Diabetes Control With Diet and Hypoglycaemic Agents

Diabetes control can be achieved by employing a combination of diet and oral hypoglycaemic agents. Some forms of diabetes can be managed by changing diet and lifestyle, especially by improving exercise and shedding weight. Oral hypoglycaemic agents are drugs which are employed to help lower the elevated blood glucose level. These kinds of drugs may be employed in conjunction with diet to effectively control some forms of diabetes. A patient who has had diabetes for less than 5 years, who is older than 40 years and is not obese would benefit immensely from this type of treatment.
There are 2 types of oral hypoglycaemic agents: Sulphonylureas and the Biguanides. Examples of Sulphonylureas include Chlorpropamide (diabinese), Tolazamide (tolinase), Tolbutamide (orinase), etc. And an example of Biguanide is Phenformin. While the Sulphonylureas stimulate the pancreas to release insulin from its beta cells thereby helping to lower the blood sugar level, phenformin on the other hand inhibits glucose absorption from the intestine, increase peripheral utilization of glucose and decrease gluconeogenesis thereby promoting a reduction in blood glucose level. The level of sugar in the blood could remain abnormally high if nothing is done to utilize the peripheral glucose or to prevent its further production from the non-nitrogen portion of amino acids after deamination. This process is checked by oral hypoglycaemic agents which send a message to the liver and kidneys to reduce gluconeogenesis.
However, insulin is not contemplated for patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus since their pancreas is still producing insulin; all you need is something to make the insulin effective. Insulin can only be recommended for patients with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus and it is administered subcutaneously or intravenously to control the blood sugar. It is not given orally because it is destroyed by the enzyme proteinase. There are 3 classes of insulin which could be used by the patient and they include: The short-acting, intermediate-acting, and long-acting insulin.
Have it at the back of your mind that once you are diagnosed with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus you have two options – either to manage yourself by getting some facts about the kind of diet suitable for you and apply them, or add the oral drugs if the diet alone refuses to put it under proper control.