risk factors,” Dobbins advised. “Do you have a family history of diabetes? Are you overweight? Are you older? Do you have high blood pressure? Are you going to the doctor regularly? Are you getting the tests needed to [check] your cholesterol and fasting blood sugar?”
The key is being diagnosed as early as possible to start managing diabetes with lifestyle modifications and other strategies under the guidance of a health care provider. “It really does make a difference if you can catch it early, prevent it, or delay it, because all of the complications come from how uncontrolled you are and how long you have been uncontrolled,” she emphasized.
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