In this article, we are giong to be talking about the 3 ps of diabetes, it would interest one to know that diabetes is a serious and chronic disease that makes the blood sugar level to become high than normal. It causes other health conditions like stroke, heart disease, nerve damage, kidney issues, skin condition, hearing impairment, foot damage, Alzheimer’s disease and others.
This is how serious diabetes can be. In 2019, 1.5 million death occurred due to diabetes while another study showed that the estimated number of people living with diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes in the United States is 32.4 million.
WHAT IS DIABETES
Diabetes occur when the body cannot make enough insulin or effectively use the ones produced. It is the duty of the pancreas to make these hormones. Insulin helps your body to make use of and manage the sugar levels in the bloodstream, it does it by helping blood sugar get into the cells where it is used for energy.
If the pancreas does not produce insulin or make in lesser quantity, or if the body becomes resistant to insulin, sugar in the blood will not enter the cells but cluster in the bloodstream and this leads to high sugar level. There are types of diabetes and they all have different causes. There are:
Prediabetes: This occurs when your blood sugar level is higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Prediabetes can lead to type 1 diabetes if not properly managed. In fact, most people have prediabetes without knowing it.
Type 1 Diabetes: For those with this kind of diabetes, their pancreas cannot make insulin because the body attacks it with antibodies. This one can start even from childhood. The patient will have to be dependent on insulin injection. Type 1 diabetes is very serious and complicated because it can cause so many health conditions including diabetic retinopathy, diabetic neuropathy, and diabetic nephropathy. People with type 1 also have a higher risk of heart disease and stroke .
Type 2 Diabetes: For this type, your pancreas produces insulin but not enough or your body cannot effectively use the insulin produced. This is common in people who are overweight. Type 2 diabetes is milder than type 1 but can also lead to heart disease and stroke.
Gestational Diabetes: Gestational diabetes occur only in pregnant women. A pregnant woman’s body can form resistance against insulin. In some people, it goes away after childbirth while in others, it develops to type 2. There are so many symptoms a diabetic patient can experience but three ailments or symptoms are most common. They are called the 3 P’s of diabetes.
What are the 3 Ps OF DIABETES
The 3 Ps of diabetes are polydipsia , polyuria, and polyphagia. Let’s try to discuss them.
Polyuria
Have you noticed that people with diabetes urinate often?, In fact, they use the restroom almost every 30 minutes if not more. It is not because they love the restroom so much but it is a symptom associated with diabetes. Polyuria refers to the condition of urinating frequently than you should.Normally, people produce about 1 to 2 litres of urine from the body while people who have Polyuria can produce about 3 to 4 litres. Note that 1 litre of urine is about 4 cups of water.
The more urine produced is due to the the body’s inability to digest sugar and glucose becomes higher than it should, the body will look for ways to remove these excess glucose and one of the ways it does this is by making you pass out more urine.The excess glucose will also make your kidney to filter out excess liquid.
But, you should know that diabetes is not the only reason why a person will be urinating more than normal, other reasons can be :
- Kidney disease
- Pregnancy
- Certain medications
- Imbalance of fluids ( Diabetes Insipidus )
- Mental health issues, such as psychogenic polydipsia
- High calcium
Polydipsia
Polydipsia and polyuria work hand in hand. Polydipsia simply means excessive thirst. The mouth is always dry and you feel thirsty all the time and you end up taking in more fluids to the body.
This happens because the blood sugar level is on the high side or have increased. When it is high, you kidney is made to produce more urine than it should so as to remove the excess sugar ( Polyuria ).
When this is happening, your brain sends you signal to take in more water in a bid to replace the lost ones. You can also feel thirsty when you have :
- Dehydration
- Psychogenic polydipsia, a mental condition; and
- Osmotic diuresis, a condition where you urinate more than normal due to excess glucose entering the kidney tubules which cannot be reabsorbed, leading to increased water in the tubules.
Polyphagia
We feel more hungry if we have starved for a long time or going through some body developments like puberty or adolescent stage. But there is a condition that makes one feel an increase in appetite, this is known as polyphagia. Polyphagia is an increase in appetite or excessive hunger. The difference between polyphagia and other causes of increased appetite is that those with Polyphagia do not satisfy this feeling of hunger but they eat always.
Remember that people with diabetes have sugar in their body that cannot enter the cells, because of this, sugar cannot be converted to energy . This will leave them feeling hungry .
Apart from starving, developmental stage or polyphagia, there are others reasons for this increase in appetite.
- Medications
- Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
- An overactive thyroid
ARE THERE OTHER SYMPTOMS OF DIABETES
Apart from the 3 Ps, there are other symptoms you will experience like:
- Severe weight loss
- Fatigue
- Recurring infection and diseases
- Slow healing of wounds
- Blurry vision
There are also tests your doctor can carry out to be sure you have diabetes which are:
- A1C test: The estimate of a person’s blood glucose over the past 2 or 3 months is taken using a blood marker.
- Fasting blood sugar test: The patient is asked to avoid eating for a period of time to determine if the blood sugar is still high even after not taking in food.
- Glucose tolerance test: This requires you fast maybe overnight. A liquid with glucose is given to the patient to take, after 3 hours, the blood sugar level is checked.
- Random blood sugar test: The blood sugar level is checked without taking in glucose or avoiding food.
CONCLUSION
For someone who is diagnosed with diabetes, the only way is to manage it. Managing it includes knowing the kind of food to eat, foods that have a low glycemic index are taken.
If you experience Polydipsia, Polyuria and Polyphagia, it means that your blood sugar level is likely high and you should control it to avoid complications.