Stampede of Diabetes as U.S. Races to Obesity
Many people seem to think they don’t have to worry about a preventable disease that does not, at the outset at least, have serious consequences and that can be treated.
One such disease was long called adult-onset diabetes. There are two things wrong here: first, this disease does indeed have very serious consequences despite the availability of numerous drug therapies, and second, it is no longer an ailment that occurs almost exclusively in adults.
And so the name has been changed to Type 2 diabetes to distinguish it from the far less common kind of diabetes (Type 1) that nearly always starts in childhood or adolescence and has a different origin. Because so many Americans eat too much and move too little, the nation is now in the throes of an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes that has spilled over into the childhood years.
Diabetes is a disorder of blood sugar regulation. In both types glucose builds up in the blood to damaging levels and spills into the urine. You may hear people with diabetes say they “have sugar” or “sugar disease.” Specialized cells in the pancreas produce the hormone insulin that has the job of moving the blood glucose into cells where it can be used for energy or stored to meet future energy needs.
In Type 1 diabetes, a form of autoimmune disease, these cells fail to produce adequate amounts of insulin. But in Type 2 diabetes, although the body typically produces enough insulin at first, body cells are resistant to its action. As blood glucose levels rise, the pancreas is forced to work overtime to produce even more insulin. Eventually the pancreatic cells may wear out, causing an insufficiency of insulin that resembles Type 1 diabetes.
We as a society need to aggressively address this epidemic. We need to make exercise easy, safe and inexpensive. We need to all learn how to eat less and better. We must make personal committments to care for our bodies. And it will not be easy!
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1 Response to A good article on Type II Diabetes Mellitus
Living with Diabetes
December 23rd, 2003 at 8:15 am
Good article on Type II
Good article on Type II And to add to DB’s suggestions: When diagnosed, the patient and the doctor need to get serious about the treatment!…