Vitamin D For Dummies by Alan L. Rubin MD

Author:Alan L. Rubin, MD [Rubin,, Alan L. MD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2011-05-03T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Avoiding Diabetes and Related Conditions

In This Chapter

Linking vitamin D and diabetes

Preventing and treating diabetes with enough vitamin D

Finding a role in metabolic syndrome and polycystic ovary syndrome

Diabetes, especially the form called type 2 diabetes, is spreading throughout the United States and the world at an epidemic pace. By 2010, 26 million Americans were affected. By 2007, 17.4 million American were affected. The percent of the population with diabetes rose from 2.5 to 8.6. Most of this increase can be attributed to increasing rates of obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, but deficiency of vitamin D may be playing a role, too.

In this chapter, I explain what diabetes is and how vitamin D may contribute to its prevention and treatment. I also take a look at how vitamin D relates to conditions that are related to diabetes: metabolic syndrome and polycystic ovarian syndrome.

The Basics of Diabetes

Diabetes is a condition in which the body fails to regulate blood sugar (glucose) levels. It comes in two major forms: type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus. In type 1 diabetes, the body is unable to make insulin. In type 2 diabetes, the body doesn’t respond to insulin as well as normal and tries to make more to compensate. Insulin is a hormone that regulates the blood sugar levels and helps the body use sugar and other carbohydrates for energy.

The two forms of diabetes are actually very different diseases, based on the way they occur, their likelihood of being passed down in a family, their treatments, and the severity of their complications. They’re so different that some people, especially people with type 1 diabetes, have advocated assigning a different name to the disease, so far to no avail.

In the following sections, I tell you what the two types of diabetes have in common and then explain each type in more detail. For a much more in-depth discussion, see my books Diabetes For Dummies and Type 1 Diabetes For Dummies (Wiley).

Identifying the symptoms of diabetes

Type 1 and type 2 diabetes share several common signs and symptoms when the blood sugar is far out of control:

Fatigue

Frequent urination

Increase in hunger

Increase in thirst

Unless these symptoms are severe, nothing special calls attention to them — you might attribute frequent thirst to living in a warm climate, for example. Both kinds of diabetes thus are often missed until they reach a fairly severe level. For most people diabetes is silent until the blood sugar levels are very high, but in the meantime those high levels are causing damage to the heart, eyes, kidneys, and other organs.

Making a diagnosis

A diabetes diagnosis is based on the level of the sugar glucose in your blood. Many types of sugar exist in the body, but the main one your body uses for energy is glucose. The diagnosis involves the following measures:

A casual blood glucose of 200 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) (11.1 mmol/L) or more at any time of day or night. This type of reading is taken from blood collected at any time of the day with no regard for when you last had a meal.

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