Women

Diabetes poses a serious threat to developing countries like Bangladesh. Despite advances in diabetes treatment, management and self-care, women with diabetes in rural Bangladesh are rarely able to enjoy the fruits of this progress.

Post-menopausal women with diabetes derive similar benefits from hormone replacement therapies as women without diabetes. Despite this, women with diabetes represent the group with the lowest frequency of hormone replacement therapy use. This is a result of much scientific controversy about the risks and benefits of this therapy.

Diabetic retinopathy is a disease of the small blood vessels of the retina, which is the lining of the back of the eye that senses light. Several factors contribute to the progression of this complication of diabetes: poor metabolic control, rapidly improved metabolic control, long duration of diabetes, high blood pressure and pregnancy. Pregnancy-induced progression of diabetic retinopathy can be sight-threatening.

While pre-menopausal women without diabetes are protected from cardiovascular disease (CVD), women with diabetes lose the protective effect of female sex hormones. Consequently, CVD is the leading cause of death and disability in women with diabetes. However, by knowing and controlling the risk factors for CVD, one can do much to prevent or delay its development—even in this high-risk group.

We, women with diabetes have known it for as long as we have been women with diabetes: our problems associated with sexual function are a result of our moods, our sense of self, our body image, our psychological state, as well as our degree of control over our lives and our diabetes. At last the scientific literature has caught up with us.

There are no contraceptive methods that are specifically contraindicated in women with diabetes. Given the increased risks associated with unplanned pregnancy, methods with proven high degrees of effectiveness are to be preferred. The most important medical factor which affects the choice of contraception is the presence of vascular complications. For this reason women with diabetes should be evaluated by a physician before making their contraceptive choices. Contraceptive counselling should be an integrated part of care for all women with diabetes of childbearing age.

The metabolic control of diabetes tends to deteriorate during the adolescent years, and this deterioration is more pronounced in teenage girls than boys. Efforts to achieve and maintain excellent blood glucose control are more difficult and less successful in adolescents than in adults. This suggests that the teenage years are a highly vulnerable period for girls with Type 1 diabetes, a time when the risk for the later development of diabetes-related complications may become accelerated.

Any girl will be able to tell you that life as a teenager comes with its own challenges. Mix these challenges with diabetes and you have a cocktail of perplexing bewilderment and confusion at times! These three testimonies from South Africa show that diabetes in the teenage years can be scary, but ultimately can make you a stronger person.

Gestational diabetes is diabetes which is diagnosed when a woman is pregnant. It may have been there before pregnancy without her knowing it, or it may have been brought about by the pregnancy itself. Either way, the woman needs to be as well informed about it as possible, as it can affect both her baby and herself on the short and long term.

Being a woman and having diabetes can mean double discrimination for women all over the world. Even more so in many developing countries, where women, whether they have diabetes or not, still have to fight harder than ever to achieve equal rights and equal opportunities. This article, however, will not offer a helpless victim's point of view.