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Diabetes : A Serious Disease

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Diabetes is a very serious disease often overlooked. Diabetes is a disease that affects 29.1 million people or 9.3% of the population in the United States. This disease results when there are high levels of sugar in the blood for an extended period of time. It can be controlled by diet, exercise, medication and insulin injections. There are three main types of diabetes; Type I, which affects primarily the younger population, type II, which primarily affects the population above forty years old, and gestational diabetes, which affects women during the third trimester of their pregnancy. While scientists do not know what causes diabetes, they do know that it is caused from a variety of factors that can vary from person to person, being…show more content…
There are several major forms of diabetes. Type 1 Diabetes is often called juvenile or insulin-dependent diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes, usually occurs with obesity and is insulin resistance. Symptoms for these two types are similar, being; abdominal pain, absence of menstruation, fatigue, increased thirst, increased urination, nausea, vomiting, weight loss despite increased appetite, blurred vision, erectile dysfunction. Not enough insulin, resistance to insulin, or both cause diabetes. Insulin is a hormone produce by beta cells that are located in the islets of Langerhans, which is also located in the pancreas. Insulin is a peptide hormone composed of 51 amino acids in the beta cells, insulin is synthesized from the pro-insulin precursor molecule by the action of proteolysis enzymes, known as pro-hormone converses. These modifications of pro-insulin remove the center portion of the molecule, from the C- and N- terminal ends of pro-insulin. The remaining polypeptides, the B- and A- chains, are bound together by disulfide bonds. Oddly enough, the primary sequence of pro-insulin goes in the order "B-C-A".
Insulin is released when the beta islet cells of the pancreas detect elevated levels of glucose in the blood. When insulin is discharged it triggers cells throughout the body to supply glucose, thus reducing levels in the blood. Glucose enters the beta cells through the glucose transporter GLUT2. Glucose then goes into glycolysis and the respiratory cycle where multiple
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