Genetic Origins and Interventions of Insulin-Depen

dant Diabetes MellitDiabetes
Diabetes is a disorder of metabolism-the way in which your body converts the
food you eat into energy. Most of the food you eat is broken down by
digestive juices into chemicals, including a simple sugar called glucose.
Glucose is your body's main source of energy.

After digestion, glucose
passes into your bloodstream, where it is available for cells to take in and
use or store for later use.
In order for your cells to take in glucose, a hormone called insulin must be
present in your blood. Insulin acts as a "key" that unlocks "doors" on cell
surfaces to allow glucose to enter the cells. Insulin is produced by special
cells (called islet cells) in an organ called the pancreas, which is about 6
inches long and lies behind your stomach.
In healthy people, the pancreas automatically produces the right amount of
insulin to enable glucose to enter cells. In people who have diabetes, cells
do not respond to the effects of the insulin that the pancreas produces.

If
glucose cannot get inside cells, it builds up in the bloodstream. The
buildup of glucose in the blood-sometimes referred to as high blood sugar or
hyperglycemia (which means "too much glucose in the blood")-is the hallmark
of diabetes.
When the glucose level in your blood goes above a certain level, the excess
glucose flows out from the kidneys (two organs that filter wastes from the
bloodstream) into the urine. The glucose takes water with it, which causes
you to urinate frequently and to become extremely thirsty. These two
conditions-frequent urination and unusual thirst-are usually the first
noticeable signs of diabetes.

Another symptom you may notice is weight loss,
which results from the loss of calories and water in your urine.
The path toward type 2 diabetes
http://www.ama-assn.org/insight/spec_con/diabetes/diabete2.htm#What
As you gain weight, the extra weight causes your cells to become resistant to
the effects of insulin. The pancreas responds by producing more and more
insulin, which eventually begins to build up in your blood.

High levels of
insulin in the blood-a condition called insulin resistance-may cause problems
such as high blood pressure and harmful changes in the levels of different
fats (cholesterol) in your blood. Insulin resistance, the hallmark of what
doctors sometimes refer to as "syndrome X," is the first step on the path to
type 2 diabetes.
The second step to type 2 diabetes is a condition called impaired glucose
tolerance. Impaired glucose tolerance occurs when your pancreas becomes
exhausted and can no longer produce enough insulin to get glucose out of your
bloodstream into cells. Glucose begins to build up in your blood. If it is
not diagnosed and not treated, this gradual rise in glucose often leads to
type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease-in any order and in
any combination.

While all these harmful activities are going on inside your body, you feel
perfectly fine. Type 2 diabetes is considered a silent disease because it
works its destruction over many years without causing any noticeable
symptoms. That's why half of the people who have type 2 diabetes don't know
it. You or someone you love could have diabetes.

The good news is that you may be able to avoid type 2 diabetes altogether.
This article will help you understand the disease, learn about your chances
of developing it, and tell you what you can do to try to prevent it. Many
people are able to avoid diabetes by making changes in their lifestyle such
as eating less and exercising more.
Diabetes Statistics http://www.

diabetesroadmap.com/
Over 15.7 million people (5.9% of the population) have diabetes and almost
half of them do not know it.

And, each day more than 2,200 people are
diagnosed with diabetes.Diabetes is responsible for more than 180,000 deaths each year in the USA. Diabetes is one of the most costly health care problems in America. Health
care costs directly related to diabetes treatment, as well as the cost of
lost productivity, runs $98 billion annually! 14% of all health care costs
are caused by diabetes and 27% of Medicare's budget is spent treating seniors
with diabetes. 40-45% of persons age 65 or older have Type 2 Diabetes or
Impaired Glucose Tolerance.

Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness in people 20-74; the
leading cause of end-stage renal disease; and people with diabetes are 4
times more likely to have heart disease, 2-4 times more likely to suffer a
stroke, and is responsible for over 56,000 amputations each year. African, Hispanic, Asian, and Native Americans are 2 to 4 times more likely
to have Type 2 Diabetes.People with diabetes, especially the newly diagnosed, must make life style
changes. It is traumatic for them, their spouse, family and friends.
For the first time, a comprehensive one-source video that shows people with
Type 2 diabetes how to live with their disease and make necessary changes in
their lifestyles.

The viewer actually has virtual consultations with eight
highly experienced doctors, a Certified Diabetes Educator/Diabetes Clinical
Nurse Specialist and a Certified Diabetes Dietitian.Diabetes is a serious lifelong medical condition that requires knowledge,
support, motivation and a change in lifestyles. Self-management is the key
to good diabetes care and this video teaches the viewer step by step how to
make changes to live a longer and healthier life.The 60-minute video is broken into 18 different diabetes topics with the
intention of using it as reference when the viewer needs to refresh their
memory.

For instance, if the person with diabetes gets up one morning and is
coming down with the flu, they put the VHS cassette in the player and fast
forward to section 10, "Sick Day Guidelines".The video does not have actors, only professional medical people. There are
no testimonials and the video does not promote any pharmaceutical company or
any specific medications. The producers of the video are dedicated to
updating this video at least twice a year so that it will always be current. Medical host for this video, Dr. Douglas Walsh, is a family physician who
implores the viewer to share the video with their spouse and family since
heredity plays such a big role in diabetes.

Walsh points out that African,
Hispanic, Asian and Native born Americans stand a greater risk of having
diabetes.
DIABETES Diabetes is a chronic illness but it is not fatal. A chronic
illness is classified as an illness with no cure and has symptoms that
persist over a long period of time. Diabetes is not a fatal illness, except
in a few rare and severe cases.

It is one of the most common chronic
illnesses that a person can get. About 16 million Americans have diabetes
and diabetes is most common in Hispanics and native Americans. About 5%
(800,000) have type I which only occurs in young people. People with type I
diabetes develop it between the ages of nine and thirty. Diabetes is a
condition in which the body is unable to process sugars and starches
(carbo's) into glucose, the bodies main source of energy. The disease
develops when specific cells in the pancreas are unable to produce a hormone
called insulin or when the body uses insulin in the wrong way.

The beta
cells in the pancreas produce insulin. Type I diabetes is insulin dependent.
10% of people who have diabetes has type I. This type is often called
juvenile diabetes because it develops during childhood or adolescence.
People with type I have to take insulin on a daily basis. The insulin is
injected beneath the skin into the tissue.

Without the insulin, the body
will not be able to function correctly. Type II, also called adult onset
diabetes, is the most common form of diabetes. About 80%-90% of Americans
that have this chronic illness develops this type, and the majority of them
develop this disease after the age of forty. In type II, the pancreas still
develops insulin, but either the pancreas just doesn't produce enough of that
specific hormone, or the body does not use it in an effective and efficient
way.

The doctors believe there are some things that might cause diabetes but
no one actually knows what causes diabetes but these of course are educated
guesses. They are viruses, autoimmune disorder, genetics, and stress. Some
of the most common symptoms of stress are excessive thirst and hunger,
excessive urination, exhaustion, and also flu and cold like symptoms.
Diabetes can even cause other diseases because of the fluctuation of the
glucose and some of those are neuropathy, cardiovascular disease,
retinopathy, and nephropathy. The best treatments for diabetes are insulin
injections, dieting, and exercise.

Some of the confusing parts of diabetes
are that there are three types of insulin and those are rapid or regular
acting insulin, intermediate acting insulin, and long acting insulin. The
insulin is measured in cubic centimeters and have three different strengths
which are 40 cc, 80cc, and 100 cc. The way that you get insulin in your body
is by injecting it. There are three different ways to inject which are jet
injectors, insulin pens, and insulin pumps. So as you can see, diabetes is
not a fatal disease but can be life threatening if not taken care of.

Remember that if might not have diabetes now but you never know what the
future holds.
http://www.netessays.net/cgi-bin/categories.pl?Science+D
Diabetes 2
Some people have a disease that requires them to take daily injections of
insulin. This disease is called diabetes, and cannot be cured.

But, what if
a non functioning pancreatic islet cells could be made to produce insulin
once again. That would cure diabetes. The possibility has set the diabetes
world excited over the past few months--ever since researchers at McGill
University in Canada and the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS)
successfully regenerated islet cells in diabetic hamsters. The researchers
used a mixture of proteins called Ilotropin to "turn on" nonfunctional islet
cells.

The treatment also caused new islet cells to grow where there had
been few or none. Since then, in a report in the May 1997 Journal of
Clinical Investigations, the researchers have identified the gene that
Ilotropin triggers, the one involved in regenerating the islet cells. If the
human version of the same gene could be turned on in similar fashion, type I
insulin dependent diabetics and type II's who inject insulin might have their
natural insulin-producing apparatus restored.
What is Diabetes? Well, this disease is known as "diabetes mellitus,"
diabetes from the Greek word meaning excessive urination, a symptom the
Greeks noticed, and mellitus, from the Latin for honey, which is because
diabetic urine is filled with sugar and is sweet. Physicians and medical
books use the term diabetes mellitus, but is the most commonly called
diabetes. There are two major types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2.

Both of
them are a little different. But everyone with diabetes has one thing in
common: Little or no ability to move sugar--or glucose--out of their blood
into their cells, where it is the body's primary fuel. Everyone has glucose
in their blood, whether or not they have diabetes. This glucose comes from
food.

When we eat, the digestive process breaks down carbohydrates into
glucose, which is absorbed into the blood in the small intestine.
To get insulin into the blood, do you have to inject it with a needle?
Yes, but hopefully not for too much longer. Two new studies show that an
experimental new inhaled insulin is at least as effective as injected
insulin. A no-injection method of insulin has been the most important study
for diabetes research for some time, because it would make blood glucose
control much easier. Insulin pills failed because acids in the stomach
destroy the pill.

Squirting insulin into the nose also proved no good
because of dosing problems and nasal irritation. But scientists now seem to
have hit on something that works, which is a fine powder inhaled by mouth
into the lungs, where it can be absorbed into the blood stream. The hormone
is administered with a flashlight-sized inhaler.
Does diabetes cause blindness? Sometimes is does, Compared with
non-diabetics, people with diabetes are four times more likely to become
blind. Among people who are legally blind, eight percent lost their vision
because of diabetes.

Each year, diabetes is the underlying cause of twelve
percent of new blindness diagnoses. Among new diagnoses of type 2 diabetes,
up to 21 percent show some degree of blindness. The most common type of eye
disease that diabetics get is retinopathy. Retinopathy is caused by damage
to the blood vessels that nourish the retinal nerves.

Just as poorly
controlled diabetes harms the major arteries, causing heart disease and
stroke, the disease also takes a major toll on the tiny blood vessels in the
retina. Diabetes also increase risk of cataracts, caused by clouding of the
lens of the eye, and glaucoma, caused by an increase in fluid pressure within
the eye that damages the optic nerve. In non-diabetic adults, less than 1
percent have glaucoma and 3 percent have cataracts. Among people with
diabetes, the figures are 7 percent that have glaucoma and 22 percent have
cataracts.

These conditions cause much of the vision impairment in people
diagnosed with diabetes over age 30 (type 2). Risk of both cataracts and
glaucoma increases with age. These conditions are another reason diabetics
should have annual eye exams. If cataracts become severe, the eye lens can
be replaced with an artificial lens.

If glaucoma develops, it can be treated
with medications that reduce the fluid pressure in the eye.