It’s difficult enough to get out of bed in the morning. But for those who must regularly take pills, check their blood sugar levels or give themselves insulin every morning, they may have it a lot harder. Though, maintaining your health, especially with diabetes is no easy task, leaving your diabetes untreated will only make matters much worse.

Betul Hatipoglu, MD, an endocrinologist at Cleveland Clinic explains, “If you don’t take care of yourself, diabetes complications typically start within 5 years; within 10 to 15 years, the majority of patients will progress to have multiple health issues.” She goes on to advise that eating a nutritious diet, regularly exercising and taking your medication may not only stop complications for progressing, but can reverse them. [1]

Here are some ways your body can take a turn for the worst when you stop taking care of your diabetes –

Your cholesterol and blood pressure will rise

Insulin is a hormone that regulates your blood sugar. With Type 1 diabetes, your body stops producing insulin all together. With Type 2 diabetes, your body produces insulin but cannot properly use it. Because of this, your “good cholesterol” levels become low and the levels of harmful blood fats (triglycerides) rise. Your blood pressure may also rise due to hardened, narrow arteries brought on by the insulin resistance. This is why about 70% of people with both types of diabetes have hypertension, a major risk factor for stroke, heart disease and cognitive decline.[2] Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD, and chief medical officer at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston says, “Failing to control high blood pressure and high cholesterol, either with a diet and exercise alone or by adding medications, accelerates the rate at which all your other complications progress.”

Your vision health declines

Retinopathy, the damage to the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye, plagues more than 4 million people with diabetes to some degree.[3] This is because your high blood pressure levels damage your eye’s blood vessels. There are no early on-set symptoms but the longer you let this condition go untreated, the more your vision will fade. Prevention says, a study on people with Type 2 found that when HbA1c levels (a measure of blood glucose) rose by one percent, the risk of developing vision problems increased by about one third. Hatipoglu agrees – “In 20 years, about 80% of people with diabetes will have retinopathy, and about 10,000 will go blind each year.”

Stay tuned for kidney failure

Your kidney’s, the bean-shaped organs located near the middle of your back, are basically “trash collectors”. Every day, your kidneys process about 200 quarts of blood to sift out about 2 quarts of waste products and extra water, which is then removed from your body through urination.[4] When you have this condition, high blood glucose thickens the structures within your kidneys. According to Prevention and Hatipoglu, “About 7% of the time, you’ll already have protein leaking into your urine (an early sign of kidney problems) by the time you receive a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. About half of those who don’t take steps to control their diabetes will sustain kidney damage within 10 years and 40% will progress to kidney failure, which will require dialysis or a kidney transplant.”

Get ready for nerve damage

Gabbay explains, “At first you might have no symptoms or feel a mild tingling or numbness in your hands or feet, but eventually, neuropathy can cause pain, weakness, and digestive troubles as it strikes the nerves that control your gastrointestinal tract.” Neuropathy is nerve damage caused by high blood glucose. According to Prevention, about 7.5% of people already have it when they’re diagnosed with diabetes. If glucose levels are not checked regularly, this risk is heightened.

Save your feet

Because there may be damage to the nerves that work between your brain and lower body, your feet can be affected greatly. As your muscle tones become weaker, you may develop bunions, flat feet or other deformities that may cause ulcers, numbness and poor circulation.[5] An infection in your feet may even spread to the bone, warranting about 73,000 lower-limb amputations per year, says Gabbay. This is why, while suffering from diabetes, it’s important to take care of your feet.

Your Heart health will decline

High blood sugar can directly affect your cardiovascular health – from your veins to the muscles of your heart. Hatipoglu says, “Anyone with diabetes has nearly double the risk of heart attack, and their risk of stroke quadruples. Heart attack is the number one killer in diabetics.”

An earlier death

A recent study published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) has concluded that women with type 1 diabetes can expect to live 13 years less than people without the disease. Diabetes ranks as the 7^th leaving cause of death, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Sources:

[1] http://www.prevention.com/health/what-happens-when-you-dont-treat-diabetes
[2] http://www.prevention.com/health/what-happens-when-you-dont-treat-diabetes
[3] http://www.prevention.com/health/what-happens-when-you-dont-treat-diabetes
[4] http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/function-kidneys
[5] http://www.prevention.com/health/what-happens-when-you-dont-treat-diabetes