Children can also get diabetes

This is an automatically translated article.

Many people think that diabetes can only occur in the elderly, but children are also at high risk of diabetes. Childhood diabetes greatly affects the health and development of children. Therefore, learning about diabetes in children and testing for diabetes in children is very necessary.

1. What is diabetes in children?

Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a disease of the endocrine system. When you have diabetes, the metabolism of sugar in the blood will be disturbed, making the blood sugar level always high. Diabetes is one of the main causes of kidney failure, blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases.
With type 1 diabetes, in children inherited factors from parents account for about 10-20%. Most children with type 1 diabetes are often not detected early, but only when the symptoms of the disease are too obvious, the disease is discovered. Type 2 diabetes often occurs in children who are overweight, obese or have an inappropriate diet.
Diabetes can occur at any age including children. In particular, type 1 diabetes mainly occurs in children and adolescents.

2. Symptoms to recognize diabetes in children

2.1. Frequent thirst and frequent urination

This is one of the typical symptoms of childhood diabetes. When sick, children will be very thirsty, drink a lot of water and urinate constantly. The reason is because sugar accumulates in the blood, causing the kidneys to work continuously at high intensity to be able to filter and absorb all the excess sugar.
When the kidneys are no longer able to complete this process, the excess sugar in the blood will be excreted with the urine. At that time, the child's urine may be stained with blood or cellular fluids. Children with diabetes will drink and urinate frequently leading to dehydration. At that time, the child will drink a lot of water to make up for the lost water and urinate more.

2.2. Feeling hungry often

Childhood diabetes causes intense hunger pangs that persist even after eating. This is due to a lack of insulin, which causes a sharp drop in the amount of sugar in the tissues and a lack of energy.

2.3. Tired often

Children with diabetes often feel tired and lethargic. There are many causes for this condition. In particular, the main reason is that the constant urination causes the cells to be depleted of energy, reducing the body's ability to function.

2.4. Unusual weight loss

Childhood diabetes causes children to lose a lot of energy because sugar is excreted in the urine. Children will eat more than usual to reduce hunger, but the tissues are not getting energy from the sugar found in food. At that time, the tissues must get energy from the previously accumulated fat tissue. Therefore, if you see that your child is losing weight abnormally, parents need to pay attention because this can be a sign of diabetes.

2.5. Blurry vision

Elevated blood sugar will draw fluid from tissues including the vitreous tissue of the eye. This condition will affect the child's ability to adjust the focus. If diabetes is not treated early, it can lead to the formation of new blood vessels in the retina and damage to the blood vessels there. At first, diabetes did not affect vision much. However, if not treated properly and promptly, the disease can cause vision loss and blindness.

2.6. Other symptoms

Signs such as convulsions, coma, lethargy, rapid breathing, infection, abdominal pain, loss of consciousness often appear when the disease has progressed to a severe stage.

3. How to prevent and handle diabetes in children?

Adjust a reasonable and scientific diet. Regularly give children periodic health check-ups, including diabetes testing for children. The process of testing children for diabetes is quite simple and fast. To test for diabetes in children, the doctor will perform a blood sugar test in the urine or in the blood. For children who have been infected, it is necessary to educate children with a sense of self-protection from harmful agents such as avoiding scratches, applying a reasonable diet and exercise. It is important for parents to give their children a normal living environment like other children so that the child can develop comprehensively. This will help improve the effectiveness of the treatment of diabetes in children. Like many other diseases, childhood diabetes often has no obvious symptoms, so it is difficult to recognize. Therefore, if parents suspect that the child has a disease, it is necessary to conduct a diabetes test for the child to diagnose and treat the disease promptly.

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