Getting Acquainted with Diabetes

Getting acquainted with anything or anyone usually means asking questions, seeking answers, and thinking about new ideas. When you get a new car, for example, you want to know how everything works. Sometimes you want to know why things work the way they do and what to do in case they don’t work correctly.

Because your health is such a personal matter, you will have even more questions when you are getting acquainted with a disease. And, if you have lived with a disease for a long time, continued learning about-or reacquainting yourself with-the disease is an ongoing process.

If you are getting acquainted or reacquainted with diabetes, you will want to know what diabetes is all about and how you can successfully incorporate treatment for the disease into your lifestyle. In this chapter you will learn about what diabetes is, whether symptoms are always noticeable, what may cause diabetes, how diabetes can be controlled and why it is important to control it, what diet and menu planning will mean for you, and what those with insulin-dependent diabetes and non-insulin dependent diabetes should know.

You may already know that there are two names for diabetes: Diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipid us. The term diabetes mellitus was derived from the Greek words meaning passing through and sweet as honey. Diabetes mellitus is a condition characterized by an excess of sugar in the blood and/or urine. Diabetes insipid us in characterized by an excess of fluid loss by the body. In this book the word diabetes is used throughout and refers to diabetes mellitus, the disease you may have heard people refer to as “too much sugar.”