– Why does untreated diabetes cause parts of limbs to die?
In: Biology
It’s a cascade of events caused by high blood sugar.
Syrup is made by boiling some sugar in water until thick and sweet and tasty. Similarly, your blood becomes thicker when there’s too much sugar present.
Thick blood does not move as fast or easily through the tinier and tinier passage ways of your arms or your legs. As these smaller passages go unused they shrink and close up.
Without tiny passages for blood, the skin and muscles don’t receive the good parts of the blood: the nutrients and infection fighting cells. Also not getting blood is the cells that give you the sensation of touch and temperature. This is called numbness or neuropathy to be fancy.
So, say you step on a lego and it breaks the skin. The lego is covered in yuck and you get some of it into the sore on your foot. Because your foot is numb you don’t notice the sore immediately. Because the tiny passage ways are closed, the foot doesn’t have the good stuff to clean out the yuck. This sore has the chance to grow bigger and nastier, leading to a risk of losing a limb.
Latest Answers