Type 2 Diabetes

What is Type 2 Diabetes?

Diabetes is the disease in which blood glucose levels rise above normal. Anyone with diabetes has problems converting food to energy. After eating, food is broken down into a sugar called glucose. The glucose is carried by the blood to cells throughout the body. In order to help cells process blood glucose into energy, they require the hormone insulin, which is made in the pancreas.

People develop type 2 diabetes because the cells in the muscles, liver, and fat are unable to use insulin properly. Ultimately, the pancreas cannot make sufficient insulin for the body’s needs. As a result, the quantity of glucose in the blood increases, at the same time as the cells are starved of energy.

Over a number of years, high blood glucose damages nerves and blood vessels, resulting in complications such as heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney disease, nerve problems, gum infections, and amputation.

How to prevent type 2 diabetes

Research has shown that people at risk for type 2 diabetes can stop or delay developing type 2 diabetes by simply losing a little weight. The results of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) demonstrated that moderate changes in diet and physical activity can delay and prevent type 2 diabetes.

The people Participating in the Federally funded study of 3,234 people at high risk for diabetes, experienced a 5- to 7-percent weight loss. As an example, a 5- to 7-percent weight loss for someone weighing 200-pounds would be 10 to 14 pounds lost.

Those people participating in the study were overweight and had higher than normal levels of blood glucose, a condition called pre-diabetes, also known as impaired glucose tolerance. Pre-diabetes and obesity are both significant risk factors for type 2 diabetes.

Due to the high risk for diabetes among some minority groups, approximately half of the DPP participants were African American, American Indian, Asian American, Pacific Islander, or Hispanic/Latino.

Also included amongst the DPP participants were others at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes, such as women with a history of gestational diabetes also individuals aged 60 and over.

The DPP tested two specific ways for preventing diabetes: lifestyle change—a program of healthy eating and appropriate exercise—and the diabetes drug metformin.

People in the lifestyle change group undertook about 30 minutes of exercise a day, 5 days a week, usually by walking, and lowered their daily consumption of fat and calories. Those who took the diabetes drug metformin also received an exercise and diet plan.  A third group received the exercise and diet plan only.

The data showed those people in the lifestyle change group reduced their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. In the first year of the study, people experienced an average weight loss of 15 pounds. Lifestyle change was even more effective in the 60 and older age group. They showed a reduced risk of 71 percent. People receiving metformin demonstrated a 31 percent risk reduction.

12:01 AM - 2007-Apr-9