Читать книгу Diabetes For Dummies - Рубин Алан Л. - Страница 8

In This Chapter

▶ Seeing how glucose works in the body

▶ Identifying chronic high blood glucose with the hemoglobin A1c

▶ Reviewing the warning signs of prediabetes

▶ Testing for diabetes

▶ Getting to know actual patients and their stories

The Greeks and Romans knew about diabetes. The way they tested for the condition was – prepare yourself – by tasting people’s urine. In this way, the Romans discovered that the urine of certain people was mellitus, the Latin word for sweet. (They got their honey from the island of Malta, which they called Mellita.) In addition, the Greeks noticed that when people with sweet urine drank, the fluids came out in the urine almost as fast as they went in the mouth, like a siphon. The Greek word for siphon is diabetes. Thus we have the origins of the modern name for the disease, diabetes mellitus.

In this chapter, I cover some not-so-fun stuff about diabetes – the big words, the definitions, and so on. If you really want to understand what’s happening to your body when you have diabetes – and I know I would – then you won’t want to skip this chapter.