Dr. Anirban Biswas

Good afternoon everybody. I am Dr Anirban Biswas and I am a diabetologist, practising in South Delhi. Today we are going to discuss the screening and diagnosis of Prediabetes and Diabetes.

Most of my patients send me their reports and tell and that they have a fasting sugar of 128 and a PP sugar of 142, whether they are diabetic or not. So, by listening today's topic, you will be able to know whether you are a diabetic or not. Let me tell you first that diabetes is a deadly disease and as you all know that India is a diabetic capital of the whole world. Every 7th second, one person dies due to diabetes in this world. And it is a huge burden on us. And most of the diabetic care and treatment is born by the patients in India. On an average Rs, 10,000 per year is the annual cost of the treatment without any complication. So, it is a huge amount, hence, we need to find out whether we have diabetes or not.

So, the first thing is that whether you have diabetes or not. So, the first question is that if anybody can have diabetes? So the answer to this question is that, yes anyone can suffer from Diabetes. There are some symptoms of Diabetes, those are;

• Weight loss
• Lethargic
• Thirst
• Excessive urination

But often, diabetes is silent. It has been found out by various researchers that half of the population does not know that they are diabetic patients. Not only in India but also in the US. It is very important to find out that who are diabetic. It is a very simple way to find out whether you are diabetic, pre diabetic or have normal sugar level.

The value what I am going to tell you that how you get to know that you are diabetic.

• First thing is the fasting blood glucose. This can be done in any lab. So, you can go in the morning without taking any meal. One thing you need to remember that if your fasting blood glucose is less than 100 then it is normal. If your fasting blood glucose is between 100-126 mg then you are prediabetic. And if the fasting blood sugar is more than 126 then it means that you are a diabetic patient.
• The second way to know whether you are diabetic or not is the HBA1C. It is also known as Glycosylated Haemoglobin. Again it is a routine test which is done in all the labs. If the value of HBA1C is below 5.7 then you are non-diabetic, if the HBA1C level is between 5.7- 6.5 then you are prediabetic. And if the HBA1C level is above 6.5 then you are a diabetic patient.
• The other test is OSTT, which is done at a certain level when there is some amount of doubt. The Oral GTT test is by means 75 g of glucose is fed to you and the sugar is checked after 2 hours. So, after 2 hours of feeding the glucose, if the sugar level is less than 140 then you are normal. If the sugar level is between 140-200, then you are prediabetic, and if the value is more than 200 then you are diabetic.

Which individual should get screened for diabetic and pre diabetic?

Any individual above the age of 40 years. And from your weight and height, anybody can calculate the BMI ( Body Mass Index). If the BMI is more than 23 then you should go for screening even if your age is not 40+. If you have symptoms of Diabetes, or if any blood relative is having diabetes or is pre-diabetic should go for a checkup.

And last but not the least, who has a history of GDM i.e, Gestational Diabetes Mellitus which is very common in females throughout the whole world, after the pregnancy they should regularly get screened for diabetes. So these are the people who should get screened for Diabetes. And by getting a screen from Diabetes we can save ourselves from the complications of Diabetes.

Diabetes can cause so many complications, especially the cardiac and heart-related complications. You can have a stroke, heart attack, neuropathy, kidney failure, also you can have blindness or retinopathy, amputations i.e, your arm or leg can be cut because of diabetes.

So friends may be with this I can conclude that you have learnt something from my talk. And please remember that you should get yourself screen with diabetes. Next I will talk about the type of Diabetes.

If you want to consult me or have any query, You can contact me through Lybrate.

Here are some facts & Myths about Diabetes

Hello. Good Afternoon. I am Dr. Anirban Biswas. I am a diabetologist. I am practicing at Fortis Hospital. I want to discuss with you a few facts about Diabetes.

As you all know friends that diabetes is a leading cause of mobility in India. There are, basically, two types of diabetes; one is Type 1 Diabetes which is insulin dependent and usually occurs in small kids and children. The other one is Type 2 Diabetes which is mainly in adults and can be treated without the need of insulin. Now, first of all, we should focus what are the symptoms of diabetes. The symptoms of diabetes are weakness, lethargic, and you are not able to do your daily activity and second is that you are feeling irritable and disturbance in sleep, excessive thirst and hunger and frequent visits to the loo as you are not doing it earlier. You are having frequent breakages in you are sleep and you have to go to the toilet even at night time.

You may have non-healing ulcer, or skin infections which are not healing, you can also have other disturbances like visual disturbances and urinary infection or chest infection which is taking enough time to heal. All these symptoms can lead to diagnosis of diabetes and sudden loss of weight is also seen in few adults. So if you have diabetes, the best test to do is fasting and PP Sugar. Fasting sugar could be less than 110 and the PP sugar which is done after two hours of having your breakfast should be less than 140. If one of them is high then it is known as pre-diabetes then it is followed by a HbA1c test. HbA1c test is a glycosylated hemoglobin which tells us about the average blood sugar which is present in our body in the last three months. It should be less than 6 in case of a normal individual.

If it is more than that then you are either a pre-diabetic or diabetic. so, now coming to the treatment and modification part; the first thing that doctors advise is that insulin resistance is there so to break the insulin we have lose weight and for that we have to do regular exercise and control in our diet. The diet should be such that it should include all the course grain, milk, fruits, vegetables, sprouts and less of carbs, maida, processed food, fatty, oily should be avoided. The other focus should be on exercises as we all know that a 30 minute exercise and even 10000 steps everyday can reduce our insulin resistant drastically. If we can do all these things and it reduces our sugar then it is very well otherwise we have to take medicines and for that you have to visit any doctor.

The complications of diabetes basically it is known as diabetic triopathy. Diabetes is basically a vascular disease and has microvascular defects which causes disease in the retina, small vessels of the heart and brain and kidneys are involved and because this the patients weasel equity can go low and that is known as diabetic retinopathy. It is usually diagnosed by frequent eye checkups and the second disease which is known as chronic renal failure, for this also you have to go for the KFT test or even a better test is there which is known as microalbumin creatinine ratio and the third is diabetic neuropathy which is which causes pain and tinian sensation in the nerves. For this we have to take some medicines and vitamin B12 supplements along with diabetic supplements.

Thank you. If you have any query or you need to consut me then you can contact me through Lybrate. Thanks a lot.
 

Lybrate - Dr. Anirban Biswas talks about Thyroid Problems

Hello friends, I am Dr. Anirban Biswas. I am practicing diabetologist in Fortis C-Doc Hospital in New Delhi.

Today I am going to discuss with you about thyroid disease as you know thyroid disease is very common these days and most of the patients when they check their TSH is high, doctors suddenly declare that they have hypothyroidism. Now basically you have to understand what is thyroid disease? Thyroid is a disease which is a cause of a poor functioning of thyroid glands. It is a butterfly shaped organ which is located in our throat, basic function of a thyroid gland is to produce thyroid hormone and when thyroid hormone is deficient it is known as hypothyroidism. Basically the T4 and T3 are the active thyroid hormones.

TSH is a thyroid stimulating hormones which is not secreted by the thyroid gland but it is secreted by the pituitary gland. In response to the lesser secretion of thyroid, it is a feedback mechanism which is developed in our body. So whenever a patient has hypothyroidism, T3 and T4 levels are low or normal. TSH is high and it is compensating for the lack of the thyroid hormones. So this stage is known as sub-clinical hypothyroidism. And the symptoms of sub-clinical hypothyroidism is that patients may have sudden weight gain, patient may feel weak, lethargic, dryness of skin, patients may have other difficulty in managing their memory, routine activities, issues with their sexual and hormonal problems as well, heat and cold intolerance may also be there. So all these things are very common with thyroid patients, most of the patients come with the problem of weight and usually thyroid patients improve after substituting the thyroid hormone which is in the form of tablets.

Now a days, once a weekly tablets are also available for thyroid. Many of the doctors and patients don’t know but I have started once weekly which has a very good response and better come plans and I recommend the patients to take once weekly. Management of thyroid is easy but dose has to be titrated with frequent checkup of the thyroid function. And I am organizing thyroid checkup camps in my clinic on regular basis. The other problem of thyroid is hyperthyroidism which is the reverse of the hypothyroidism and in this, thyroid gland secretes the excessive thyroid hormone which causes the reverse action like weight loss, increases basal metabolism rate, eyes may start to protrude. These are the symptoms of hyperthyroidism. For this also, treatment is available.

Other things we should be careful about is that if we are having thyroid problem then we should avoid having too much of soya product and few vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli and we should take our medicine regularly.
If you have any queries regarding thyroid, you can please contact me through Lybrate.
Thank you.