Debunking the Misconceptions of Diabetes

The facts are out there, yet the myths persist. It’s important to know how to truly care for yourself if you have this disease.

With a staggering number of misconceptions about diabetes, it’s hard to know the truth. Some people believe that being obese or eating a lot of sugar causes diabetes. Both are false.

Another popular myth is that if you have diabetes, you need to be on a special diet. While there’s some truth to that, it’s not 100-percent accurate. People with diabetes, like the rest of us, benefit by eating whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and by limiting sugar and fat.

“One of the most important untruths is believing diabetes is not a serious disease,” said Deb Cate-Brown, RN, certified diabetes educator and consultant at Dario, a software company in the medical tech field.

While diabetes causes more deaths a year than breast cancer and AIDS combined, Cate-Brown said, “on the positive side, diabetes can be managed so you can live a healthy life and by taking good care of yourself you can reduce your risk of developing complications associated with diabetes.”

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Following are more myths and facts on how to stay healthy if you have diabetes:

Myth: Diabetes doesn’t have any symptoms. Fact: Both types of diabetes — type 1 and type 2 — share some of the same symptoms. “People with both forms of diabetes have excessive thirst, frequent urination, and weight loss,” Cate-Brown said. “Type 2 symptoms are a bit harder to detect. People with type 2 might think that they don’t have diabetes because they confuse symptoms of being fatigued as a symptom of getting older.”

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