Type 2 Diabetes According to Good Old-Fashion Research

Did you know that about 6% of the world suffer from type 2 diabetes? That is the equivalent of 400 million people, which one third of Africa's population. When you hear the word diabetes what comes to mind? It is an umbrella word for when insulin isn't produced by the pancreas, or when the body is unable o use the insulin it produces.

Insulin is a hormone in the body that regulates blood glucose or as it is known blood sugar in the blood. This glucose is derived from the food we eat and glucose is a type of sugar, and it is the job of insulin to see that these sugar gets into cells and not stay in the blood. The inability for insulin to unlock the cells allowing for glucose to enter them would lead to hyperglycemia which can result in the damage of many systems in the body not leaving the blood vessels and the nerves out.

^Flickr

With Diabetes, it can be type 1 or 2, Gestational Diabetes, and neonatal diabetes. With type 1 diabetes regarded as an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the pancreas thereby not causing it to release insulin but for type 2 diabetes which is often discovered later in life, it has to do with the body not being able to process energy as the pancreas is making insulin but the cells are not allowing glucose in efficiently and this is known as insulin resistence.

Talking about gestational diabetes, you would have assumed that it has to do with pregnancy, and you are right. With gestational diabetes, the woman develops hyperglycemia temporarily during pregnancy. Neonatal diabetes on its own is a rare condition where genetic mutation in infants affects the production of insulin as well its function before the child reaches 6 months of age.

With type 2 diabetes, there is something known as prediabetes which came into light in the 1970s as a period between the transition from normal blood sugar level to when a person suffers type 2 diabetes but then it is still not clear what prediabetes but then if you are told in the hospital, then be sure that it is an early stage before you are diagnosed with diabetes and you should begin treatment immediately and begin to make changes to diet and physical activity in the preventive measure to take against its progression.

^needpix

Scientific studies are saying that there are chances that type 2 diabetes are auto immune where genetic mutation can affect different genes also affecting different functions in the insulin and cell absorption pathways. When people suffer from type two diabetes, the pancreas first starts to release more insulin so they can have effect on the blood sugar level in the blood but then, the cells do not allow for the sugar to get in. After a while the pancreas stops releasing insulin and this begins to cause more effect in the body leading to consequences such as vision problems, kidney failure, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, increased incidence of heart attack, increased incidence of stroke, and high risk of lower limb amputation.

With type two diabetes, walls of vascular systems are weakened as a result of inflammation and plaque buildup leading to tears in capillaries, and hemorrhages in blood vessels. Over time Type 2 diabetes leads to liver damage as a result of over working the liver with irregular glucose storage and release. It also damages nerve cells and that is why people with type 2 diabetes experience tingling and numbness.

The kidney is not excused as it would be required to work overtime as excess blood sugar would mean the kidney needs to work harder to filter water from the mixture and that is why there is increased thirst and frequent urination in people with type 2 diabetes. The excessive overload of the kidney in patients with type two diabetes is why 1 in 3 person who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are also diagnosed with chronic kidney disease.

While those with increased weight have a high risk of type 2 diabetes, weight doesn't predict individual risk as you cannot assume that a person with increased weight will most likely have diabetes. Anyways, without a doctor measuring the Hemoglobin A1C level, you cannot just say a person is diabetic since it is a gene linked to sugar in the blood. If a person is going to prevent or manage type two diabetes, they need to eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and complex carbohydrate paired with fiber as well healthy fats.

Treatments doctors always prescribe to pre-diabetic patients first is Metformin which insulin signaling, causing cells to take the glucose in. Another drug that's prescribed is Semaglutide, I mean that popular drug you know as Ozempic which increase insulin production and slowing digestion process. Currently, there is no cure for type 2 diabetes but with drugs and life changes, remission is possible.

---

---

^Reference

---

---

^{https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/45/Supplement_1/S17/138925/2-Classification-and-Diagnosis-of-Diabetes
https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/basics/insulin-resistance.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK378978/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4219937/
https://idf.org/about-diabetes/diabetes-facts-figures/
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/what-is-diabetes/prediabetes-insulin-resistance
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2020.540718/full
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/what-is-diabetes/gestational
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7903505/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868511/
https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/features/diabetes_immune_system.html
https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/managing-blood-sugar/a1c.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7212476/
https://reference.medscape.com/drug/ozempic-rybelsus-wegovy-semaglutide-1000174}