In
class recently, we learned about diabetes, specifically what is it, how it
occurs, and why it occurs. We discovered that in diabetes, hormones do not
properly regulate the glucose concentration in one’s blood stream. I’ve always
know that diabetes had to do with an imbalance of sugars, but I never knew how
it worked in a more in depth manner. I found it intriguing how there is a
feedback mechanism for the distribution of glucose, something so small yet so
important to the functioning of one’s body!
This
process challenges me to think about how organisms have evolved over time to
not just fit the niche of their environment, but to also internally maintain
homeostasis. They have evolved to regulate the distribution of small molecules
in the blood, making me think further about how simple the first organism must
have been to not only survive but maintain homeostasis of all of the molecules
present inside of it.
In the
negative feedback control of blood glucose, there are two options that may
occur. When the blood glucose level is too high, the pancreas releases insulin,
which either stores glucose in the liver as glycogen or distributes the glucose
in other cells. Therefore, the blood glucose level drops. When the blood
glucose level is too low, the pancreas releases glucagon to trigger the release
of glycogen from the liver to break down into glucose, causing the blood
glucose level to rise. In a diabetic person’s body, the pancreas has trouble
producing either insulin or glucagon to regulate the blood level of glucose.
I
decided to research diabetes further to see how the regulation of blood glucose
may affect the rest of the body. First I discovered that diabetes may cause
increased thirst, increased urination, increased hunger, extreme fatigue,
blurry vision, bruises slow to heal, and increased weight loss (Diabetes
Symptoms 2014). In type 1 diabetes, it is common to loss weight while in type 2 diabetes it
is common to feel tingling, pain, or numbness in the hands or feet (Diabetes Symptoms 2014).
Beyond
these common symptoms, I found that the University of Leicester conducted a
study “establishing a link between hypoglycaemia and increased risk of
cardiovascular events and mortality in patients with diabetes” (University of
Leicester 2014). Professors Kamlesh Khunti and Melanie Davies found this
correlation with patients being treated with insulin, suggesting that patient’s
treatments may change in the future (University of Leicester 2014).
Specifically, they found that patients with diabetes have a 60% higher chance
of cardiovascular problems due to atherosclerotic plaques in blood vessels (University
of Leicester 2014).
While
these findings increased my awareness of the seriousness of diabetes and taught
me about its symptoms, I wonder how doctors will go about reforming the
treatment to decrease the risk of cardiovascular problems. Melanie Davies, a professor of Diabetes
Medicine at the University of Leicester and Honorary Consultant at Leicester's
Hospitals, agrees with this principle, suggesting that "going forward we
need to focus on management strategies that help patients minimise their risk
of having hypoglycaemic events" (University of Leicester 2014).
Work Cited:
University of
Leicester. (2014, December 12). Link between low blood
glucose, cardiovascular events revealed. ScienceDaily.
Retrieved
December18,2014fromwww.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141212085045.htm
Diabetes
Symptoms. (2014, September 12). Retrieved December 16, 2014, from
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/symptoms/
I was really interested in your discussion of diabetes in your December blog post because I know quite a few people with Diabetes. A couple people in my family got Diabetes when they turned 70 because of bad eating habits, so after reading your post I started wondering how type 2 Diabetes forms. I found that a bad diet and lack of exercise is key. Even if eating sugary foods hasn’t made you gain weight in the past, that doesn’t mean it is not having a negative affect on your body. Many people who do not easily gain weight go their whole lives eating whatever they want, not realizing the negative effects. As I was thinking about it, I realized how much of a positive effect exercise has on the body. When a person eats, their blood glucose levels rise and their pancreas tries to counteract this by secreting insulin to try to lower the sugar levels in the blood, moving the sugars to be stored in the liver as glycogen or used in other cells that need energy. However, when an individual continuously eats high-sugar foods, blood glucose levels rise to such high levels that the amount of insulin produced by the pancreas is not enough to bring the sugar levels down to normal levels. Ultimately, eating better (a less sugary diet) and increasing exercise can help this. More exercise can help combat Type 2 Diabetes because it enables your cells to absorb more of that sugar in the blood by producing more insulin; therefore, glucose in the blood will move out of the blood to those working cells that need more energy, naturally lowering blood glucose levels. Many people who have type 2 Diabetes could have prevented the onset of this disease by choosing healthier eating habits and exercising more often; moreover, this is why Type 2 Diabetes is not always hereditary (though it can be for some people). Many people I know would not have developed Diabetes if it were not for their eating habits and sedentary lifestyles.
ReplyDeleteI am also very interested in diabetes. One thing I found interesting after reading your article and doing some researcher is that. Due to high physical activity the insulin given off is not high enough. This is not diabetes but in some ways acts very similar to it. I found it extremely interesting that although a lot more research still needs to be conducted. It is believed that exercise induce hyperinsulinism is much more common than originally believed. This is easily testable through a simple pyruvate test. I believe that it would be a safe guess that a lot more people have this deficiency than believed who are very active and exercise almost everyday at a top level. Below is a link to the website that I found the information if you would want to learn more about it.
ReplyDeletehttp://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/52/1/199.long
I was also very interested in this as well, but not just diabetes. Positive and negative feedback systems are very intriguing because they can be applied to many scenarios other than the human body. These systems are used to speed up or slow down reactions, but this does not always have to occur inside of an organism. For example, this can be applied to ecosystems and their environments in order for them to maintain their norms and "homeostasis". Recently in my AP Environmental Science class we have discussed factors that can affect an ecosystem and how the ecosystem will react to the change. Whether the changes are positive or negative, the ecosystem will react accordingly to revert it back to normal which is a great example of applying these systems to the real world.
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