Diabetes' Risk Factors Alters Lives

Commentary Editor

   Diabetes or any disease changes the way you look at activities, food and how to balance life and care for a medical condition. Knowing you may get or even have a disease that effect you in ways such as losing your sight, a toe or limb to amputation, nervous system damage and any other outcome, can determine how you live and look at the world around you.

   Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or use insulin properly. Insulin, a needed hormone, converts sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life. No one knows what causes diabetes, but genetics and environmental factors such as obesity and lack of exercise play a role. The effects of diabetes can lead to serious complications and early death, but by taking a few steps to control the disease and lower the risk of complications - it can be controlled.

   This chronic disease affects an estimated 23.6 million children and adults in the United States, about 7.8 percent of the population.  An estimated 17.9 million people have been diagnosed and 5.7 million people are unaware they have this disease. 57 million people have pre-diabetes in addition to the 23.6 million.

   Why is this important to know?

   According to the American Diabetes Association, Diabetes is the fifth deadliest disease in the United States.  Also, one in three Americans and 1 in 2 minorities, born in 2000, will develop diabetes in their lifetimes. Approximately 4, 110 people are diagnosed with diabetes and in 2005; 1.5 million in people age 20 or older were diagnosed.

   Diabetes takes a “dangerous toll” on a person who has it or who may not become aware of the disease until another serious and life-threatening condition develops including; heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney disease, nervous system damage, amputations, dental disease, pregnancy complications, sexual dysfunction and others conditions.

   Diabetes present itself in four major types: type 1, type 2, gestational and pre-diabetes. Other types of diabetes result from specific genetic conditions (such as maturity-onset diabetes of youth), surgery, drugs, malnutrition, infections and other illnesses. Of all the diagnosed case, the other types of diabetes account for one percent to five percent.

   Type 1  occurs when the body’s fails to produce insulin, the hormone that “unlocks” the cells of the body allowing glucose to enter and fuel them. This form usually strikes children or young adults, and can occur at any age. Risk factors may be autoimmune (T-cells that attack the body), genetic or environmental. This type accounts for 5 percent to 10 percent of diagnosed cases.

   Type 2 accounts for about 90 percent to 95 percent of all diagnosed cases and usually begins as insulin resistance, a disorder in which cells do not use insulin properly.  According the American Diabetes Association, Type 2 diabetes is associated with older age, family history of diabetes, history of gestational diabetes, impaired glucose metabolism, physical inactivity and race or ethnicity. Blacks, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, some Asian Americans and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander have a particularly high risk for type 2 diabetes and its complications.

   Gestational Diabetes occurs in some pregnant woman as a form of glucose intolerance. It occurs more frequently among African Americans, Hispanic Americans and American Indians and more common with obese women and women with a family history of diabetes. After pregnancy five percent to 10 percent of women with gestational diabetes discover they have type 2 diabetes and women who have gestational diabetes have a 40 percent to 60 percent chance of developing diabetes in the next 5 to 10 years.

   Pre-diabetes describes the condition that raises the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. People with this condition have blood glucose levels higher than normal, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes.

   Diabetes also affects your wallet, time and work as well as your health with the direct cost of care and indirect cost of missing work, reduced performance and productivity and disease-related unemployment disability. The total annual economic cost in 2007 estimated to be $174 billion.

   The human body provides warning signs when something is wrong. Several signs of type 1 diabetes include:

• Frequent urination
• Unusual thirst
• Extreme hunger
• Unusual weight loss
• Extreme fatigue
• Irritability

Type 2 includes:

• Any of the type 1 symptoms
• Frequent infections
• Blurred vision
• Cuts/bruises that are slow to heal
• Tingling/numbness in the hands or feet
• Recurring skin, gum or bladder infections
• Often people with type 2 do not have symptoms

   Treatments vary among the different types.

   Even if you do not have diabetes now, any factor might change a diabetes-free life from not having to take medicine, give yourself shots or watching with great care what you eat and drink to one when you have to.

   In my own family, I have seven members who have either type 1 or type 2 diabetes. My uncles and my grandmother lost toes and a foot to complications of this disease. I know if I am not careful, I might develop it, too. Those at greater risk for type 1 consist of sibling of people and children of parents with type 1. I am at risk for type 2 because of family history of diabetes and being overweight.

   For those who know of a family member with this disease or have any risk factors, you may be at risk to develop this as well. A person needs to have a good diet and exercise to be healthy as a diabetic and a non-diabetic.

   For more information please go to the American Diabetes Association’s Web Site. If you think you may be at risk, the American Diabetes Association provides a diabetes risk calculator to determine if you do.

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