Diabetes Is Silent: Many People Have It Without Knowing
Many people discover high blood sugar only when they have blood drawn for another reason.
When you have a headache or a fever, your body tells you right away. But some conditions stay silent, lingering in the body for years without you feeling a thing.
Diabetes is one of them.
Research in the United States has found that among Asian Americans with diabetes, more than half don’t know they have it. That’s the highest rate of any ethnic group. Many people only find out their blood sugar has been high for a long time when they go to the doctor for something else and happen to get a blood test.
Why Is Diabetes So Silent?
The rice and noodles we eat are digested into glucose, which enters the bloodstream. The pancreas releases insulin to deliver that sugar throughout the body to be used, and blood sugar comes back down.
In the early stages of type 2 diabetes, the body usually becomes less and less sensitive to insulin. Where a little used to be enough, now it takes a lot more to work.
At this point, the pancreas works overtime on its own, producing more insulin to hold blood sugar steady. So for the first several years, blood sugar may be only slightly high, and you may not feel anything. Only when the pancreas gets tired and can’t keep up does blood sugar rise noticeably.
Many people go through these years of the pancreas straining to keep up without noticing anything at all.
Three Beliefs That Cause Many People to Miss It
Thinking No Symptoms Means No Disease
In the older generation’s mind, diabetes means constant thirst, constant trips to the bathroom, and eating a lot but getting thinner. But not everyone experiences this. Many people eat and sleep as usual and don’t feel unwell at all, yet their blood sugar is already high.
Thinking You’re Not Overweight, So You Must Be Fine
Many Chinese people think this way. But research has found that Asian Americans often develop blood sugar problems before they are considered overweight. Even people with thin arms and legs and just a bit of a belly need to be careful.
Thinking a Normal Fasting Blood Sugar Means You’ve Passed
Fasting blood sugar shows only part of the picture. Some people are perfectly normal when fasting, and only after eating does a problem with how their body handles sugar show up. Looking at this one number alone can miss it.
That’s why relying on how you feel to judge your blood sugar often leaves you one step behind.
So how can you find out whether you have it? We’ll talk about that in the next article.
