Type 2 Diabetes Defining \'Type

Type 2 Diabetes

Defining 'Type 2' Diabetes: Causes, Effects, and Individuals Most Prone to the Disease

As nutrition writer Jane Brody explains in 'Diabesity,': A Crisis in an Expanding Country," 'Type 2' diabetes used to be called "adult onset diabetes" but that has changed since more and more doctors have begun seeing overweight children and teens with this formerly adults-only disease. In fact, among children and adults combined, "some 41 million Americans have a higher-than-normal blood sugar level that typically precedes the development of full-blown diabetes" (Brody 209). This essay will explore causes and effects of Type 2 diabetes and describe individuals most prone to developing it.

A key cause of Type 2 diabetes is obesity. Abdominal fat in particular causes blood sugar levels to rise (Brody). Today's obesity epidemic is caused by eating too much high-calorie food advertised in the mass media instead of healthier food. Brody quotes pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Francine Kaufman on another cause: "an economic structure that makes it cheaper to eat fries than fruit." The media encourages children early to eat high-calorie food in big quantities advertised on TV. A 15-year study of young people's eating habits at the University of Minnesota found that "...development of prediabetes were directly related to unhealthful fast food" (Brody 209).

Other causes are that schools do not set good examples of what and what not to eat to stay healthy; children are now more sedentary than in the past; and not everyone has medical insurance or even access to medical care to prevent, monitor or even diagnose the condition. Ethnicity can play a part too. Brody states that "The risk is 1.6 times as great for blacks as for whites of similar age. It is 1.5 times as great for Hispanic-Americans, and 2 times as great for Mexican-Americans and Native Americans" (209).

An especially dangerous effect of poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyle combined for children and teens is weight gain, a first step toward developing Type 2 diabetes, since that, especially if there is a large amount of abdominal fat, can cause a person's blood sugar level to soar. Brody states that "When the average fasting level of blood sugar (glucose) rises above 100 milligrams per deciliter, diabetes is looming" (210). A rise in blood sugar level can then cause "an increasing cellular resistance to the effects of the hormone insulin... As blood sugar rises... The pancreas puts out more and more insulin (promoting further fat storage) until this gland is exhausted. Then when your fasting blood sugar level reaches 126 milligrams, you have diabetes" (Brody).

Once Type 2 diabetes actually develops the potentially devastating effects of the disease may include "heart attacks or strokes" as well as "kidney failure, amputations and blindness" (Brody 210). Moreover, other negative effects of the sharp increase in incidents of Type 2 diabetes besides the devastation to one's health and quality of life (at increasingly young ages) currently also include economic and global effects. For example the treatment of diabetes "ranks No. 1 in direct health care costs, consuming $1 of every $7 spent on health care" (Brody 210). And incidents of Type 2 diabetes are also steeply increasing not just in the United States but worldwide (Brody).