Diabetes: Definition, Related Epidemiology, and Pathophysiology

Diabetes Pathophysiology Paper
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Diabetes Pathophysiology Paper
Abstract
Diabetes is a global and national problem. The disease’s prevalence in the U.S. is a concern because of the proportion of the population that it affects. Evidence indicates that type 1 and type 2 diabetes have comparable features, affecting the younger people more while the other emerges in significant frequencies among adults. Irrespective of the type of diabetes, they all negatively affect the patients’ health outcomes, as highlighted by the pathophysiology of the disease. Stakeholders have devised diverse diagnosis approaches for testing the condition and increasing the chances of early diagnosis. This aspect leads to the implementation of appropriate treatment therapies tailored to the patients’ needs to eliminate adverse outcomes and improve the quality of life. Overall, increased awareness about different types of diabetes informs management of the disease and overcomes its health and economic impacts.
Disease Definition and Related Epidemiology
Definition
Diabetes refers to a high level of blood glucose known as blood sugar. When there is an abundance of blood glucose circulating within the blood vessel, serious health problems can arise, consequently, when there is a low blood glucose level. I take high interest in this topic because I come from a family with a history of diabetes. This disorder has haunted my family for years, with my mother, two aunts, and grandmother victimized by the condition. The education I have gained throughout my life has enabled me to take charge of my health. Thus researching foods, maintaining a consistent exercise regimen, and keeping up with my quarterly physical examination with my primary physician will enable me to prevent or delay the inevitable. Being born into a Caribbean community and culture has predisposed me to the possibility of developing this condition. Therefore, composing this paper on the pathophysiology, clinical management, and manifestation of this condition will benefit my knowledge.
Diabetes mellitus represents metabolic diseases presenting hyperglycemia circulating within the blood due to insulin secretion defects, insulin inaction, or both (Huether & Mccance, 2016). Commonly referred to as blood sugar, scientists describe the disease process as having too much or too little glucose circulating in the blood that can cause damage to major organs within the body leading to a series of complications if not appropriately regulated. According to Huether & McCance 2016, the American Diabetes Association, diabetes mellitus is classified into two categories. The two categories of diabetes are Type I and Type II. The two types of diabetic conditions are considered chronic due to dysfunction of the pancreas. However, another type of diabetes sometimes develops in pregnancy due to hormonal changes known as gestational diabetes (GD). GD is a brief form of the disease. According to Hach et al. (2018), gestational diabetes usually disappears after delivery but may occur in future pregnancies. Diabetes type I and II, though they have the same name, they are very different. Subsequently, they are both insulin problems characterized by high blood sugar. Type I diabetes represents an autoimmune condition where the immune properties destroy insulin-generating cells in the pancreas. Type II is a metabolic disorder where the pancreas produces too little insulin (Hach et al., 2018). Thus, the organ of focus is the pancreas.
Related Epidemiology
Epidemiological distribution of the different types of diabetes in America indicates that this disease is of public interest due to its impacts on populations across the lifespan (Zimmet, 2014). According to Cowie et al. (2018), diabetes type I prevalence among youths below 20 years stands at one person for every 518 individuals. Further statistics indicate that type I constitutes up to 98% of all diabetes cases for under ten years children and 87% among all youths aged 10 to 19 years (Cowie et al., 2018). Trends indicate that the United States’ type I diabetes new cases reach about 18 000 among its youths, while the global figures rise to approximately 79,100 patients annually (Cowie et al., 2018). As a result, these findings place type one diabetes among the leading childhood-based chronic diseases. Adults also bear a significant proportion of type I diabetes because half of the cases arise during adult life despite the data scarcity. Data indicates that experts had diagnosed almost 740 000 Americans with type 1 diabetes by their 30th birthday and 970 000 by their 40th birthday during the 2010 survey (Cowie et al., 2018). Overall, Huether and Mccance (2016) indicate that the type constitutes 5% to 10% of all national diabetes cases. Projections of these statistics demonstrate the severity of type 1 diabetes in the American population.
The rates for diabetes type 2 are equally concerning. Statistics from two American national health surveys indicate that the U.S. recorded 9.2% cases among 20 years and above adults, amounting to 21.8 million Americans by 2015 (Cowie et al., 2018). The authors also recorded a gradual rise in prevalence with increasing age, as demonstrated by 0.5% among 12 - 19-year-old youths and 20% among adults over 65 years. Further analysis of the surveys reported that men record significantly higher cases than their women counterparts. Other outcomes reveal that some ethnic groups remain highly vulnerable, with the Alaska Native adults or non-Hispanic American Indians recording 19.1% compared to the 8.2% for the non-Hispanic whites (Cowie et al., 2018). Approximately 2.9% of all noninstitutionalized Americans over 20 years had undiagnosed diabetes, which takes the national statistics to 12.5% of the population or 28.2 million Americans when combined with the 9.6% diagnosed cases (Cowie et al., 2018). Cowie et al. (2018) indicate that America has witnessed consistently increasing crude prevalence rates of diagnosed diabetes, rising to 7.4% in 2015 from 0.93% reported in 1958. Huether and Mccance (2016) state that type 2 diabetes generates 90% to 95% of total diabetes cases in America. As a result, diabetes has become a critical healthcare problem in American society.
Further statistics indicate that the diabetes burden has worsened in America due to the constant rise of other forms of the disease. For instance, evidence suggests that gestational diabetes has remained on the rise since the 1980s (Cowie et al., 2018). The author also highlights other variations, including Cystic fibrosis-related diabetes affecting up to 12% and 33% of children and adults with cystic fibrosis, respectively. Moreover, pancreatitis-based diabetes leads to approximately 0.5% to 1% of new diabetes cases in the general American population. Cowie et al. (2018) also state that 7% to 40% of the 1% of people with hemochromatosis disorder eventually present diabetes symptoms. Thus, the epidemiology patterns of diabetes illustrate its widespread nature across the American population.
Normal Physiology of the System Involved
For the body to maintain homeostasis, two bodily systems are involved, the nervous system and the endocrine system. One can attribute the differences in the two approaches to their different communication responses as they react to the body’s deviations from balance. In contrast to the nervous system, which uses neurons to transmit and deliver fast-acting messages, the endocrine system operates much slower, is more widespread, and lasts longer through hormone production. Along with the nervous system, the endocrine system’s normal function is to regulate and coordinate activities within the body. In the presence of an imbalance within the body, the endocrine system fails to function correctly, which leads to deviation from homeostasis. Such variations include a cascade of disease processes, such as Cushing’s, Addison’s condition, diabetes mellitus, etc. Diabetes is a disorder that affects the endocrine system, which, although critical to health, consists of more minor glands throughout the body. The components of the many endocrine systems are the adrenal glands, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, thyroid/parathyroid gland, pineal body, thymus, ovaries, and testes. These organs contain hormones secreted in response to abnormalities or part of the body’s natural process. In this context, Huether and McCance (2016) state that many organs contribute to insulin resistance and chronic hyperglycemia. However, the pancreas is the main organ responsible for hyperglycemia when it fails to produce a lack of insulin or none at all. Seeley et al. (2008) described the endocrine system’s functions as water balancing, uterine contractions, generating milk, maturing metabolism and tissue, regulating ions and blood pressure, controlling blood glucose and other nutrients, and influencing reproductive capabilities. In retrospect, the endocrine system uses glands to secrete hormones to help regulate and manage the body’s chemical changes.
Pathophysiology of Diabetes
As mentioned before, the dysfunction of the endocrine system, focusing primarily on the pancreas, can lead to diabetes, either type I or II. Type I diabetes is the most prevalent pediatric illness occurring in youths and is classified as either idiopathic or autoimmune (Huether & Mccance, 2016). In idiopathic conditions, the cause or cause of the disease is unknown. As Huether and McCance (2016) described, the pathophysiology in idiopathic type I diabetes contains a vital genetic component, is uncommon to autoimmune diabetes, and arises mainly in Asians or Africans. However, autoimmune diabetes type I progresses slowly, destroying pancreatic islets (Seeley et al., 2008). The T cell- facilitated illness obliterates the pancreas’ beta cells, leading to genetic vulnerability and environmental factors (Huether & Mccance, 2016). Essentially, autoimmunity relates to the immune system, and a person who has type I diabetes would have been born with this genetic predisposition. This aspect does not necessarily mean the child inherits the disease from their parents.
However, something in their genes made them more susceptible to developing type I diabetes. Other environmental factors may also play a role, such as viruses, toxins, and other factors. According to Seeley et al. (2008), the starting of pancreatic islet damage may constitute a pancreas viral infection. Implicated environmental factors comprise exposure to certain foods, drugs, and viruses (Huether & Mccance, 201...