The rising obesity in Americans correlates with the increase of the incidence of Type 2 diabetes. This finding by Ali H. Mokdad, PhD et al was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, in January 2001. Another study found in Springerlink.com, 1998, found that Type 2 diabetes, once a condition associated with middle age, afflicts children as well, specifically those of the Pima Indian tribe. These findings seem to contradict the belief that age determines who will get Type 2 diabetes .
Significance
No one can deny the importance of this serious condition and its impact on human life. The American Diabetes Association reports in its most recent National Diabetes Fact Sheet, 2007, that 23.6 million children and adults in the United States has some kind of diabetes. That figure represents 7.8 percent of the total American population. In addition, the diagnosis afflicts 1.6 million new people each year in people over 20 years old.
The numbers break down to 186,300 cases under age 20, 23.5 million in the 21-59 year old group and 24 million cases in the over 60 group. These numbers represent both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, however the cases of type 2 far outnumber type 1. Tufts EBCAM reports that according to their research the projected number of Americans that will have type II diabetes in the year 2050 will jump 165 percent from 11 million to 29 million cases.
Definition
The Type 2 diabetic develops a resistance to insulin sometime in his life. This means that his body makes insulin; unlike the Type 1 diabetic whose pancreas does not produce it. The Type 2 diabetic has overloaded his insulin cells with sugar for so long that they have gone into retirement and refuse to escort glucose into the body cells any longer. Another possibility suggests he has taken in so much sugar that the sugar molecules outnumber the available insulin molecules. Either way the unmetabolized sugar takes up residence in the bloodstream. When this happens, the corrosive nature of sugar irritates and degrades the blood vessel walls. Then, the complications begin by affecting the tiny vessels in the eyes, the nerves that run to the periphery of the body and the blood vessels to the heart.
Metabolic Syndrome
If an obese person has insulin resistance and also has high cholesterol and hypertension, she has "metabolic syndrome." According to Diabetes Journals, 2010, strong evidence exists that this syndrome predicts a future diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. Obesity and the development of these conditions come from the same source; lifestyle.
Attribution
As Americans becomes more obese and more sedentary, they run the risk of acquiring many serious illnesses according to Journal of American Medical Association, JAMA, 2001. Obesity knows no age, gender or educational level. In fact, in a study done with the Pima American Indian Children between 1967 and 1996, a high prevalence of Type 2 diabetes became evident. The highest numbers occurred among the obese children and these represented children over age 10, typically the age when children begin to gain and retain weight. Another report by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIDDK, 2008, reports that people can develop Type 2 diabetes at any age, even in childhood. The report then goes on to describe how insulin resistance develops and points out that the overuse of sugar causes it.
Prevalence
Other countries have had similar results in their quest to discover whom Type 2 diabetes affects. A report on the Wiley Online Library website reported this information. In a socioeconomic study involving Canadian men and women, those with the lowest education and lowest income had the highest number of cases of Type 2 diabetes. The U.S. National library of Medicine published another study done in Australia in 2010 that involved 6060 people over age 25. The objective of the study, to determine if a correlation existed between the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes and obesity and lifestyle, supported the link. The results showed that the obese, hypertensive and inactive Australians had a higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. To update our knowledge about whom gets Type 2 diabetes, instead of asking, "At what age does Type 2 diabetes occur?" researchers must ask, "Now that we know Type 2 diabetes can occur at any age, what other factors determine who gets it?" So far, evidence points to lifestyle as one of the factors.
References
- American Diabetes Association: Diabetes Statistics; 2007
- Diabetes Journal.org: Components of "Metabolic Syndrome" and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes; 2002
- JAMA: Prevalence of Obesity, Diabetes and Obesity-Related Health Risk Factors; 2001
- National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse: Am I at risk for diabetes type II?; 2010
- Wiley Online Library: Type II diabetes in Canada; 2010
