Foregoing your favorite slice of Valrhona chocolate cake for dessert or having to check the sugar content of that scoop of ice cream is unimaginable for most of us, but that's routine for about 2.5 million Filipinos plagued with diabetes today. Diabetes Mellitus, as it is also known, is one of the top 10 killer diseases of Filipinos.

This disease is often associated with men and women in their 50s, but the results of data provided by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute show that the likelihood of developing diabetes increases as one ages. Blood sugar levels, particularly fasting blood glucose, which measures the body’s ability to balance out levels of sugar, rise to 5.7 percent among those in their 40s, from 4 percent in those in their 20s.

Browse through the gallery to learn more about this illness.

(First published as “A Sticky, ‘Sweet’ Situation” in the "Healthy Dose" section of Women’s Health Philippines' July 2010 issue. Adapted for use in Female Network. Photo by Karen Barefoot via sxc.hu)