PajMon Information Blog

Posts Tagged ‘medical conditions’

If you have recently heard that you have pre-diabetes, or if you have a strong family history of diabetes or other risk factors, you may be wondering if it is possible to avoid developing Type 2 diabetes, or if it is possible that you can delay the onset of the disease.

If you currently have pre-diabetes there is a significant likelihood that you will develop Type 2 diabetes within the next ten years. It is important to understand the risk factors associated with Type 2 diabetes. You should discuss these with your doctor. If you have a family history of diabetes you are far more likely to develop the disease, especially if someone in your immediate family has diabetes. Ethnicity also is a risk factor. You are more likely to be diabetic if you are African American, Asian, Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander, or Native Alaskan. If you live a sedentary lifestyle and are overweight you are at a greater risk as well. Usually Type 2 diabetes strikes people aged 40 or over, but there has been a surge in younger people developing the disease as there are many more children today who are obese and sedentary, two of the main contributing factors to developing the disease.

If you have any of the risk factors listed above you should ask your doctor to screen you for diabetes. He or she will run a fasting blood glucose test to determine if you have diabetes or pre-diabetes. Diabetes affects almost every system in the body. It can cause blindness. It can result in slow healing wounds which can lead to infection and possibly amputation of the legs. Diabetes contributes to heart disease and stroke. You can also suffer painful nerve damage. The longer you live with diabetes, the more likely you are to develop complications, so it is important to try and delay the onset of the disease as long as possible.

The easiest and most effective way to prevent diabetes is to lose weight and be more active. Sounds familiar? Generally, this is the advice given for many ailments. Many people groan inwardly when their doctors suggest these lifestyle changes, but since they help to prevent a multitude of health issues from cancer to heart disease, and they can help prevent or delay the onset of Type 2 diabetes, losing weight and beginning an exercise regime should be immediate goals. Generally, we dont want to give up our sedentary lifestyles and junk-food diets, but a diagnosis of pre-diabetes should be further incentive to make the change to a healthier lifestyle.

Changes in diet require changing your habits and changing the way you think about food. Snacks should shift from a bag of potato chips to an apple or an orange. Portion control is important too. Often we consume more than we think we do simply because of the way our food is packaged or presented to us; restaurant portions are almost always two or more meals. Cut out soda and other sweetened beverages. Decrease your consumption of carbohydrate heavy foods such as potatoes. Switch from white bread to whole grain breads. Reduce the amount of meat youre eating and increase your fruits and vegetables. Over time you will get used to eating like this and wont crave the things you have given up. Eating healthier has its own rewards.

It is also very important to begin an exercise regime. Exercise will help you to lose weight but also offers a whole host of other benefits, such as increasing your good cholesterol and improving your heart function. Ideally, you should aim for one hour of physical activity 6 days/week, but if you cant do that, 30 minutes is an acceptable goal. If youve been a couch potato for the last few years, you can even start small with three 10-minute workouts a day. The easiest way to get moving is to start a walking regiment. Buy yourself a pedometer, you can find them for as little as $2, and aim for 10,000 steps a day. Dont forget to discuss your planned exercise routine with your doctor before you begin one.

Changing your eating habits and exercising regularly will help you to lose weight and keep it off. That in turn will help you to either avoid or at least delay the onset of Type 2 diabetes.

Most of the 20 million Americans with gallstones never know they have them. Even if a doctor discovers the stones, if the stones don’t cause any pain no treatment is needed. Gallstone treatment usually results in the surgical removal of the stones. The body quickly adapts to the loss of the gallbladder and digestion occurs as usual.

Two main types of gallstones, cholesterol and pigmented, can be found in the body. People tend to have one or the other type of gallstone, they usually do not have both types present. Studies have shown that the country in which the patient resides can contribute to the type of gallstone in the body. People from the U.S., Australia, England, Germany, South Africa, and Sweden tend to develop cholesterol stones whereas people from less industrialized countries more often develop pigmented gallstones.

Gallstones comes in all sizes, from a tiny grain of sand up to just under 2 inches in diameter, or the size of a standard golf ball. The number of gallstones found in each patient differs as well. People can have one large gallstone or several small ones. Large gallstones tend to remain in one place whereas smaller gallstones have been known to move around.

Cholesterol stones are the most prevalent among people from more developed or industrialized countries. Cholesterol stones form because the bile contains too much cholesterol, too much bilirubin (a brownish substance created when liver breaks down old red blood cells), or not enough bile salts, which are detergent-like chemicals that are stored in the gallbladder. Small cholesterol stones can get lodged in the ducts leading into the pancreas and cause pancreatic inflammation (pancreatitis).

The least prevalent type of gallstones found in Americans are pigment stones. These stones tend to be brown or black and are made up of calcium and bilirubin. Pigment stones can develop when too much bilirubin is produced. People with cirrhosis of the liver or hereditary blood diseases are at higher risks for developing pigment stones because their bodies tend to shed itself of red blood cells too quickly, which in turn leads to an large buildup of bilirubin.

Both cholesterol and pigment stones can become hardened (calcified) over time. Approximately 20% of all gallstones contain enough calcium to make them visible on regular x-rays. Because calcified stones are hardened efforts to dissolve them may not be successful.

In some instances the presence of biliary sludge indicates a predisposition to developing gallstones. Biliary sludge is a thick protein-filled substance found in the gallbladder. It can itself sometimes cause abdominal pain when the sludge blocks the ducts going into the intestine. Biliary sludge can also cause inflammation of the pancreas or gallbladder.

Gallstones can sometimes be treated by having the stones themselves removed (endoscopic surgery) or by being dissolved. The symptoms of gallstones can sometimes be minimized by an adjustment in one’s diet. However, the most common and permanent procedure for removing gallstones is gallbladder removal surgery. As recently as ten years ago this required the surgeon to make a 5″-8″ incision in the abdominal area through which the gallbladder was removed. Presently, most gallbladders are removed laparoscopically, which just requires 4 small incisions through which tiny instruments (a small scope with a camera, a small scope with a cutting tool) are placed. This type of surgery greatly reduces the patient’s hospital stay – many patients return home a few hours after the surgery. Recovery time is also reduced. Approximately 500,000 Americans have their gallbladders removed each year making this surgical procedure one of the most common in the U.S.