Diabetes Mellitus

Diabetes Mellitus

Diabetes is one of the commonest long term disorders and is a chronic

disease that has no cure. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of

death in the USA as it contributed to more than 187 thousand deaths in

1995. Diabetes affects approximately five percent of the United States

population, about 10-12 million people, of those half remain

undiagnosed. It is also noted that different races tend to have

different rates of diabetes, as from the table below you can see that

cases of diabetes are high in Puerto Ricans.

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Diabetes is considered a group of disorders with multiple causes,

rather than a single disorder. However, when people talk about

diabetes they are usually referring to diabetes mellitus, meaning

sweet fountain. Diabetes Mellitus should not be confused with Diabetes

Insipidus, meaning dilute fountain. Which is a much rarer and quite

different condition.

Diabetes, or diabetes mellitus, is a disorder in which there is too

much sugar in the blood stream. Normally the food that we eat is

broken down by a series of enzymes and acids in our intestines. If the

food is rich in carbohydrate then the breakdown products will include

sugar, which eventually will end up in our bloodstream. Sugar provides

us with energy and we all have a certain amount of it circulating at

any one time. The sugar that we do not need for instant energy is

stored in the liver. If too much sugar is already stored there and

fresh supplies are continuing to pour in, the excess will be stored as

fat deposits. The amount of sugar allowed into the bloodstream at any

one time is regulated by a hormone called insulin which is...

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... & Wagnall's

Corporation.

Ann Fullick, Advanced Biology, Oxford, Heinemann Educational

publishers, 1994.

Dr Vernon Coleman, Everything you need to know about diabetes, London,

Severn House, 1985.

Dr R.D.G. Leslie, Family Doctor Guides (Diabetes), England, Equation

publishers,1989.

The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15 edition, volume 3, Helen

Hemingway Benton, London, 1974.

Magazine reference:

Living with diabetes: balance a lifestyle, Jan/Feb. 1998, Issue no

161, Editor Maggie Gibbons.

Living with diabetes: balance a lifestyle, May/June 1998, Issue no

163, Editor John Isitt

Internet Addresses: http://www.diabetes.org/ada/c20f.html

http://www.endocrinologist.com/insulin.htm

http://www.endocrinologist.com/herbs.html

http://www.joslin.org/education/library/exercise_health.html