What Is Islet Cell Transplant For Type1 Diabetes? - Dr. Anantharaman Ramakrishnan [b9158e]
Post Time: 2025-07-29
Understanding blood sugar is crucial for managing type 2 diabetes effectively. When you have high blood sugar, it means your body either doesn't produce enough insulin (a hormone that regulates blood sugar) or can't use the insulin efficiently. This condition can lead to various complications if left unmanaged.
Maintaining healthy blood sugar levels requires a multi-faceted approach that involves dietary changes, regular exercise, stress management, and monitoring your A1C levels regularly. By incorporating small lifestyle modifications into your daily routine, you can make significant improvements in managing your blood sugar levels.
Recognizing the Early Signs of High Blood Sugar
One common mistake people make when it comes to managing high blood sugar is ignoring its early warning signs. Fatigue, increased thirst and urination, blurred vision, and slow healing wounds are just a few symptoms that indicate an imbalance in your body's natural insulin production or utilization.
By paying attention to these subtle changes in the body, you can take immediate action by adjusting your diet plan or increasing physical activity levels. For instance, incorporating protein-rich foods into your meals helps regulate blood sugar spikes and crashes while ensuring adequate energy supply throughout the day.
The Role of Diet in Regulating Blood Sugar Levels
When it comes to managing high blood sugar naturally, dietary changes play a significant role. Focusing on whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, or farro can provide sustained energy without spiking insulin levels drastically. Leafy greens and low-fat dairy products are rich in fiber and nutrients that help regulate glucose absorption.
However, understanding serving sizes is also crucial when it comes to monitoring your blood sugar intake daily. Limiting portion size while incorporating high-fiber foods like lentils or chickpeas helps control appetite while slowing down digestion for a more gradual increase in energy levels.
The Importance of A1C Monitoring
Monitoring your A1C (glycated hemoglobin) is an essential part of managing blood sugar levels effectively. This simple test checks the average level of glucose attached to red blood cells over three months and gives you insight into how well-controlled your diabetes has been in recent weeks.
For instance, according to a study conducted by the American Diabetes Association, reducing A1C by just one percentage point can lower cardiovascular risk significantly while improving overall quality of life. However, understanding what each value range indicates is also vital; for example, an ideal pre-meal blood glucose level should be less than 180 mg/dl.
Maintaining Consistency in Blood Sugar Management
Staying consistent with your daily routine is key when it comes to managing high blood sugar levels over time. Regular physical activity helps regulate insulin sensitivity while improving muscle mass that allows you to maintain a healthy metabolism even during periods of low calorie intake.
However, understanding specific exercise routines tailored for individuals with type 2 diabetes can be particularly beneficial; aerobic exercises like walking or swimming improve cardiovascular health without putting excessive strain on joints and muscles compared to high-impact activities.
Islet Cell Transplantation is again a therapy used in Type 1 Diabetes. It used to be an experimental therapy but with growing experience it is entering normal or common place practice. So Islet Cell Transplantation is done in those individuals with repeated low sugars is hypoglycaemias and whose requirement of insulin is so variable that it is difficult for us to manage a patient with subcutaneous insulin therapy or pump. So here what we do is take the pancreas of a dead donors for example if somebody has donated their organs after death, we harvest their pancreas. Only the islet cells are removed and what helps low blood sugar those islet cells are processed. After processing they are injected into the liver of the Type 1 Diabetes patient. This insulin producing beta cells gets lodges in the liver and starts producing insulin. So earlier these patients did not have any insulin producing cells. Because when we give it from outside, these patients have insulin producing cells now and these insulin producing cells starts producing insulin just like the native cells of the patient but the problem blood sugar blaster premier vitality with Type 1 Diabetes is it is an autoimmune disease. So the autoimmune process that has originally 6.1 blood sugar destroyed the beta cells also tries to destroy the beta cells that you have injected the cadaveric beta cells. So what one does in this situation is give immunosuppresion to the patient with Type 1 Diabetes. So along with infusion of insulin producing cells into the liver of the patient, we also give immunosuppresion drug. So which suppresses the immunity in this situation, in some select centres where the processing is excellent there are patients who are insulin free or those who are taking insulin for 3 to 4 times a day, and had a very poor quality of life because the sugar was fluctuating too much. So these individuals are using no insulin at all. About 50% of the patient become cured of Type 1 Diabetes but it is an invasive procedure requiring insulin infusion to the liver and autoimmune suppression and it is not for everyone with Type 1 Diabetes.