subject: Managing A Lifelong Disease: Juvenile Diabetes [print this page] Juvenile diabetes is considered to be part of type 1 diabetes. It is considered to be a lifelong condition. These children may live longer than they used through the advent of technology. The key to have optimum health is maintaining their blood glucose levels within the normal range, which may be done with proper exercise, rigorous insulin therapy, and meal planning. All patients with juvenile diabetes utilize parenteral insulin to manage their blood glucose. They are also required to have their blood sugar levels checked regularly and make insulin adjustments, activities, and food to sustain a normal sugar level.
Children with diabetes need to be given insulin injections using insulin syringes for their daily dose of insulin. The injected insulin performs the job of the inefficient pancreas that is unable to produce insulin. The insulin hormone is instead injected into the body through insulin pens or syringes. When insulin is introduced in the body, it conveys sugar from the bloodstream into all the cells in the body. Glucose is used by the cell to maintain its normal functions. Regularly, a patient takes insulin two to four times or more every day. Nowadays, several children with diabetes have a continuous infusion pump of insulin that they can wear to continuously control their blood sugar levels.
Diet as well is utilized together with insulin to manage diabetes. This does not involve a diet plan to lose weight. It simply means consuming healthy foods and avoiding too much sweet stuffs. These children must be provided with a strict diet plan because glucose in food can highly affect blood sugar levels. Dietitians and physicians try to figure out the amount of carbohydrates a child with diabetes should consume in every meal. They can as well decide on the amount of insulin according to the food they eat. A child with diabetes must also have a regular exercise regimen. It may aid children to control their blood glucose, and it maintains their bodies in good form.
Various biotechnological companies are paving the way to develop means to measure blood sugar levels without extracting a blood specimen from a patient. This type of diagnostic procedure is still in progress but will surely help diabetic patients in the future. Innovative means are also being made to detect complications during their early stages. They are also trying to develop efficient interventions to prevent or slow down some of the most severe consequences of having diabetes. Stem cell researches are also conducted. These research studies are trying to investigate how to regenerate the damaged pancreas of a diabetic patient.
