Maintaining healthy blood sugar levels is one of the best things that you can do to protect your good health and your quality of life. Sadly, for many of us, a healthy blood sugar level is much more difficult to achieve than others, such as those who suffer from diabetes. Still, the effort that goes into managing the condition is worth it in the end.
When people think about diabetes, the first things that come to mind are insulin and sugar. Those who have type 1 diabetes and some who have type 2 diabetes have to take insulin because their bodies do not produce enough insulin to use the sugar that is in their blood. When the body does not maintain healthy blood sugar levels, as in they rise above a maximum safe threshold or fall too low, the body can potentially suffer damage.
The built up sugar in the blood may not seem like much, but it changes the consistency enough that it becomes much more difficult to pass through tiny, delicate blood vessels in the body, such as in the eyes, legs, and kidneys.
The eyes are filled with many tiny little blood vessels that are necessary for it to function properly. When there is a high level of sugar in the blood, those blood vessels can become damaged and rupture. Over time, eyesight worsens and worsens until the person becomes completely blind. This is known as diabetic retinopothy.
The eyes are not the only parts of the body that have tiny blood vessels that can be damaged by higher levels of blood sugar. Take the legs, for example. If you do not maintain healthy blood sugar levels, the body steadily loses its ability to circulate blood properly in the legs, both due to the higher viscosity of the blood and the damage done to blood vessels. This manifests as little more than discoloration and pain at first, but has the potential to eventually lead to amputation if the legs become too badly damaged.
Finally, we come to the kidneys. The job of the kidneys is to filter out all the toxins and impurities in your blood, which are then concentrated into the urine and flushed out of the body. The kidneys are absolutely filled with tiny little blood vessels whose job is to help filter and clean the blood. If you spend a significant amount of time exceeding healthy blood sugar levels, the kidneys sustain more and more damage until eventually they lose all ability to filter the blood. At this point, the person is forced to go onto dialysis in order to remove these toxins from the blood.
As you can see, maintaining a normal blood sugar level is well worth it if you have diabetes or are at risk of developing the condition. Only though maintaining healthy blood sugar levels will you be able to avoid the multitude of complications that diabetics suffer over time, from blindness, renal failure, amputation, and worse.
