"Three More, One Less" is a common pre-diagnostic guideline used by most of the healthcare professionals in Asia to tell if someone is having diabetes or not.
The three More are: More Thirst, More Urination, More Hunger, and the Less is referring to the Loss of Weight.
More Thirst This is the very first pre-symptom, the patient feels thirsty frequently and the water he drinks does not seem to be able to quench the thirst.
This happens because of the dehydration of body cells due to high osmotic pressure resulted by the high glucose concentration that "sucks" the water out from the intercellular and intracellular fluids into the blood.
And when the cells are dehydrated, it will send out the thirst signals to the brain so that the master can pour in more water.
More Urination One may think that this frequent rate of urination is the result of the excessive water drunk by the diabetic patient.
Not really.
Even if the patient does not increase the amount of water he drinks, he will still have the frequent urge to pee.
This is because those unusable free glucoses in the blood will force the kidney to work extra hard to pump them out from the bloodstream in order to prevent the body organs from being damaged by the glucose deposits.
When the re-absorption of glucose in the kidney nephrons is reduced, the concentration of glucose in the urine tubules increases.
In order to flush out these accumulated sugars in the tubules, more water is "pulled" from the blood vessels.
When the blood loses water content, it will need to rob it back from other parts of the body, and this will further contribute to the thirstiness.
More Hunger Most diabetic patients complain that they feel tired and sleepy most of the time and they feel hungry very often.
Many people thought this happens because they do not have enough carbohydrate or sugar in their diet as advised by the doctors.
Well, even if they eat a healthy portion of carbohydrate meal, they will still feel tired and hungry soon.
Actually, the root of this symptom is because the body cells cannot make use of the glucose to produce energy.
This could happen due to lack of insulin (Type 1 Diabetes) or insulin resistance (Type 2 Diabetes).
Either way, the body just cannot get any energy from the food you eat.
Whatever you eat will be wasted into the toilet bowl through your sweet pee.
Less (Lost) Weight We the immediate source of energy which is the glucose consumed through the mouth cannot be used to generate energy, this makes the body condition is just like fasting.
Beside constantly sending out the hungry signals, the body will activate another source of energy, Lipolysis, which is the breaking down of lipids or body fat.
Lipolysis happens through the ketosis process in the liver.
Fat is broken down into fatty acids and ketone which can be used by the body for energy.
Continuous lipolysis will result in a drastic loss of weight and this is the beginning of other more serious health complications.
If you are experiencing the 3 More symptoms now, I strong advice you to seek professional medical treatment to prevent your diabetes condition from getting worse.
Change your diet and exercise more often before your condition worsen into the Less Weight stage.