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Diabetes Is A Disorder Of Too Little, Too Much Or Ineffective Use Of Insulin

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Diabetes Mellitus is a disorder of too little, too much or ineffective use of insulin. The different classifications of this are know as type I diabetes or IDDM (insulin dependent or juvenile diabetes), type 2 diabetes or NIDDM (non-insulin dependent diabetes or adult on-set), and gestational diabetes mellitus. There is also pre-diabetes, which is the term used to indicate the condition of impaired glucose balance, impaired fasting, or tolerance of glucose. This is more of a risk factor for a possible future disorder of diabetes, which if caught early along with behavioral change, can be prevented. To truly understand prevention and treatment for a patient who has DM, we first need to understand the pathophysiology for both type 1 …show more content…

Diabetes occurs because the body is not able to secrete enough insulin to compensate for the increased insulin resistance that is happening.

Diabetic patients can have a wide variety of signs and symptoms or have no symptoms at all. For type 1 patients we normally see polyuria, polydypsia and polyphagia, these symptoms and others come on rapidly for type 1 patients. For type 2 patients, they are usually over weight, they can be asymptomatic and signs can come on gradually due to metabolic changes. The other signs we may see in patients with either type 1 or 2 can be fatigue, blurred vision, mood changes, paresthesia, dry skin, infections and weight loss (normally seen in type 1). Looking at the risk factors for Type 1 and Type 2 there are really no risk factors that are the same for both, except the metabolic part of the disease. You may be predisposed for Diabetes due to heredity, environmental, metabolic issues, age, obesity, immobility and lack of proper nutrition. In most diabetic patients with Type 1 its more of an autoimmune like disorder, due to the beta cell being destroyed or damaged. The body is not being able to produce enough insulin which will make the patient hyperglycemic and this will effect major organs. Caucasians are at the highest risk and onset is in childhood. In Type 2 African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians are more at risk due to strong genetics

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