E-booklet on Diabetes released

• To create awareness about diabetes among women and girls, an e-booklet titled Diabetes Know More for women and girls made by Diwas (Diabetes in Women Awareness Strategies) was released.
• The e-booklet was released by Durga Stalin, wife of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin.

About the e-booklet:

• Prepared as a part of the DiDi (Diwas Integrated Diabetes Initiative), the e-booklet seeks to educate women and girls to learn about all aspects of diabetes management and prevention.
• The theme for this year chosen by the International Diabetes Federation for World Diabetes Day was ‘Access to Diabetes Care: If not now, When?’, and according to Diwas, this is particularly relevant for women since women’s health is often looked at only through a narrow lens of reproductive health.
• The e-booklet will provide all this information in the form of FAQs in simple language, and the Diwas team plans to make it available as an audiobook soon as well.
• While the e-booklet has been released in English . It will soon be translated into all major regional languages.
• It will be circulated on WhatsApp and other social media platforms for easy access, so that it can shed light on all the questions that women might have with regard to the impact diabetes has on their health.

Diabetes:

• Diabetes is a metabolic disease or a condition in which the glucose levels in the blood will be high over a prolonged period of time.
• In other words, it can be defined as a condition that occurs when the body cannot efficiently make use of glucose that serves as a source of energy for body cells. Blood sugar levels are controlled by a hormone called insulin.

Causes of Diabetes

• Diabetes is either caused due to the insufficient production of insulin by the pancreas or it may occur if the cells of the body are not effectively responding to the insulin produced.

Types of Diabetes

• Diabetes is categorized into the following types based on the reason for their cause:

• Diabetes Mellitus

• Type 1 Diabetes

• Type 2 Diabetes

• Diabetes Insipidus

• Gestational Diabetes

• Diabetes Mellitus

• It is the inability of the body to effectively use or respond to the insulin produced by the body, and as a result, blood sugar levels cannot be regulated effectively. Diabetes mellitus is further classified into two types, namely:

Type 1 Diabetes

• It is also known as Diabetes Mellitus Type 1. It occurs when the pancreas fails to produce sufficient insulin. The consequent lack of insulin causes an increase in glucose level in urine and blood.

Type 2 Diabetes

• It is also called Diabetes Mellitus Type 2. The prime reason for the occurrence of type 2 diabetes is due to obesity and lack of exercise in people who are genetically biased.