1. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
Diabetes and Heart Disease

2. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
What is Diabetes Mellitus?
Diabetes mellitus is a progressive disease in which your body doesn’t make or respond properly to insulin
Insulin is a hormone made in the pancreas
Insulin is used to convert sugar, starches and other foods to energy
If you have diabetes, your blood glucose or “sugar” levels are too high

3. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
What is Diabetes Mellitus?
Diabetes mellitus is defined as a fasting blood glucose of 126 mg/dL or more measured on 2 occasions
Type I - appears at younger ages
The pancreas stops making insulin
Without insulin shots the patient won’t survive

4. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
What is Diabetes Mellitus?
Type II - Adult-onset appears in middle-aged adults
Develops when the body doesn’t make enough insulin
doesn’t efficiently use the insulin it makes (Insulin resistance)

5. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
High levels of blood glucose may cause:
Hunger
Extreme thirst
Frequent urination
Weight loss
Fatigue
Blurry vision

6. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
How dangerous is Diabetes?:
Diabetes kills > 60,00 Americans each year
190,000 die from diabetic complications/yr
Diabetics are 2 to 4 X more likely to have a heart attack or stroke
Higher risk of congestive heart failure
Heart disease tends to be more severe

7. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
How dangerous is Diabetes?:
Diabetes causes nerve damage in the heart which can make a heart attack painless or ‘silent’
Heart attacks are more likely to be fatal in diabetics
Diabetes increases LDL “bad” cholesterol
Diabetes lowers HDL “good” cholesterol

8. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
How dangerous is Diabetes?:
Diabetes causes:
Blindness
Kidney disease often requiring dialysis
nerve disease
limb amputation

9. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
Diabetes and eye conditions
Frequent complication in both Type I and II
Diabetic retinopathy is a major cause of blindness
Abnormality of small blood vessels in the retina
Blood vessels weaken and leak blood
Glaucoma and cataracts are more common in diabetes

10. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
Diabetes and eye conditions
What Should Diabetic patients do?
See their eye doctor at least once a year
Keep their blood sugars as close to normal as possible
Tight sugar control can reduce the risk of eye damage by 76%
Quit smoking

11. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
Diabetes and Kidney Disease
Kidney disease and failure (end-stage-renal disease) is a frequent complication of diabetes
May take years to develop
Tiny blood vessels in the kidney act as filters to remove wastes, chemicals and excess water from the blood

12. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
Diabetes and Kidney Disease
These blood vessels are damaged in diabetes
become leaky and protein spills into the urine
When the entire filtration system breaks down, the kidneys fail to function
Dialysis or kidney transplant is required to live

13. Diabetes and Heart Disease
Lifestyles, Fitness
and Rehabilitation
Diabetes and Kidney Disease
What should diabetic patients do?
Keep blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible
Tight control can reduce the risk of kidney damage by 35-56%
ACE-inhibitors (blood pressure medicine) can reduce the progression of diabetic kidney disease