If blood sugar levels remain high, digital sclerosis can cause your skin to become hard, thick, and swollen and can spread throughout your body. What causes it: This condition is more common in people with type 1 diabetes who have high blood sugar levels.
Skin thickening is frequently observed in patients with diabetes. Affected areas of skin can appear thickened, waxy, or edematous. These patients are often asymptomatic but can have a reduction in sensation and pain. Although different parts of the body can be involved, the hands and feet are most frequently involved.
If you have diabetes, you're more likely to have dry skin. High blood sugar (glucose) can cause this. If you have a skin infection or poor circulation, these could also contribute to dry, itchy skin.
Also commonly referred to as shin spots, diabetic dermopathy develops as a result of changes to the blood vessels that supply the skin with blood and oxygen. Dermopathy typically appears as shiny, round, or oval lesions of thin skin that are light brown or red, often on the front of the legs.
Scientists believe this aging effect might be due to a buildup of sugar sticking to collagen, which helps keep skin supple.
In addition, poorly controlled diabetes, and so high blood sugar, is associated with increased glycation and increased formation of AGEs. Wrinkly skin and greying hair are not the only features of ageing.
Multiple studies support the concept of accelerated aging in diabetes: increased telomere shortening and mitochondrial DNA depletion in patients with T2D [30] and accelerated aging of human collagen in juvenile diabetes mellitus as determined experimentally by enzymatic digestion [31].
The study found out that for people, who had high blood sugar levels, either due to a poor diet or diabetes, consistently looked older than those with lower blood sugar levels.
Diabetes can cause changes in your appearance, either mildly or extremely. For starters, your skin will appear dry with off-color patches and texture. Next, there's the likelihood of alopecia or hair loss. Likewise, there is also a higher probability of changes in your body type.
The nose. Diabetes sufferers can find themselves with an infection of the nose - a fungal infection or staphylococcal can cause a number of different symptoms, including ulceration of the nasal mucosa and septal perforation.
Localized itching is often caused by diabetes. It can be caused by a yeast infection, dry skin, or poor circulation. When poor circulation is the cause of itching, the itchiest areas may be the lower parts of the legs.
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.
Digital sclerosis: Due to poor blood flow, the skin on your toes, fingers, and hands becomes thick, waxy, and tight. It can also make your finger joints stiff. Get your blood sugar under control, because that can help treat this condition.
In people with diabetes, insufficient insulin prevents the body from getting glucose from the blood into the body's cells to use as energy. When this occurs, the body starts burning fat and muscle for energy, causing a reduction in overall body weight.
Diabetes-related dermopathy is a harmless skin condition that affects people living with diabetes. It looks like small, round brownish patches and usually appears on your shins. There's no treatment for diabetes-related dermopathy, but makeup and moisturizer can help with its appearance.
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.
If you have a mother, father, sister, or brother with diabetes, you are more likely to get diabetes yourself. You are also more likely to have prediabetes. Talk to your doctor about your family health history of diabetes.
Most often we associate having diabetes with being overweight or obese; however, it's possible to be at risk of developing type 2 even if you are at a healthy weight, or even underweight. This appears particularly true if you are in a racial or ethnic group other than Caucasian, according to new research.
People With Diabetes Can Live Longer by Meeting Their Treatment Goals. Life expectancy can be increased by 3 years or in some cases as much as 10 years. At age 50, life expectancy- the number of years a person is expected to live- is 6 years shorter for people with type 2 diabetes than for people without it.
Diabetes Life Expectancy
The average life expectancy of a type 2 diabetic patient is between 77 to 81 years. However, it is not uncommon for diabetics to live past the age of 85, should they be able to maintain good blood sugar levels and lengthen their lifespan.
The younger a person who receives a type 2 diabetes diagnosis is, the higher the risk that diabetes-linked complications will shorten their lifespan. However, by adopting effective management strategies, there is a good chance that a person living with type 2 diabetes may live as long as a person without the condition.
In the same way that diabetes can cause nerve damage to your eyes, feet, and hands, it can also affect your brain by damaging nerves and blood vessels. This can lead to problems with memory and learning, mood shifts, weight gain, hormonal changes, and over time, other serious problems like Alzheimer's disease.
The onset of type 2 diabetes is most common in people aged 45–64. It usually appears after the age of 45 but can occur at any age.
One group that knows all too well sugar's ravaging effects: people with diabetes, who — because they can suffer from years of undetected high blood sugar — often show early signs of skin aging.