Diabetes Essay -- essays research papers

Diabetes Mellitus is a real disorder shared by 16 million Americans (PharmInfoNet1). It is a disease characterized by a failure of the pancreas to produce enough if any insulin. Insulin is the chemical substance in the trunk that turns sugar into usable energy. While it is treatable, diabetes is still a killer. The fourth star(p) cause of death in America, diabetes claims an estimated 178,000 lives each year. So the treatment is aimed at holding the disease in check, reversing it where possible, and preventing complications (Hingley 33). Due to the keep threatening nature of diabetes, the necessity of controlling it is absolutely imperative. Philip Cryer, M.D., president of the American Diabetes Association and a professor at Washington University School of medicate in St. Louis, believes that people dont understand how much of a problem diabetes can be. He says, Diabetes is an increasingly common, potentially devastating, treatable yet incurable, womb-to-tomb disease. Its th e leading cause of blindness in working aged adults, the closely common cause of kidney failure leading to dialysis or transplants, and is the leading cause of amputations (Hingley 33).For decades since its discovery in 1920, injectable insulin has been the standard treatment for diabetes. In fact, it is the only treatment for insulin-dependent diabetes. And the standard method of administering it has remained injection with a syringe. barely in recent years, there have been enormous advances made in the development of new and better ways to administer insulin. By out-of-the-way(prenominal) the best, most effective way to administer insulin that exists today the way that most closely mimics the way the human body releases insulin into the bloodstream is no long through injection with a syringe, but rather, through the insulin pump. To understand diabetes, it is measurable to first understand how a non-diabetic body functions to process the normal heading of glucose in the b loodstream. Everything a person consumes is reborn to glucose, at different evaluate depending on exactly what was consumed, and ultimately deposited into the bloodstream. There it circulates, waiting to be called to action. When the body perceives that energy is running low, glucose in the bloodstream is ushered into the various cells of the body where it is converted into energy as n... ...ts today. Work Cited PageA Science Odyssey mass and Discoveries. Banting and Best Isolate Insulin 1922.http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dm22in.html (Retrieved 10 October 2000)American Diabetes Association Diabetes Info. The Diagnosis.http//www.diabetes.org (Retrieved 10 October 2000) Hingley, Audrey. Diabetes Demands a Triad of Treatments. FDA Consumer May/June 1997 pg. 33.Lebovitz, Harold E. MD. Therapy for Diabetes Mellitus. Alexanderia American Diabetes Association, 1999.Ledger, Marshall. Electronics in the Body Shop. Alumni magazine Consortium Aug. 1988 pg. 3.McCarren, Marie. Prepare To Pump. Diabetes Forecast Sept. 1995 pg. 2.McIntyre, Mike. Telephone interview. 19 Nov. 2000.PharmInfoNet Diabetes Statistics. Prevalence* of Diabetes in the United States. http//pharminfo.com/disease/diabetes/diabstat.html (Retrieved 10 October, 2000)Pump Therapy. Flexibility About.comhttp//www.minimed.com/files/whypi.htm (Retrieved 10 October, 2000)Scavini, Marina MD, and David S. Schade, MD. Implantable Insulin Pumps clinical Diabetes Vol. 14 No. 2 March / April 1996.