What Are the Dangers of High Blood Sugar Levels?

When your blood sugar levels are too high, dangerous complications can develop in your body. Though you may not notice them for years, they do show up eventually, and the results can be devastating for you and your family. Your body reacts differently to medical conditions, treatment, and medication, and the aging process moves faster when your blood sugar isn't under control. A lifestyle that keeps blood sugar levels even can help you avoid the dangers of high blood sugar in your body.

Heart Disease and Stroke

• Heart disease and stroke kill 65% of people with high blood sugar. High blood sugar can increase the amount of fat in your blood, causing arteries that provide your heart with blood, oxygen, and nutrients to become blocked. You're more likely to develop conditions that cause heart disease and stroke, like high blood pressure and cholesterol. High blood sugar levels can stop blood flow to tissues by making your body form blood clots. When the blood supply to your heart and brain is blocked, stroke and heart disease can occur.

Nerve and Blood Vessel Damage

• Nerve damage affects up to 70% of people with high blood sugar, causing pain or loss of feeling in hands, arms, feet, and legs that can result in loss of limbs. Damage to small blood vessels can affect your eyes, kidneys, legs and feet while damage to the arteries affects your heart and can cause stroke.

Blindness and Kidney Disease

• High blood sugar is the leading cause of blindness in adults. Vision problems caused by high blood sugar include damage to blood vessels in the retina, cataracts that cloud eye lenses, and glaucoma that creates too much pressure in the eye and causes loss of vision. Kidneys are damaged when blood vessels stop working properly and waste that is usually removed by kidneys builds up toxins in the body.

Pregnancy

• High blood sugar during pregnancy can cause babies to become too large to deliver naturally. It can also cause birth defects and miscarriage.

HHNS and Ketoacidosis

• Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic nonketotic Syndrome (HHNS) is a disorder that occurs in older adults with high blood sugar caused by illness, infection, or uncontrolled diabetes. You can become dehydrated, develop seizures, and go into a coma if you don't get emergency treatment right away.Ketoacidosis occurs when your body doesn't have enough insulin to use sugar for energy. Your blood sugar rises and your body breaks down fat to use as energy. This process causes toxic acids called ketones to form, which can lead to coma and death if left untreated.