Type 2 diabetes syndrome.
Type 2 diabetes (Diagnosis)
Type 2 diabetes (Complications and side effects)
|Publication:||Name: Australian Journal of Medical Herbalism Publisher: National Herbalists Association of Australia Audience: Academic Format: Magazine/Journal Subject: Health Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2006 National Herbalists Association of Australia ISSN: 1033-8330|
|Issue:||Date: Winter, 2006 Source Volume: 18 Source Issue: 4|
|Geographic:||Geographic Scope: Australia Geographic Code: 8AUST Australia|
Phillips PJ. 2006, Type 2 diabetes not just a touch of sugar.
Type 2 diabetes is diagnosed according to blood glucose biochemistry, but nearly all patients with type 2 diabetes have at least one of the associated features of central overweight, hypertension, dyslipidemia and a prothrombotic tendency.
It is useful to view type 2 diabetes as a syndrome so that all risk factors for cardiovascular events can be assessed and managed. This approach overlaps with features of the metabolic syndrome which may be a precursor or early stage of type 2 diabetes.
About one in four adult Australians has abnormal glucose metabolism; 4% have diagnosed diabetes, 4% have undiagnosed diabetes and 16% have impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose. All have the same condition but at different stages of development. It can develop to diagnosed diabetes then continue to progress to increased insulin resistance, decreased insulin capacity and further.
Other progressive changes occur with increasing age and increasingly impaired blood glucose metabolism and should be considered when managing patients.
* Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by lifestyle changes in the beginning, but as the disorder progresses so should treatment. In the United Kingdom 50% of participants in a prospective diabetes study required insulin within six years of diagnosis to maintain blood glucose levels.
* Blood pressure increases initially but remains within the normal range in people with diabetes but may require medication with increasing age.
* With progressive type 2 diabetes comes progressive dyslipidemia. Almost all people with type 2 diabetes benefit from interventions to decrease their increasing cholesterol levels.
* Smokers with a high cardiovascular risk associated with type 2 diabetes can only benefit from quitting smoking.
The 'F factors' predisposing to type 2 diabetes are Forty, Family history, Fat and Fitness. The risk of developing diabetes can be greatly reduced through positive changes to lifestyle behaviours. Results from a Diabetes Prevention Program over three years have shown a 60% reduction of progression to diabetes in those receiving a lifestyle modification program compared to those receiving conventional treatment.
PO Box 45, Concord West NSW 2138
|Gale Copyright:||Copyright 2006 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.|