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Diabetes Treatment

Diabetes treatmentThe main goal of diabetes treatment is to gain control over the levels of blood glucose, blood pressure, and lipids to keep them at a normal range. The main focus is the glycaemic control, which means the normal levels of blood glucose in people with diabetes mellitus. To be always aware of the blood sugar levels and to start taking measures in case of necessity to reach glycaemic control, diabetic patients are recommended to regularly conduct personal glucose monitoring, which has become very easy owing to a number of blood monitoring devices.

Type 1 Diabetes Treatment

As type 1 diabetes mellitus is characterized by permanent insulin deficiency, letting the body get more insulin is the only possible diabetes cure. The following kinds of treatment let patients with type 1 diabetes keep control over their glucose levels.

Insulin replacement therapy. As the body of type 2 diabetes patient produces no or almost no insulin, regular insulin injections are required to keep the blood glucose levels normal. Therapy includes regular subcutaneous injections of insulin. Most commonly used insulins are biosynthetic products. Insulin analogues are now becoming a more and more popular diabetes cure. Usually, insulin therapy is accompanied by a special diet and careful glucose levels monitoring. Absence of this treatment will lead to coma and then to death.

Pancreas transplantation lets the patient forget about lifetime insulin replacement therapy and have his/her own body produce enough insulin again. Nevertheless, this diabetes cure is a quite dangerous one and can be successful only under a number of conditions. Usually, it is performed at one time with or some time after the kidney transplantation. Still, this method is considered to be a good choice for patients with labile type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Islet cell transplantation is an experimental method of treating type 1 diabetes mellitus. It consists in replacing the damaged pancreatic ?-cells by healthy ones of by stem cells. This can be a good alternative to pancreas transplantation and become an effective diabetes cure in future. At the moment, it requires treatment by immunosuppresants to avoid the rejection of the transplanted cells. At the moment, the success rates of this experimental diabetes treatment are 58%.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment

As type 2 diabetes mellitus is non-insulin-dependent and is characterized by insulin resistance, treatment mostly focuses on changing the lifestyle sometimes along with medical therapy. The goal of type 2 diabetes cure is to not only keep the blood glucose levels at a normal range but to also manage the cardiovascular risk factors and thus improve the person’s life expectancy. Type 2 diabetes mellitus management includes the following points:

Changes in lifestyle, namely, physical exercises and healthy diet, help to not only keep the blood glucose levels normal but also to improve insulin resistance. For many people with moderate type 2 diabetes, these changes are a sufficient diabetes cure. Special diabetic diet (for more details, please read the “Diabetes Diet” Section) together with regular physical activity help lose weight, which has a positive effect on insulin resistance. There are different types of diabetic diet, and it’s hard to choose the best one. Low glycaemic index diet is considered to be among the most effective ones.

Quite often, special anti-diabetic medications are prescribed to help keep the blood sugar levels normal. They are also called oral hypoglycaemic agents, as they all are administered orally. There are several classes of medications used as type 2 diabetes cure, and they include sulfonylureas, thiazolidinediones, nonsulfonylurea secretagogues, and alpha glucosidase inhibitors. The generally recommended first-line treatment is Metformin therapy. It is often combined with other anti-diabetic drugs.

In case the prescribed drug therapy does not help to fully control the blood glucose levels, it may be complemented with insulin therapy. Most often, it is combined with Metformin treatment nightly. If good control over glucose levels still cannot be established, long-lasting insulins like insulin glargine and insulin detemir can be prescribed.

Gastric bypass surgery in diabetic patients is known to prevent insulin resistance for 99-100% and cause clinical resolution or remission for 80-90%. This surgery is of an elective type, which means that it is scheduled in advance, as it involves no urgency. One of the studies demonstrated that the minor group of those diabetic patients whose condition did not improve after the gastric bypass surgery were of older age and had been suffering from diabetes for more than 20 years. In such a way, gastric bypass surgery can be considered an extremely efficient diabetes cure.

Though there is no universal diabetes cure nowadays, the research continues.

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