Ever since I can remember, I have always known of the word Diabetes. I may not have been able to explain to you exacty lt what it  meant but I was way too familiar with word, itself! Millions of people throughout the United States are affected by diabetes. It is considered to be one of the leading causes of death. But what exactly is it? What are the symptoms and how do we prevent it? The goal of this essay is for you to understand the answers to these questions, and be able to apply your newly gained knowledge to your own life, hopefully decreasing your risk of developing diabetes.

To understand what diabetes is, you must first have an understanding of the processes that your body goes through to maintain a healthy blood sugar level. After eating a meal glucose, or simple sugar, is released into your blood. Your blood sugar level rises, which alerts your pancreas to release a hormone called insulin. Insulin is what tells your cells to take the glucose and use it for either energy or convert it to glycogen. Glycogen is the stored form of glucose, which is later broken back down to glucose as your body needs energy. When the glucose is taken up by the cells for energy or converted into storage form, your blood sugar returns to a normal level called homeostasis.

Now that we have a general idea of how our body regulates sugar intake we can discuss exactly what diabetes is. It is a disease in which your body is unable to use glucose for energy, resulting in elevated blood glucose levels. There are a few different types of diabetes. In some cases, a person's body does not make insulin at all. Thus, there is no insulin to tell your cells to use the glucose for energy. This is called type 1 diabetes, or it was previously known as juvenile diabetes. Only 5 to 10% of diabetes cases are diagnosed as type 1 (Grosvenor & Smolin, 93). It is usually discovered before a person reaches the age of 30 and is more prevalent in whites, than non-whites. The cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown, but is thought to be an autoimmune disease. This is when the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas are destroyed by the immune system, thus the reason it can no longer produce insulin (Grosvenor &  Smolin, 93). Type 1 diabetes is treatable with insulin injections, healthy eating, and exercise.

The most common case of diabetes, accounting for 90-95% of all diagnosed, is type 2 diabetes ("American"). This occurs when your body does not use insulin properly, or it does not make enough. This is a major problem because your body uses sugar as a main source of energy. If it cannot absorb and store the sugar, then your cells are deprived of energy and your blood sugar level will rise to
dangerous levels. This could in turn cause damage to your organs. Conditions that go along with diabetes are hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. Hyperglycemia is when the blood glucose level is too high.

Hypoglycemia is when the blood glucose level drops too low. When a person experiences the effects of hypoglycemia they may become nervous and confused, and may even faint ("National"). It is not a contagious disease, but there are factors that increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. These include being overweight, inactive, and have a parent or sibling with diabetes. Type 2 diabetes also tends to occur more frequently in African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans. Although diabetes can be treated, the best way to insure your health is to take measures to protect yourself against these risk factors.

Now that you are aware of some of the factors that increase your risk of developing diabetes, we can discuss ways of lowering those risks. One way is to maintain a healthy diet. A healthy diet is a well balanced one. This means eating a good variety of foods in order to get all of the nutrients your body needs. The food guide pyramid is a great visual of how much food you should eat of a particular group in comparison to others. You should have more foods from the bottom of the pyramid that from the top.

The food groups starting from the bottom of the pyramid and continuing up include starches, fruits and vegetables, meats and dairy products, and fats and oils. It suggests specific serving sizes of each food group. Serving sizes vary between men and woman, whether a person is active or inactive, and if someone is trying to lose weight or not. Starches are found at the bottom of the pyramid so more of our diet should come from foods such bread, grains, cereal, pasta, rice, or starchy vegetables like corn, beans, and potatoes. They give your body energy, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Whole grain starches are healthier because they have more vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Vegetables give you vitamins, minerals, and fiber, with very few calories. This group includes such things as lettuce, green beans, salsa, and broccoli. This should be the second highest amount of food you consume. Next is fruit. Fruit includes food such as bananas, raisins, strawberries, apples, and papayas. On top of fruit is milk and yogurt which give you energy, protein, fat, calcium, vitamin A, and other vitamins and minerals. Your body also needs food to help tissue and muscles grow. Meat does this. It includes foods such as beef, fish, eggs, and poultry. Because fats are at the top of the pyramid, it is important to limit your intake of food like butter, salad dressing, cake, ice cream, candy, and pop ("National"). For specific meal plans for your body type and goals you can check out http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov. It is also important to be physically active. The American Diabetes Association suggests that ideally we should have about thirty minutes of exercise per day, but any physical activity is better than none. There are many ways to meet this recommendation. Many people enjoy getting a membership to a gym. It is also motivating to work out with a friend. They offer support and encouragement which is sometime needed to start and maintain an exercise routine. There are other simpler ways of adding more exercise to your daily routine. Some people that feel they have less time for exercise may benefit from other forms such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking or riding a bike instead of driving, and having fun playing sports or dancing to their favorite music. These are all easy ways to incorporate physical activity into your daily routine. The benefits of exercise are great. It lowers blood glucose levels and increases your body's sensitivity to insulin. It also strengthens your muscles and bones and helps protects against other diseases such as heart disease and strokes.

The American Diabetes Association claims that one-third of all people in the United States living with diabetes are unaware that they even have it. This shocking fact illustrates how important it is to be aware of the symptoms related to having diabetes. Reasons to be concerned that you may have diabetes are frequent urination, sores that are slow to heal, constant thirst, blurred vision, irritability, extreme hunger, and sudden weight loss. When blood glucose levels rise very high the kidneys expel glucose, which causes extra fluids to come out with it. This increases the volume of urine. This is the reason a diabetic feels excessive thirst and frequently needs to urinate. Blurred vision is the result of excess glucose building up in the lens of the eye. Weight loss occurs because your body can no longer use glucose as energy and starts to burn fat and muscle for the energy needed to carry out life. If you notice these symptoms it is important that you consult your physician. Now you should understand that although it is usually treatable, diabetes is a serious, scary disease. If it is not taken care of it can cause other serious complications such as heart disease, blindness, and kidney failure.

Although the exact cause is unknown, you should realize that there are many things you can do to prevent yourself from developing diabetes. Diet and exercise is the key. Now it is time that you put your knowledge to use. Keep yourself healthy and at a lower risk of developing one of America's leading causes of death.

Works Cited

"American Diabetes Association". 14 Feb 2004 diabetes.jsp> Grosvenor, Mary B. and Lori A. Smolin. Nutrition: Science & Applications. 4th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2003.

"National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse". 15 Feb 2004