Healthy Recipes for :
..Alcoholic Intoxication
..Bad Breath
..Boils & Carbuncles
..Breast Inflammation
..Chicken Pox
..Common Cold
..Diabetes Mellitus
    What is it?
    Causes and Types
    Symptoms and

    Who's at Risk?
    Western Treatments
    Traditional Chinese

    Diet and Diabetes
    Blood Glucose Test

..Eye, Dark Circles
..Eye, Pink
..Fishbone in Throat
..Hair Loss
..Heart Attack
..Lactation Cessation
..Loss of Appetite
..Memory Poor
..Menstruation, Painful
..Menstruation, Delayed
..Pelvic Inflammatory
..Running Nose
..Skin Care
..Sore Throat
..White Hair

Glucose, a form of sugar carried in the bloodstream, is a vital source of energy. For the body to function efficiently, however, levels must be kept within narrow limits. Too much glucose in the blood indicates development of the ailment known as diabetes mellitus ("sugar diabetes"), a condition in which the body is unable to properly metabolize sugar. It is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism characterized by the impaired ability of the body to produce or respond to insulin and thereby maintain proper levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood.

Insulin is secreted when the level of blood glucose rises--as after a meal. When the level of blood glucose falls, secretion of insulin stops, and the liver releases glucose into the blood. Insulin is a hormone secreted by beta cells, which are located within clusters of cells in the pancreas called the islets of Langerhans. Insulin's role in the body is to trigger cells to take up the carbohydrate glucose so that the cells can use this energy-yielding sugar. Persons with diabetes are impaired in the ability to metabolize glucose, and as a result the levels of glucose in the blood increase (a condition called hyperglycaemia, or high blood sugar). As glucose accumulates in the blood, excess levels of this sugar are excreted in the urine. Because of greater amounts of glucose in the urine, more water is excreted with it, causing an increase in urinary volume and frequency of urination as well as thirst.

The name diabetes mellitus refers to these symptoms: diabetes, from the Greek diabainein, meaning 'to pass through,' describes the copious urination, and mellitus, from the Latin meaning 'sweetened with honey,' refers to sugar in the urine.

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