Epidemiological Approach to Disease: Diabetes - Essay Example

?DIABETES INSERT INSERT INSERT GRADE 22ND MAY, Within the world of diseases and illnesses, diabetes is a renowned type of disease that causes deaths especially among the older generation. Research has shown that the disease is rare among the young generations since it gradually develops over a long period of time. Also known as diabetes mellitus, this is a type of disease whereby an individual has a high level of sugar in his or her blood. Scientific research has it that high sugar level in the blood causes frequent urination, increased thirst and increased hunger. The disease is metabolic and can result from an individual’s consumption of sugar in large amounts yet his or her pancreas does not produce enough insulin or the body cells do not respond to the produced insulin. An individual suffering from diabetes can experience several complications such as damage to blood vessels, damage to the nervous system and heart problems (Sattar et al, 2010). Diabetes is often a lifelong struggle and individuals suffering from it need proper attention support from the people surrounding him or her and proper medical care. In this paper, an epidemiological approach is used to examine all about diabetes as a disease. The paper will summarize the entities of diabetes, review the background information concerning the disease, review the major epidemiologic findings, identify areas of further epidemiologic research and summarize the findings. Using the epidemiology of diabetes, the paper will critically examine important issues focused on the prevalence of the disease, mortality, life expectancy of individuals with diabetes and several other issues relating to the disease. Background information The world has changed from generation to generation. Diabetes has been believed to be a serious and fatal disease without cure (Sattar et al, 2010). However, scientists have struggled and managed to come up with ways of managing the disease involving medications. Diabetes has a long history. In the past centuries, several people, most of them scientists, have studied physical, psychological and various other aspects of patients in hospitals suffering from the disease. Scientists have devoted their time and given their all in researching on the possible causes of the disease or whether it is transmitted from one individual to another. Research has continued up to date with the scientists emphasizing on the effects and complications the disease causes in humans. This research has been the major spoken research worldwide than all other research done on other diseases. This is with the exception of the scientific research done on HIV/AIDS. In the present generation, several institutions and organizations have put in place measures of preventing and treating the disease (Jennifer, 1998). Educational institutions have also educated people on ways of preventing the disease and its adverse effects on individuals. As more emphasis is put on the disease, several challenges still remain a barrier to prevention and complete termination of diabetes. There are a number of cases of people suffering from diabetes worldwide. Globally, in the year 2010, approximately 285 million people had diabetes. Among these people, most of them, approximately 90% had the type 2 diabetes. With the incidence of diabetes on an upward trend, scientists have estimated that by the year 203, the number of people having diabetes might double. Diabetes is of different types and therefore has different causes. The type 1 diabetes is believed to be inherited. Scientific research also shows that the type 1 diabetes is triggered by certain environmental infections. The type 2 diabetes is due to lifestyle factors and genetic factors. With the type 1 diabetes, the signs and symptoms are believed to develop very quickly. The symptoms of diabetes 1 are similar to the symptoms of diabetes 2. These symptoms include: polydipsia, polyuria, polyphagia, fatigue, weight loss, blurred vision, slow healing and genital itching. Scientists have struggled to put in place measures and to ensure that diabetes is controlled and that the incidences of diabetes globally have reduced. Hypotheses Diabetes is a condition that mostly affects older people above 60 tears. Although younger generations also may suffer from diabetes, the cases are not common. Research done in the recent years has come up with the following hypotheses when studying diabetes. Prevalence: studies have been done with the aim of knowing whether the number of people with diabetes has changed in the recent years. Globally, not everyone has diabetes. As earlier mentioned, research has it that the number of people with diabetes globally is approximately 285 million though this number is still expected to double by the year 2030. Therefore, concerning the prevalence, by the year 2010, the world population was 7.086 billion. The prevalence of the people having diabetes was therefore approximately 285 million of the total 7.086 billion people in the world. Various researches have been done globally with scientists to know the number of individuals. In the year 2003, research was made in china to know the rate of prevalence in the country. A table summarizing the data is shown below. Age- and sex-standardized prevalence (95% CI) of diabetes mellitus in China 2003 AGE TOTAL CRUDE RATE (%) STANDARDIZED PREVALENCE (%) MEN CRUDE RATE (%) STANDRDIZED PREVALENCE (%) WOMEN CRUDE RATE STANDARDIZED PREVALENCE 20-29 2 0.44 0.33 2 0.89 0.65 0 - - 40-49 72 5.28 5.84 37 7.09 7.35 35 4.16 4.22 50-59 91 13.60 13.89 42 14.79 15.08 49 12.73 12.60 60-69 187 20.02 19.53 86 20.62 19.91 101 19.54 19.13 80-89 50 21.37 20.55 17 15.32 14.02 33 26.83 24.67 Mortality: In the past years, scientists struggled to get the right and proper treatment of diabetes. Several people, especially the older generation at the age of 60 succumbed to the disease. In the 20th century, no proper medication had been discovered to help individuals suffering from the disease. In the past years, it was found out that there were several cases of early deaths due to complications that were as a result of diabetes that children inherited from their parents. In the present world, the cases of early deaths of children born with diabetes have greatly reduced. This is because scientists have come up with proper and efficient treatment for the disease. The discovery of treatment has made diabetes to be treatable thereby reducing the cases of early infant mortality rates. Not only does the discovered treatment belong to the small children but also to the older generation comprising of the older people above the age of 60 years. As a result of the discovery of treatment for the disease, the average life expectancy of individuals with diabetes has greatly increased. In studies done, scientists looked at the number of deaths of over 50,000 individuals with diabetes across the world I the 20th century. In the late 20th century, survival rates of individuals increased and this was attributed to education provision by institutions and organizations and also to best medical practice. Rates of various complications: Many studies and research show the approximate number of individuals having diabetes. The studies done show that the individuals experience several other complications. Such complications include damaged blood vessels, risk of cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney diseases and complications with the nervous system (Selvin et al, 2010). Various studies report the outcomes of individuals with the complications resulting from diabetes. The rates of these complications are believed to be higher among the older generation. This might also be due to a decrease in their immunity. Mode of transmission: Studies have shown that there are various types of diabetes. The most known types are diabetes type 1 and diabetes type 2 (Selvin et al, 2010). To begin with, diabetes type one is inherited. This can be either from parents or other relatives. When children are born, if the parents had diabetes, it is most likely that the child will suffer from diabetes. Therefore, when a mother suffering from diabetes bears a child, it is advisable to check the child and ensure that he or she does not have diabetes. Diabetes type 2 is genetically transmitted. This means that an individual can have genes that are prone to the disease. Unlike other diseases such as typhoid and cholera, diabetes is a metabolic disease that is not communicable. Hence, an individual cannot get diabetes by being in contact with another individual suffering from diabetes. Burdens of diabetes in the present and future Research done shows that diabetes has been a burden to the global economy in a number of ways (Palmer et al, 2004). To begin with, diabetes results in mortality. Therefore, with the mortality, there are high costs involved in dealing with the premature diabetes related mortality. The funds used in dealing with the premature diabetes-related mortality could be used in other ways of development. Diabetic cases in homes and families globally have resulted to household out of pocket expenditures. These expenditures are a burden to the global economy because the expenditures could have been used in other developmental ways other than attending to or treating diabetic individuals. Diabetes is also a burden to the growth of the world economy because it causes various diabetes-related disabilities. The disabilities reduce the number of individuals with the ability to work and lead to the growth of the global economy. Diabetic cases are time consuming. Therefore, there is loss of productive time when attending to the individuals with diabetes. Research also shows that diabetes often leads to divorce among parents of children with diabetes. Using various techniques, it was identified that parents of children born with diabetes divorced due to the burden the children caused to the families. Research also showed that another burden of diabetes is the early hospitalization of children with diabetes. This was identified as a major problem to the poor families. Areas for further epidemiologic research Apart from epidemiologic research in diabetes, there are other areas for further epidemiologic research. Epidemiology is identified as the study of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in a given population. Areas for further epidemiologic research include cancer, environmental exposures, infectious diseases and nutrition among several others. Cancer research .To begin with, when doing epidemiologic research in cancer, the hypotheses followed are simple. One of the hypotheses is the long-term follow-up of individuals exposed to continuous cancer cases. There are several type of cancer such as breast cancer, mouth cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer. The other hypothesis followed when doing epidemiologic research in cancer is the modification and effectiveness of drugs admitted to individuals with cancer problems. Mostly, this is aimed at reducing the recurrences of similar cases in individuals. Environmental exposure research. When doing epidemiologic research in environmental exposure, just like cancer research, there are hypotheses that are followed. One of the hypotheses when doing epidemiologic research on environmental exposure is the possible environmental and risk factors that lead to certain diseases such as diabetes and cancer. The other hypothesis followed could be the risk of drinking contaminated water by individuals. Disorders of reproduction and development caused by certain environmental exposures could also be a hypothesis followed. Infectious disease research. Epidemiologic research could also be done on infectious diseases. There are several infectious diseases. They are communicable or transmissible from one individual to another. Possible hypotheses in this research could be the types or kinds of infectious diseases. These include respiratory diseases, meningitis, gastrointestinal diseases and sexually transmitted diseases (Dobson et al, 1996). Availability of vaccinations for the infectious diseases could be another hypothesis in the research. In conclusion, when doing epidemiologic research on diabetes, there are several findings that were identified. Concerning prevalence, one of the findings was that the number of people with diabetes has changed in the recent years. The number of people with diabetes globally was identified to be approximately 285 million. The prevalence of the people having diabetes was approximately 285 million of the total 7.086 billion people in the world by that year (2010). It was also discovered that several people especially the older generation at the age of 60 succumbing to the disease. It was also realized that diabetes causes early deaths in children due to complications that were as a result of diabetes that children inherited from their parents. Diabetes also results to several complications in individuals bearing the disease. Such complications include damaged blood vessels, risk of cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney diseases and complications with the nervous system. The rates of these complications are believed to be higher among the older generation. It was discovered that unlike other disease, diabetes is not infectious. There are two types of diabetes and they are both transmitted in different ways. Diabetes type one is inherited while diabetes type 2 is genetically transmitted. It was also realized that diabetes causes a global burden to the economy. This is because there are high costs involved in dealing with the premature diabetes related mortality, various diabetes-related disabilities and is loss of productive time when attending to the individuals with diabetes. References Dobson, Andrew P and E. Robin Carter (1996). Infectious Diseases and Human Population History. Bioscience; 46 2 Jennifer Mayfield (1998). Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus: New Criteria (American Family Physician) Palmer AJ, Roze S, Valentine WJ, Spinas GA, Shaw JE, Zimmet PZ (2004). Intensive lifestyle changes or metformin in patients with impaired glucose tolerance: Modeling the long- term health economic implications of the Diabetes Prevention Program in Australia, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Clinical Therapeutics 26:304 321 Sattar N, Preiss, D, Murray, HM, Welsh, P, Buckley, BM, de Craen, AJ, Seshasai,SR,McMurray, JJ, Freeman, DJ (2010). "Statins and risk of incident diabetes: a collaborative meta- analysis of randomized statin trials". The Lancet 375 (9716): 735–42. Selvin E, Steffes MW, Zhu H, Matsushita K, Wagenknecht L, Pankow J, Coresh J, Brancati FL (2010). Glycated hemoglobin, diabetes, and cardiovascular risk in diabetic adults. N. Engl. J. MED. 362 (9): 800–11. Read More