The End of Diabetes

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The End of Diabetes

Introduction

Type II diabetes is also called adult-onset diabetes as the onset usually used to take place after the age of 40. Unfortunately, due to life style changes over the last few decades, many more people are developing Type II diabetes at a younger age. There always were sonic people presenting with Type II diabetes early in adulthood, but these were the exception rather than the norm. Many years before the development of Type II diabetes, individuals usually become overweight (Nieswiadomy, 2002). This leads to insulin becoming less effective (insulin resistance') meaning that people with this condition have to produce more and more insulin to control their blood sugar. Eventually, the pancreas can no longer produce enough insulin and blood sugars begin to rise. This is the point at which Type II diabetes occurs. The best way to improve blood sugar levels in the early stages is by diet and exercise. Though, there is a trend for people to be treated with tablets straight after diagnosis. After 5-10 years, the body's ability to produce insulin will tail off so that insulin injections are required. (American Diabetes Association, 2010)

Background

Diabetes mellitus, usually referred to simply as “diabetes”, has been known to mankind since ancient times. Diabetes mean “flowing though” and mellitus means “sweet as honey”, referring of course to the high volume of urine laden with sugar found in uncontrolled diabetes. Diabetes used to be described like either “insulin department” (IDDM) or non-insulin dependent (NIDDM). Nowadays, those are more likely to hear the terms “Type I diabetes” and “Type II diabetes”. Egyptian hieroglyphic findings from 1550 BC illustrate the symptoms of diabetes. Some people believe that the diabetes depicted was Type II and that type 1 diabetes is a relatively new disease, appearing within the last two centuries. In the past diabetes was diagnosed by tasting the urine, no effective treatment was available. Before insulin was discovered, Type I diabetes always resulted in death, usually quite quickly.

Why Type II

Type II diabetes is a condition which results from increased requirements of insulin at a time when, the beta cells are no longer able to produce adequate supplies of this hormone. Thus, Type II diabetes is caused by insulin deficiency in the face of insulin resistance. This makes the insulin that is available less effective and puts extra demands on the pancreas at a time when it is failing. This lack of insulin leads to an increase in the lasting glucose. However, the insulin resistance is usually more obvious when the beta cells are stretched to produce enough insulin to cover a meal. Thus, blood glucose levels rise high after food and rake many hours to return to baseline levels (Nieswiadomy, 2002).

Then, while Type I diabetes are a 'deficiency disease' in which the hormone insulin is missing, people with Type II diabetes often have reasonable levels of insulin, but nor enough to overcome the insulin resistance. So the blood sugar may be slightly high when tasting but tends to rise ...