Can People with Diabetes Prevent the Complications of this Disease?
Diabetes is a serious disease that can affect the heart, circulation, eyes, feet, kidneys, nervous system, teeth, and gums. Diabetes affects so many organs and systems, because blood travels throughout the whole body. When blood glucose becomes too high, it can damage the blood vessels of the body and lead to cardiovascular disease (heart), retinopathy (eyes), amputations (legs and feet), kidney disease, neuropathy (nervous system), and impotence (sexual function).
With the exception of the heart, high blood glucose damages these other organs because small blood vessels keep the organs working. The high blood glucose can damage these tiny blood vessels. When these are damaged, the oxygen, nutrients, and cell communication doesn’t work normally. This leads to retinopathy (eyes), amputations (legs and feet), kidney disease, neuropathy (nervous system), and impotence (sexual function). The high blood glucose in the heart can increase fatty deposits and lead to cardiovascular disease.
The risk of these complications can be greatly reduced by keeping blood glucose levels within the target range. For this reason, it is important to check blood glucose levels every day, and share these values with a health care provider.
This site was last updated June, 2014.
This is a source of information only, and is not medical advice.