Type 2 diabetes can be a “silent” disease, which means that you may have it and not know you do. One of the most common things that occurs with type 2 diabetes is that you may begin to experience symptoms such as tingling in your fingers or toes (neuropathy), blurred vision, or chest pains or shortness of breath. Again, as with any troublesome symptoms, you should see your doctor. Diabetes is a condition that occurs when the pancreas fails to produce enough insulin. Some people are born with this condition or has the onset of diabetes at an early age. This is called juvenile diabetes or type 1. Type 1 diabetes usually requires insulin injections. The onset of diabetes later in life is called type 2. Type 2 diabetes can be treated and in most cases prevented with simple lifestyle changes. The chronic condition associated with the way the body metabolizes glucose (sugar) is called diabetes. When the disease surfaces in adults or involves non-insulin dependency, this form of the condition is known as type 2 diabetes. Although type 2 diabetes is often preventable, an increasing amount of people is developing diabetes symptom and signs, as a result of a growing obesity problem throughout the United States. Type 2 Diabetes Type 2 diabetes can develop at any age however is most common to appear during adulthood. Type 2 diabetes is caused by an insulin resistance; basically the body is unable to react properly to insulin. Causes of Type 2 Diabetes There are many causes for diabetes, which means that are many reasons why a person can develop diabetes type 2. The most common of all the factors that cause diabetes is genetics. Almost a half of the people who suffer from diabetes type 2 are brothers and sisters and one in three children of the same family will eventually suffer from diabetes. The second strongest cause of developing diabetes is obesity. Almost a third of all people that suffer from diabetes type 2 have antibodies to the islet cells, which produce insulin. These cells so vital in diabetes can be detected in the blood. Type 2 diabetes results from a combination of defective insulin secretion and insulin resistance or reduced insulin sensitivity. Although the exact cause for type 2 is unknown, it seems that central obesity predisposes people for insulin resistance, possibly because of hormone secretions that impair glucose tolerance. Fifty-five percent of individuals with type 2 diabetes are obese. Aging and family history also seem to play a role in the onset of this type. Type 2 diabetes is first treated by diet and exercise, which can restore insulin sensitivity. If the oral medications fail, insulin therapy will be implemented.

Diabetes interferes with the body’s ability to produce or properly use insulin, a hormone that is essential for the proper use of the energy contained in the food we eat. This results in a series of malfunctions, which include an excess of a type of sugar called glucose in tests on the blood and urine. Over time, diabetes can lead to life-threatening and debilitating complications.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when insulin continues to be produced but, for a variety of reasons, is not properly used in the body. Type 2 usually occurs later in life and affects 90 percent of people with diabetes (people are typically diagnosed with Type 2 after the age of 45).

Learn more about Symptoms of diabetes.

Frequent trips to the bathroom:

Are you visiting the bathroom much more lately? Does it seem like you urinate all day long? Urination becomes more frequent when there is too much glucose in the blood. If insulin is nonexistent or ineffective, the kidneys can’t filter glucose back to the blood. They become overwhelmed and try to draw extra water out of the blood to dilute the glucose. This keeps your bladder full and it keeps you running to the bathroom.

Unquenchable Thirst:

If it feels like you can’t get enough water and you’re drinking much more than usual, it could be a sign of diabetes, especially if it seems to go hand in hand with frequent urination. If your body is pulling extra water out of your blood and you’re running to the bathroom more, you will become dehydrated and feel the need to drink more to replace the water that you are losing.

Losing Weight Without Trying:

This symptom is more noticeable with Type 1 diabetes. In Type 1, the pancreas stops making insulin, possibly due to a viral attack on pancreas cells or because an autoimmune response makes the body attack the insulin producing cells. The body desperately looks for an energy source because the cells aren’t getting glucose. It starts to break down muscle tissue and fat for energy. Type 2 happens gradually with increasing insulin resistance so weight loss is not as noticeable.

Weakness and Fatigue:

It’s that bad boy glucose again. Glucose from the food we eat travels into the bloodstream where insulin is supposed to help it transition into the cells of our body. The cells use it to produce the energy we need to live. When the insulin isn’t there or if the cells don’t react to it anymore, then the glucose stays outside the cells in the bloodstream. The cells become energy starved and you feel tired and run down.

Tingling or Numbness in Your Hands, Legs or Feet:

This symptom is called neuropathy. It occurs gradually over time as consistently high glucose in the blood damages the nervous system, particularly in the extremities. Type 2 diabetes is a gradual onset, and people are often not aware that they have it. Therefore, blood sugar might have been high for more than a few years before a diagnosis is made. Nerve damage can creep up without our knowledge. Neuropathy can very often improve when tighter blood glucose control is achieved.

Other Signs and Symptoms That Can Occur:

Blurred vision, skin that is dry or itchy, frequent infections or cuts and bruises that take a long time to heal are also signs that something is amiss. Again, when these signs are associated with diabetes, they are the result of high glucose levels in the body. If you notice any of the above signs, schedule an appointment with your doctor. He or she will be able to tell you if you have reason to be concerned about a diagnosis of diabetes.

Diabetes interferes with the body’s ability to produce or properly use insulin, a hormone that is essential for the proper use of the energy contained in the food we eat. This results in a series of malfunctions, which include an excess of a type of sugar called glucose in tests on the blood and urine. Over time, diabetes can lead to life-threatening and debilitating complications. Type 2 diabetes occurs when insulin continues to be produced but, for a variety of reasons, is not properly used in the body. Type 2 usually occurs later in life and affects 90 percent of people with diabetes (people are typically diagnosed with Type 2 after the age of 45). Learn more about Symptoms of diabetes. Frequent trips to the bathroom: Are you visiting the bathroom much more lately? Does it seem like you urinate all day long? Urination becomes more frequent when there is too much glucose in the blood. If insulin is nonexistent or ineffective, the kidneys can’t filter glucose back to the blood. They become overwhelmed and try to draw extra water out of the blood to dilute the glucose. This keeps your bladder full and it keeps you running to the bathroom. Unquenchable Thirst: If it feels like you can’t get enough water and you’re drinking much more than usual, it could be a sign of diabetes, especially if it seems to go hand in hand with frequent urination. If your body is pulling extra water out of your blood and you’re running to the bathroom more, you will become dehydrated and feel the need to drink more to replace the water that you are losing. Losing Weight Without Trying: This symptom is more noticeable with Type 1 diabetes. In Type 1, the pancreas stops making insulin, possibly due to a viral attack on pancreas cells or because an autoimmune response makes the body attack the insulin producing cells. The body desperately looks for an energy source because the cells aren’t getting glucose. It starts to break down muscle tissue and fat for energy. Type 2 happens gradually with increasing insulin resistance so weight loss is not as noticeable. Weakness and Fatigue: It’s that bad boy glucose again. Glucose from the food we eat travels into the bloodstream where insulin is supposed to help it transition into the cells of our body. The cells use it to produce the energy we need to live. When the insulin isn’t there or if the cells don’t react to it anymore, then the glucose stays outside the cells in the bloodstream. The cells become energy starved and you feel tired and run down. Tingling or Numbness in Your Hands, Legs or Feet: This symptom is called neuropathy. It occurs gradually over time as consistently high glucose in the blood damages the nervous system, particularly in the extremities. Type 2 diabetes is a gradual onset, and people are often not aware that they have it. Therefore, blood sugar might have been high for more than a few years before a diagnosis is made. Nerve damage can creep up without our knowledge. Neuropathy can very often improve when tighter blood glucose control is achieved. Other Signs and Symptoms That Can Occur: Blurred vision, skin that is dry or itchy, frequent infections or cuts and bruises that take a long time to heal are also signs that something is amiss. Again, when these signs are associated with diabetes, they are the result of high glucose levels in the body. If you notice any of the above signs, schedule an appointment with your doctor. He or she will be able to tell you if you have reason to be concerned about a diagnosis of diabetes.

You can prevent or delay the development of complications from type 2 diabetes by keeping your blood sugar levels within a normal or near-normal range (tight control). Scientific evidence shows that tightly controlling blood sugar levels:

• Prevents the development and progression of small blood vessel (microvascular) disease and nerve disease (neuropathy).
• Slightly reduces your risk for heart and large blood vessel (macrovascular) disease from diabetes.

If you are age 30 or older, talk to your health professional about taking a low-dose, or baby, aspirin daily to help prevent heart attack, stroke, or other large blood vessel disease (macrovascular disease). People with diabetes are 2 to 4 times more likely than people who don’t have diabetes to die from heart and blood vessel diseases.

Prevention and early detection

To prevent and detect complications early:

• Don’t smoke. If you quit smoking, you will reduce your risk for developing early damage to the blood vessels caused by diabetes. For information on how to quit smoking, see the topic Quitting Tobacco Use.
• Inspect your feet daily, wear properly fitted shoes, do not go barefoot or use home remedies, and have yearly foot examinations. If you have poor vision, have someone else examine your feet daily and help you with foot and toenail care. Keep pathways in your home clear of objects that could cause a fall.
• Report blurred vision, floaters, or flashes of light to your doctor immediately, and have yearly eye exams by an ophthalmologist or optometrist.
• Have yearly urine tests for protein. At the first sign of small amounts of protein (microalbuminuria), talk with your doctor about whether you can take a high blood pressure medication, such as an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or an angiotension II receptor blocker (ARB).
• Get effective treatment for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. You may take an ACE inhibitor, ARB, or other medications to keep your blood pressure consistently below 130/80 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg). You also may need to take cholesterol-lowering medications such as statins (for example, Lipitor, Zocor, or Pravachol) to reach your goals.
• Have yearly exams to test for touch and feeling sensations in your feet and legs and report any symptoms of digestive, sexual, or urinary problems or signs of hypoglycemia unawareness as soon as you notice them.

Other preventive measures

Keep your immunizations up to date. Diabetes affects your immune system, increasing your risk for having a serious case of the flu, pneumonia, or other infections. For the recommended immunization schedule, see the topic Immunizations.

If you have just a small portion on your body that is just a little imperfect then maybe you should consider mini liposuction. This is right for those who are only a little bit overweight and have a certain spot or spots on their body they want to correct. Mini lipo is a name given to any liposuction procedure that is small and not complicated. You don’t necessarily need to be obese to have liposuction. Sometimes all you need is to trim off only 2 or 3 inches of belly fat to have a perfectly flat stomach. You might think that a person could just diet and exercise such little body fat but that isn’t so easy. You can lose so much weight and once you reach the last ten pounds it’s the hardest to burn off. This is very common though, the last few pounds of fat is the most difficult to lose. This fat is named “brown fat”. If you have this then mini liposuction is all you need.

Men and women can have brown fat, it is usually located on the belly or the chest area. You know if you have brown fat if you are thin person but not exactly tight. If you still don’t get it just remember that if you are able to pinch a more than an inch then that’s what you need to focus on. You might even know this as skinny fat.

Some people have a nice figure but also have some excess fat around the knees. Mini liposuction can remove this fat and leave you with nicely shaped knees. What about behind the elbow? Yes, some people have a little extra fat back there which can simply be removed. Under the chin could also be a little too fatty for many people.

During a mini-liposuction a patient would only need local anesthesia which means they will be awake during the whole surgery. The whole process would only take up to an hour. This means there are far less risks then regular liposuction.

Recovery is very quick with minimal pain and bruising. You can resume your normal life and go back to work the next day. Keep in mind that min-lipo is still a surgical procedure and as with any kind of surgery the risk of infection in that area is still possible. You can consult with a doctor and discuss your situation with him/her. After you have learned all the risks and benefits you can then decide what you want to do.

By Cynthia Osborne

So you have decided that liposuction is what you want to have done. You have found a good surgeon with recommendation from other patients as well as a professional association. You have researched the risks and have considered the benefits. Still, you want to move forward with the liposuction, but the price tag is standing in the way. Today, with sky-rocketing medical costs and a weak economy, choosing to have an elective surgery like liposuction is not an easy choice, but there are options.

The typical costs of liposuction can begin around $2,000 and can exceed $11,000. The variation in these prices depend on several factors including how many areas of the body that you are having processed, the type of facility you use, the surgeon you selected, and the type of procedure that he or she uses.

However, these are not the only costs associated with plastic surgery. Because this type of procedure is evasive, it may likely require general anesthesia, which costs money. If the work to be done is extensive you may need an anesthesiologist, which also increases your total costs. All said and done, however, an average liposuction will range between $2,500 and $3,000.

Still, money is a concern, which is stopping you from moving forward. However, there are ways to finance the procedure so you can look better now while paying the money back later. The quickest way to pay for your procedure is to use your credit card. This automatically transfers the fees into monthly payments that you may already be making.

However, this should only be an option if you have a good rate on your credit card. If you charge $3000 on a card that has an interest rate of 29% (and it is not unreasonable to have such cards today), your monthly payment would be $127 over 3 years. Additionally, your procedure, with interest would be almost $4500. At 15%, your payment would be $105 over 3 years and a total of $3800.

Another option to financing your liposuction procedure is to go through a financing company that specializes in small loans for cosmetic surgery. Some companies charge low interest rates as much as 5.9%, but even at 7-14% this is a much better value than several credit cards. There are various companies worth considering that can be found on the Internet.

Also, ask your surgeon or the facility that you would be using for the procedure if they have payment schedules. This way, the payments are taken care of in-house and you do not have to deal with a separate company.

Still, the facility is likely to charge you interest as well because you are technically borrowing money. However, some facilities allow you to pay over a 3-month period that greatly reduces the amount of interest you would pay on a loan.

The most cost effective way to pay for your liposuction is to set up a separate savings account or possible even a CD account with a decent interest rate. Have a portion of your income go into that account monthly until you have the necessary amount. Although you will have to wait to have the procedure you really want now, you will save money in the long run.

By A Aaronson

If you are one of the millions of Americans who are overweight or obese, good news – your weight loss surgery will be covered by your insurance carrier. The bad news is, of course, that coverage comes with many conditions attached to it. Weight loss surgery is performed on very overweight individuals who can’t seem to lose weight even with a healthy diet and exercise regimen. There are four types of procedures available: adjustable gastric band, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, biliopancreatic diversion with a duodenal switch and vertical sleeve gastrectomy.

If you are insured under Medicare, your weight loss surgery has traditionally been covered under co-morbid illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes and sleep apnea, meaning that the patient was qualified to have surgery only if he or she had one of these conditions. However, it was only recently that Medicare implicitly recognized obesity as an illness through changes in their policy statement. These changes were seen as an acknowledgment by the social insurance program of the high monetary and health costs of obesity and overweight.

For private insurance companies, coverage of weight loss surgery is a way for them to cut costs. It costs less for the carrier to pay for a gastric bypass or gastrectomy then to continue to shoulder the costs of diabetes medicine and treatment for a lifetime. However, the increased costs and number of procedures performed has led private insurance companies to make it more difficult to obtain approval. To illustrate, before approving surgery many insurance companies typically require written documentation from the patient that they had undergone six months to a year of a continually medically supervised diet.

By Justin DeMerchant

You’ve probably heard it a hundred times before but I will say it again, incidental activity is very important in the process of losing weight as you can burn more calories than relying on dietary means alone.

Fat is burned from the body when cells oxidize to release energy in the form of exercise or movement. When the exercise is done slowly to moderately then the majority of energy is taken from the fat stores.

The loss of fat comes from fat cells all over the body, not from one or more specific area’s so spot reduction of a certain area is not possible. The main priority of this article is to show you the quickest and safest way to lose fat from the body.

The key to effective aerobic training that burns off the maximum amount of fat is long-term consistency not intensity. It doesn’t matter if you run a mile, jog a mile or walk a mile you will burn exactly the same amount of calories.

The best exercise by far for the purpose of fat-loss is fast walking either indoors on the treadmill or outdoors. What many don’t know is that walking produces a greater percentage of fat loss as opposed to jogging or running.

Other aerobic activities are the treadmill, bike, climber or any other training gear found in or out of the gym.

Walk or exercise until you are mildly puffing and hold that rate until the allotted time. If your aerobic activities leave you panting or breathless, your going too hard, your energy is coming from your carbohydrate reserves and not from your fat stores.

Try fast walking for one hour a day every day of the week if you are able.

Here are some of the benefits of Fast Walking.

· Easy to Perform
· Most Conventional
· All Natural Body Movement
· Doesn’t Cause Injuries
· Can Be Done Anywhere
· The Best Minimal Effort Exercise for Fat Loss

Research shows that regular, brisk walking is one of the best exercises we can do for overall fitness. It suits people of all ages and fitness levels, it’s easy to get started and there’s no complicated technique to learn or equipment to buy.

Walking is an excellent way to get fit because it uses nearly all the muscles and, as you have to carry your body weight, you can get a good workout from it.

It’s also safer on the joints and the back than most other forms of exercise because you’re not jumping up and down, so the impact is low.

Studies have shown that taking a daily 20-minute walk can reduce the risk of heart attack as much as 50%, it also reduces high blood pressure and helps to burn fat to keep weight under control.

Walking and other weight bearing exercises (Strength training) helps to increase bone mass, which protects against osteoporosis and bone fractures.

In the first two weeks, go for a 20-minute walk every other day and then increase this to 40 minutes. At first try to do five 20-minute walks per week totalling 100 minutes a week.

Once you get used to the regular exercise, increase this to 40 minutes for five times a week.

You can then gradually increase this as you see fit, if you want to walk every day for 40 minutes or even an hour so be it. Remember the more you walk the more fat that will be burned off.

The best pace for fitness training will make you slightly breathless, but you should still be comfortable and be able to carry on a conversation.

As you get fitter, you’ll want to stretch a little harder to keep your heart rate up.

Try lengthening your strides, increasing your pace. Keep your shoulders back, your chest lifted and your tummy pulled in when you walk, hold your head up for open, easy breathing.

Practical Tips…

· If your feeling stressed, try counting your steps repeatedly from one to ten as you walk, this helps some people achieve a meditative effect and can be a great tension reliever when practiced over a full 40 minutes.

· Time yourself, measure the distance or increase the gradient to make the workout more challenging. Drink plenty of fluids during and after your walk.

· Make safety your first consideration. Don’t walk after dark except in well-lit, busy places. Start the walk slowly, and then gradually increase the pace.

So, go ahead in all other activities try to move, move, move. Try parking the car further away from your destination so you can walk the extra distance, hide all your remote controls so you have to get up and change the channels manually.

These all help burn those extra calories and body fat from your frame.

by: Gary Matthews