What are the short & long term effects of type 2 diabetes?

-- How does type 2 diabetes impact the body over the short term (daily, monthly, or over 1 to 5 years)?

-- How does this disorder impact the body over extended periods of time (10 to 30 years or more)?

--Please help me find both answers. If possible, the short term is more important to have.

A bit more bad news for diabetics that you may not have known: having a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes makes your risk of having a heart attack just the same as someone who already had a heart attack. This means it is automatically assumed that with diabetes, there may be hidden heart disease as well.

Blood pressure monitoring is crucial for those with diabetes.
(Photodisc)In addition, a worldwide study of over 21,000 patients with diabetes found that vigorously controlling your blood sugar to get your blood sugar levels into near normal range did not lower the risk of heart attack or heart disease. For some patients, tight control of blood sugar led to more episodes of dangerously low blood sugar too.

So what is a patient with diabetes to do to lower the risk of heart attack?

It turns out that controlling your blood pressure is perhaps the single most important thing you can do to reduce many of the complications from diabetes. The dangers of high blood pressure 鈥?even a few points above normal 鈥?are much greater for diabetics.

Complications or Sequelae of Diabetes

Sometimes a complication of diabetes may give a clue to the presence of the disease. The principle complications or sequelae associated with diabetes are retinopathy, neuropathy, nephropathy and arteriosclerosis. Whether these are the unavoidable consequences of the diabetic state over time or whether they may be influenced by controlling the diabetes through aggressive monitoring, treatment and life-style management, including diet and supplements, remains a central topic.

One of the largest, most comprehensive diabetes studies conducted to date2 showed that keeping blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible through aggressive management slows the onset and progression of eye, kidney and nerve diseases caused by diabetes. In fact it demonstrated that any sustained lowering of blood sugar helps, even if the person has a history of poor control.

Specifically it found that lowering and maintaining more constant blood sugar levels reduced the risk of eye disease by 76%, kidney disease by 50%, nerve disease by 60% and cardiovascular disease by 35%.

Potential long-term complications
People who have had diabetes for several years are likely to develop long-term complications. These complications can be minimized by proper diabetic management.

鈥? Vascular disease: By the time men and women with Type 1 diabetes reach age 55, about 35 percent of them will have died from a heart attack compared to eight percent of non-diabetic men and four percent of non-diabetic women. People with Type 1 diabetes also are at higher risk to develop blockages in the major arteries of the legs than non-diabetics. Lower the risk of vascular disease by aggressively treating cholesterol and blood pressure, exercising regularly, and avoiding or quitting tobacco products.

鈥? Microvascular (small vessel) disease: Microvascular changes occur in the capillaries of every organ in the body. There is a thickening of the wall of the small blood vessels. These changes are responsible for many of the diabetes complications.

鈥? Diabetic retinopathy (eye disease)
- see an illustration

鈥? Diabetic nephropathy (kidney disease): Kidney abnormalities may be noted early in the disease. Poorly controlled diabetes may accelerate the development of kidney failure. Urinary tract infections in diabetics tend to be more severe and may result in kidney damage. Diabetics are more vulnerable to kidney damage from high blood pressure than non-diabetics.

鈥? Diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage)

鈥? Foot problems

鈥? Skin and mucus membrane problems: People with diabetes are more likely than non-diabetics to develop infections. Hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) predisposes diabetics to fungal infections of the skin, nails, and female genital tract and to urinary tract infection.