There’s a question that few of us dare to speak out with a loud voice, especially in front of a doctor: “Why should I worry about diabetes?” Apparently it’s a good question. Type 2 Diabetes progresses very slowly, it is symptom-less, does not cause pain, and does not seem to trigger disturbances.
By contrast, ‘curing’ diabetes requires much effort. One has to think about everything he/she does, fit certain attentions and routines in one’s day, change one’s habits, renouncing to those which seem to be the greatest advantages of modern times: the abundance of food and the proscription of fatigue (automobiles, elevators); often, one has to also take pills every day multiple times. In short, the balance between costs and benefits doesn’t seem to be very convenient.
The answer is simple. Diabetes is a subtle condition. Like a tumor in its initial stage, diabetes erodes the arteries from the inside, makes them ill, consumes them, and facilitates their thickening and their obstruction. It is a slow process, but not that slow after all. Often, in the few years that lapse between the true onset of diabetes and the moment in which it is diagnosed, that clever enemy that is diabetes has already ruined the smaller arteries of the heart (the coronaries) in a manner sufficient to lay the foundations for a heart-attack, or has obstructed those which bring blood to the brain, enough to lead to intellectual deficiencies or to a cerebral ischemia (a stroke), an ictus to use the medical definition.
In a word, if unrecognized and untreated, diabetes is a risk factor. It multiplies the risk of developing serious or highly serious conditions that can lead to death or to a grave handicap, or at any rate, destroy the quality of one’s own life and one’s family members.
Simply put, one intervenes on diabetes to cure the heart and brain; to stay active and healthy as long as possible. That’s why we need to worry about diabetes!