Long-term complications -

Long-term complications

Type 2 diabetes affects different people in different ways. There are many potential complications of poorly controlled diabetes, affecting many different organs of the body. These can sometimes lead to serious long-term health problems.

The one thing that is true for everybody with diabetes is that the better they control their blood sugar, blood pressure and blood fats, the lower will be their risk of suffering these complications.

The risk of developing complications increases if pre-meal blood glucose is above 6.0 mmol/l. You can help reduce your risk of complications if your HbA1c is below 6.5%, although values up to 7.5% are still acceptable.

Which parts of the body might be affected?

If your blood sugar is frequently higher than your target range, you will be at an increased risk of developing heart and circulatory diseases.

If you smoke, have high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels, your risks are increased even further.

Damage to small blood vessels can cause complications in other parts of your body including:

Kidneys
Nerves
Feet
Eyes
Teeth and gums.

Damage to the nerves, in turn, can cause other complications. It is therefore important to control your blood sugar and address all other risk factors in order to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible.