Features | Complications | Diagnosis | Diet
Diabetes mellitus in the elderly is a dangerous quiet enemy, which is often learned about when it’s too late … Today I want to raise an important topic for many, and in particular for me. After all, my family also had grief due to secrecy, diabetes mellitus.
Diabetes mellitus in the elderly — features
It is often written that in elderly patients the course of the disease is stable and benign (mild). And with this the biggest problems arise, because:
- The main symptom of diabetes in old people, being overweight, is present in almost 90% of elderly people.
- According to a sad tradition, older people are not very fond of going to doctors, and therefore, in the absence of obvious signs, diabetes can develop over the course of many years.
With all this secrecy of the disease in elderly people, complications from inaction and lack of treatment can cost lives. 90 percent is type 2 diabetes in older people. The first type is very rare and is associated with diseases of the pancreas.
Complications in older diabetics
Vascular and trophic complications. Atherosclerotic vascular lesions can both cause diabetes and be its complications. The main symptoms are blurred vision, heart pain, swelling of the face, pain in the legs, fungal diseases, and genitourinary infections.
Coronary atherosclerosis in diabetics is diagnosed 3 times more often in men and 4 times in women than in people without diabetes. Patients with diabetes are more likely to develop myocardial infarction. This is exactly what happened to my grandmother.
And the most dangerous thing is not even the heart attack itself, but the fact that in case of diabetes you should not drip glucose — the main medicine for maintaining the heart. Therefore, treatment and recovery are very difficult, and often diabetes becomes the cause of death.
Diabetes mellitus type 2 in the elderly is 70 times more common in women and 60 times in men, gangrene of the lower extremities is observed.
Another complication of diabetes is urinary tract infections (1/3 of patients).
Ophthalmic complications include diabetic retinopathy and senile cataracts, which develop much faster in diabetics than in healthy people.
Diagnosis of diabetes in old age
The diagnosis of diabetes in elderly and old patients is very difficult. Due to age-related changes in the kidneys, there is very often a hidden relationship between hyperglycemia and glycosuria (the absence of sugar in the urine with its high content in the blood).
Therefore, regular blood sugar tests are desirable in all people over 55 years of age, especially those with hypertension and other diseases from the list of complications.
It should be noted that diabetes is over diagnosed in old age. So, in most people over 55 years of age, tolerance to carbohydrates is greatly reduced, therefore, when conducting tests, an increased sugar level is interpreted by doctors as a sign of latent diabetes.
There are institutions for the elderly where diabetes is routinely treated in old age and diabetes is diagnosed early.
Diet for diabetes in old age
Diet is most important in the treatment and prevention of diabetes in the elderly. Even losing weight while being overweight is an effective way to normalize blood sugar.
As an independent type of treatment for diabetes, the diet is used for mild disease.