The vast majority of people with diabetes only focus on their blood sugar levels. As long as their blood sugar is normal, they think everything is fine. But in the eyes of doctors, the focus is not just on blood sugar. A doctor's goal is for people with diabetes to live better and longer. To achieve this, patients must have a healthy weight and no significant complications.
Living a long and healthy life with diabetes is about more than just blood sugar
In the eyes of a diabetes specialist, to achieve the goal of a long and healthy life, people with diabetes need to focus on the following 5 aspects in addition to blood sugar:
1. Pay attention to weight, waist circumference, and hip circumference, and be aware of whether there is obesity or abdominal obesity.
2. Understand the status of complications, such as whether there are lesions in the heart, brain, eyes, kidneys, nerves, and blood vessels.
3. The status of various indicators such as blood pressure, blood lipids, and uric acid.
4. Whether their lifestyle is healthy, such as whether they smoke or drink alcohol.
5. Whether they are using medications like aspirin at the appropriate time.
If indicators related to diabetes complications are abnormal, seek early treatment to try to reverse or control their progression.
Focusing on weight and complications
Only by achieving a healthy weight and having no significant complications can people with diabetes hope to live better and longer.
No matter how well blood sugar is controlled, if a person is overweight, obesity-related diseases will follow. For example, tumor diseases, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, obesity-related kidney disease, sleep apnea syndrome (or snoring), etc.
Of course, being underweight or malnourished is also not advisable, as it can lead to increased risks of fractures and other harms.
Even with good blood sugar control, if complications are severe, a patient's quality of life is difficult to guarantee, and their survival time will be significantly shortened. For example, after developing diabetic uremia, a patient's blood sugar is often not very high, and they may even experience frequent hypoglycemia, yet their quality of life is greatly reduced, seriously affecting their survival time.
Therefore, for people with diabetes to achieve the goal of a long and healthy life, they cannot focus only on blood sugar; they also need to pay attention to their weight and the status of their complications.