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Essay on Diabetes

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Diabetes

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder that "occurs when the body is unable to produce or respond to insulin, a hormone that allows blood glucose to enter the cells of the body and generate the body's energy" (Ebony, 115). Diabetes is a disease that affects approximately 3% of the world' population. In American alone, 10.3 million people report having diabetes, while an estimated 10 million more individuals may have undiagnosed diabetes (Morwessel, 540). The gene for diabetes is located in the HLA region on chromosome 6, and the most probable organization of the responsible gene is on a 19-kb region of INS-IGF2, which affects HLA-DR4 IDDM susceptibility. Diabetes Mellitus, was first diagnosed in the year 1000 BC, by the …show more content…

The genetics causes of Type I and Type II diabetes stem from elevated blood glucose levels. Type I diabetes is an autoimmune disease characterized by b -cell destruction, usually leading to an absolute insulin deficiency (Dahlquist 5). Type II diabetes extends from primarily insulin resistance with relative insulin deficiency to primarily defective insulin secretion with insulin resistance.

Much research has been done on determining the genes that are responsible for diabetes mellitus. Type I diabetes is known as a "complex trait," because the mutations in several genes contribute to it. IDDM1 on chromosome 6, IDDM2 on chromosome 11, and the gene for GCK, glucokinase, on chromosome 7, have all been reported as playing an integral part in the development of Type I diabetes (Dahlquist 5). The mechanisms behind these genes are not yet known at this time. In Type I diabetes, "the body's immune system mounts an immunological assault on its own insulin and the pancreatic cells that manufacture it" (NCBI, 1999). There are two proposed mechanisms for Type I diabetes. The first deals with environmental factors that trigger the autoimmune process, usually in the childhood development stage. The second mechanism suggest that a superantigen reaction results in rapid destruction of pancreatic b cells, which eventually leads to the onset of the disorder (Morwessel 545). There are two hypothesized forms of Type I diabetes: a B8

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