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Type ­ 2 Diabetes : An Epidemic

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Type­2 Diabetes is an epidemic, increasingly affecting the lives of people almost of all ages as it becomes more known among youth and is even affecting our unborn. Diabetes in New Zealand as stated by the ‘Ministry of Health New Zealand’ has been recorded in December, 2013 that over 240,000 people have been diagnosed with mostly Type­2 Diabetes and it is said that around 100,000 more may have not been diagnosed yet. This is becoming a crisis because around 5.4% of the population has it, with it increasing 0.3% per annum. Gestational diabetes is when you’ve developed or have diabetes whilst being pregnant, which may have risks towards the mother and foetus.
As shown in the picture below Diabetes is a build­up of glucose (sugar) in the bloodstream. There are three types of diabetes, type­1, type­2 and gestational diabetes. In a person without diabetes, the way that glucose will get into your blood cell is first by a hormone called insulin with its function to take glucose into cells( glucose being the body’s main source of energy), being created in the pancreas. The pancreas releases it into the bloodstream where they will go with glucose to a cell, and on the surface area of cells is an insulin receptor. The insulin will attach itself to the hooks of this receptor and when banded it will send out a signal to the glucose transporter where it will send out molecules to the cells surface to collect the glucose and allow it in to be used as energy. However this is not the case

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