ELI5. Why does recovery from an injury or cut, takes longer time for a person with high blood sugar than a normal person
In: 69
Non-enzymatic glycosylation from high concentrations of circulating blood glucose causes microvascular damage (tissue level), damage to normal cells and their extracellular matrices (cellular level), and causes up-regulation of inflammatory protein synthesis making it more difficult to recruit cells to maintain the healing process (molecular level). These all contribute to poor wound healing in diabetics.
5yo version:
In people with diabetes, the amount of sugar in their blood is much higher than in someone without diabetes. This extra sugar is more than their body can handle, so it sticks to the cells all by itself. Once this happens, the cells don’t work as well as they should, and it makes it a lot harder for those cells to ask for help from other cells to heal.
Source: MD
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