Did you know that someone is diagnosed with diabetes every two minutes and that 60% of adults in England and Wales have high cholesterol?
Both of these conditions are sometimes ignored or remain undiagnosed because people put symptoms down to other things and don’t get tested.
But if you have undiagnosed diabetes or high cholesterol it can lead to serious illness if you don’t get treatment.
Insulin, which comes from the pancreas controls the amount of sugar in your blood. It is insulin’s job to remove the glucose out of the blood and into your cells. Once the glucose is in your cells, it converts into energy.
If you have diabetes the glucose doesn’t get moved from the blood to enable it to convert into energy.
Type 2 diabetes is more common. This is when the body doesn’t produce enough insulin or the cells in your body don’t react to it. You can treat Type 2 diabetes with lifestyle changes or tablets.
Type 1 diabetes means that when the body produces insulin the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the insulin cells. The body then doesn’t get any insulin. You treat Type 1 diabetes with injections of insulin.
If you don’t have diabetes your target glucose level will read between 4.0 to 5.9 mmol/L before a meal and under 7.8 mmol/L at least 90 minutes after a meal.
If you have type 2 diabetes your target readings will be 4.0 to 7 mmol/L before eating and 5 to 9 mmol/L at least 90 minutes after eating
People with type 1 diabetes will have target readings of 4 to 7 mmol/L before eating and 5 to 9 mmol/L at least 90 minutes after a meal.
If you want to know about recommended target blood glucose levels have a look at the Diabetes.co.uk website
You can develop health problems such as vision loss or blindness. There’s a higher risk of having a stroke or developing heart disease. Some people suffer from nerve damage, kidney problems and foot ulcers.
Cholesterol is fat and you will get high cholesterol if there is too much of this fat in your blood.
There are no symptoms of high cholesterol and that’s why it’s often called the silent killer, Often you don’t know you have high cholesterol until you have symptoms of heart disease or you have a heart attack.
The problem is that not everyone has the same symptoms, and some people don’t have any at all.
Yes. There is what’s called ‘good’ cholesterol and ‘bad’ cholesterol. Good cholesterol is HDL and bad cholesterol is called LDL. Your results can come as good and bad cholesterol separately or as a total of your good and bad cholesterol combined.
As you can see a healthy level of total cholesterol is below 5.
You can lower your cholesterol levels with lifestyle changes. Try to maintain a healthy weight and introduce some daily exercise into your routine.
This means eating less fat and processed food and increasing your intake of fish, pulses, brown bread and pasta and fruits and vegetables. Try and fit in at least two to three hours of exercise per week. Good exercises are:
If your cholesterol isn’t coming down your doctor can prescribe cholesterol tablets called statins.
Previously you would have to go to your doctor’s or ask at your local pharmacy to be tested. But now you can buy a monitoring system with identifying strips.
The system is called the GlucoRx X6 Multi Parameter Meter and it retails at under £30.00. It means you can test yourself regularly from the comfort of your own home.
If you want to find out more about the measuring system or you want to buy it speak to us at the pharmacy and we’ll be happy to help you.
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