Introduction
Diabetes refers to a health disease in which the blood sugar level crossed its normal level. It is also known as hyperglycemia. Type 2 diabetes is very common and prevailing form of the illness. In type 2 diabetes, the patient’s body becomes incapable to use insulin appropriately and develop a resistance against insulin. Over a period of time patient’s body stops producing enough insulin to maintain blood sugar level. Type 2 diabetes is life-long illness which effects majority of the people suffering with diabetes. In United States, around 27 million people are suffering with the problem and around 86 million are prediabetes. In United Kingdom, around 4 million are diabetic and 90 percent of them have type 2 diabetic. This Paper discusses various aspects associated with type 2 diabetes, its diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and management.
Condition and Symptoms
Occurrence of Type 2 diabetes is not related with any social class or gender; it can be to anyone. In type 2 diabetes, patients’ body in absence of enough insulin do not convert all glucose in the form of energy. Patient’s body removes excess glucose from the blood along with urine. People suffering with type 2 diabetes urinate frequently and feel very thirsty. Other symptoms experienced by the patients are feeling tired, unexpected weight loss, blurred vision, and feel irritated. Type 2 diabetic patients also notice that their wounds heal slowly and some forms of infections keeps coming repeatedly.
Li, Drury, and Taylor (2014) mention that people who are suffering with type 2 diabetic face difficulty in fulfilling multiple role. Patients do not feel sufficient energy to fulfill their multiple responsibilities because their cells do not produce energy. Over a period of time high blood sugar level starts hurting or damaging patients’ eyes, nervous system, heart, and kidneys. In various cases symptoms and conditions of type 2 diabetes are not very visible or obvious, and people came to know about the disease during their routine health check-ups. Symptoms of type 2 diabetes are initially very mild and become obvious over few years.
Prognosis, prevalence, and Risk Factors
Type 2 diabetes is impacting large percentage of young and adult people every day. Even children are also getting affected by this life-long disease. According to National Diabetes Statistic Report (2014), every year around one and half million people are identified with the disease in America. Around 9.3 percent of Americans are suffering with diabetes and the number is continuously rising. Diabetes is 7th biggest cause of death in America, responsible for 69,000 certified death from diabetes. Around 234,000 deaths mentioned diabetes as underlying cause of death. Prevalence of diabetes is highest among people age 65 years or above, which contributes 30 percent to the overall diabetic population (NDSR, 2014).
The prevalence of diabetes is found higher among American Indians, non-Hispanic blacks, Hispanic, Asian American, and non-Hispanic whites. Type 2 diabetes common among Native and Asian Americans. The prevalence of disease is also high among old people as compare to young, however, the prevalence is low among children. Type 2 diabetes could be the outcome of routine habits or various health and lifestyle related factors. Besides age and ethnicity family related factors such as diabetic parent or sibling or family diabetic history can also increase the chances of type 2 diabetes.
Health related risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes are heart diseases, blood vessel diseases, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, obesity, overweight, and high blood pressure. Presence of such health problems increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. Gestational diabetes when mother is pregnant, and delivering an overweight baby also increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. Polycystic ovary syndrome also increases the chance of diabetes. People suffering with depression or anxiety are also on high risk of type 2 diabetes (Eckel et al., 2015).
Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment
A healthy and active lifestyle can prevent or minimize the chances of type 2 diabetes. According to American Diabetes Association, type 2 diabetes can be prevented or delayed by adopting three ways: by changing lifestyle, pharmacological interventions, and by self-management and support (American Diabetes Association, 2015). A slight modification in lifestyle does not cost much and protect people from type 2 diabetes. Unlike genetic factors life style can be controlled. Obese and overweight people should focus on reducing their weight by getting active and eating healthy. Even normal weight people should also be physically active and adopt eating right habits. Pharmacological interventions are effective in case people are prediabetes.
A healthy lifestyle allows people to reduce their stress level and effectively deal with depression. Health problems such as depression, high blood pressure, low level of good cholesterol, and heart related problems are substantially associated with physical activeness, eating right food and smoking behavior. Therefore, maintaining healthy lifestyle helps in preventing type 2 diabetes. People who already have type 2 diabetic can be treated efficiently if diagnosed at early stage. An early diagnosis of type 2 diabetes can be done by examining urine and blood of the patient.
Glycated haemoglobin also known as HbA1c blood test can be used to diagnose type 2 diabetes. This blood test informs about average value of blood glucose for two or three months. Glucose tolerance test can also be used to see if body is capable to process glucose or not. Diabetes can be treated by making some lifestyle changes and consuming medicine as prescribed by the doctors. Some common medicines used in case of type 2 diabetes are: Insulin, Metformin, Sulphonylureas, Glitazones, Gliptins, and Acarbose.
Chong et al. (2014) in their study mentioned that the effectiveness of treatment depends upon various factors such as education about self-management, adherence to medicines, gender, social-status and age. It is observed that the people from good socio-economic background, education level, and self-management knowledge take treatment efficiently (Chong et al., 2014). Therefore, the focus should be placed on teaching population about self-management, and care related with type 2 diabetes.
Treatment Costs and Care Coordination
In U.S., around $245 billion is the total costs that goes for diagnosed diabetes. Out of this cost around $176 billion goes as direct medical expenditure (NDSR, 2014). Zhuo et al. (2014) mention that the lifetime costs for treating diabetes are $124,600, $91,200, $53,800,and $35,900 if diagnosed at the age of 40, 50, 60, and 65 respectively. Type 2 Diabetes not only decreased life expectancy of the person but also increased cost of medical expenditure significantly (Zhuo et al., 2014). However, the cost can be reduced by effective care coordination. Knowledge of patients about self-management and support from family members and social groups helps in treating diabetic effectively. Diabetic patients should adhere with their medication schedule in order to make treatment effective, and adopt lifestyle changes to reduce the dependency on medicines (Juarez-Ramirez et al., 2015).
Recommendations
The prevalence of type 2 diabetes disease is higher among old age people, people from specific socio-economic and cultural background, and among overweight and obese people. Therefore, it is important to run educational programs that inform these high risk groups about causes, symptoms, diagnosis of diabetes, and prevention methods. Knowledge about type 2 diabetes and self-management care helps patients and prediabetes in effectively dealing with the situation. There is need to inform not only patients but also their family members, social circle, and friends about benefit support; patients who receive support from friends and family members registered significant improvement in their condition. Such patients also shows good adherence to pharmacological treatments. Type 2 diabetes can be deal effectively and continuously rising number of patients can also be controlled by making people aware about the disease, its symptoms and methods of prevention.
References
Association, A. D. (2015). 5. Prevention or Delay of Type 2 Diabetes. Diabetes Care, 38(Supplement 1), S31-S32.
Chong, E., Wang, H., King‐Shier, K. M., Quan, H., Rabi, D. M., & Khan, N. A. . (2014). Prescribing patterns and adherence to medication among South‐Asian, Chinese and white people with Type 2 diabetes mellitus: a population‐based cohort study. Diabetic Medicine, 31(12), 1586-1593.
Eckel, N., Mühlenbruch, K., Meidtner, K., Boeing, H., Stefan, N., & Schulze, M. B. . (2015). Characterization of metabolically unhealthy normal-weight individuals: Risk factors and their associations with type 2 diabetes. Metabolism, 64(8), 862-871.
Juarez-Ramirez, C., Thodore, F. L., Villalobos, A., Jimenez-Corona, A., Lerin, S., Nigenda, G., & Lewis, S. . (2015). Social Support of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes in Marginalized Contexts in Mexico and Its Relation to Compliance with Treatment: A Sociocultural Approach. . PloS one, 10(11), 1-22, e0141766.
NDSR. (2014, June 10). Statistics About Diabetes. Retrieved from American Diabetes Association: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
Zhuo, X., Zhang, P., Barker, L., Albright, A., Thompson, T.J., and Gregg, E. (2014). The Lifetime Cost of Diabetes and Its Implications for Diabetes Prevention. Diabetes Care, 37(9) , 2557-2564.
