Constipation can be a common sign of diabetes. It's often due to diabetes-related nerve damage in the digestive tract that stems from unmanaged blood sugar levels. Other factors contributing to constipation include diet, exercise, and medications.
CONCLUSION: Diabetes is associated with constipation, hard stools, fecal urgency, and incomplete evacuation, and poor glycemic control, duration, leanness, and nephropathy affect the risk of these symptoms.
When diabetes damages the nerves going to your stomach and intestines, they may not be able to move food through normally. This causes constipation, but you can also get alternating bouts of constipation and diarrhea, especially at night.
Gastrointestinal symptoms occur commonly in people with diabetes, and include gastro-esophageal reflux, bloating, nausea, constipation, diarrhea and fecal incontinence.
Taking laxatives may help in easing constipation. Different types of laxatives are available including bulk-forming laxatives, which help you to retain water in your stools, osmotic laxatives, which increase the amount fluid in the bowel and stimulant laxatives, which stimulate movement of the bowel.
Is constipation a sign of type 2 diabetes? Yes, gastrointestinal issues like constipation can occur in both type 1 or type 2 diabetes. It may indicate related nerve damage in the digestive tract due to unmanaged blood sugar levels.
But that doesn't mean abdominal weight gain should be ignored. It can be an early sign of so-called "diabetic belly," a build-up of visceral fat in your abdomen which may be a symptom of type 2 diabetes and can increase your chances of developing other serious medical conditions.
They found that lower gastrointestinal symptoms – including constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, bloating, intestinal gas, and floating stools – were much more common in the individuals with diabetes, especially diarrhea and constipation, which were twice as likely in those with diabetes.
Common diabetes health complications include heart disease, chronic kidney disease, nerve damage, and other problems with feet, oral health, vision, hearing, and mental health.
People with diabetes may experience frequent diarrhea — loose, watery stools that happen at least three times a day. You may have fecal incontinence as well, especially at night.
If you don't eat, your blood sugar levels are lower and medication may drop them even more, which can lead to hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia can cause you to feel shaky, pass out, or even go into a coma. When you “break” your fast by eating, you may also be more likely to develop too-high blood sugar levels.
Likewise, the bowel is impacted (no pun intended) by a diabetic condition known as diabetic enteropathy. Constipation alternating with diarrhea is a common symptom, along with large bowel dysfunction. Diarrhea may be associated with bowel incontinence and often occurs at night.
The following can cause loose stools or make them worse. Sugar. Sugars stimulate the gut to put out water and electrolytes, which loosen bowel movements. If you ingest a lot of sugar, you may develop diarrhea.
A: Health care professionals can't diagnose gastroparesis based on symptoms alone. A gastric emptying study—using gastric emptying scintigraphy, a gastric emptying breath test, or a wireless motility capsule—is necessary to determine whether the stomach empties normally, slowly, or rapidly.
Frequent Urination Could Be Related to Diabetes
This results in more urine production and increased urinary frequency and urgency, called polyuria. Some people may notice they have to get up every couple of hours during the night to urinate and that they produce more urine when they do go.
The simple answer is yes. It is possible to reduce visceral (belly) fat through healthy diet, exercise, stress reduction and good sleep.
Nausea, heartburn, or bloating can have many causes, but for people with diabetes, these common digestion issues shouldn't be ignored. That's because high blood sugar can lead to gastroparesis, a condition that affects how you digest your food. Diabetes is the most common known cause of gastroparesis.
Making positive lifestyle changes such as eating a well-balanced diet, exercising regularly and getting down to a healthy weight (and maintaining it) are the key to possibly reversing or managing type 2 diabetes.
P-value less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: Higher frequency of bloating, early satiety, nausea, heartburn, gas passing and constipation are seen in the pre-diabetes group than in the control group; (p-value 0.0001, 0.0001, 0.0001, 0.0001, 0.001 and 0.0001 respectively).
Medications. Certain blood pressure medicines (calcium channel blockers, beta blockers, diuretics), and antidepressants can be culprits. Also, metformin, a common drug used to manage blood sugars, as well as the GLP-1 inhibitor class of medicines can cause constipation in some people.