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Obesity : Obesity And Obesity

Decent Essays

There are more than 1.5 billion people that are overweight worldwide (2). There are more than 280 million people around the world that have been diagnosed with diabetes, resulting in at least 1 in 20 adults (2,8). Currently, diabetes is ranked as the seventh overall cause of death in the United States (9). In 2010, on 69,071 death certificates in the United States, diabetes was listed as the underlying cause, and in 234,051 death certificates, diabetes was mentioned as a cause of death (6). The Centers for Disease Control refers to “twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity, because obesity greatly increases the risk of diabetes, and the number of Americans who are obese has been increasing rapidly” (9). A newly developed term, “diabesity,” is commonly used to represent the close relationship between obesity and diabetes (8).

Type 1 diabetes usually occurs in childhood and is defined when the pancreas fails to produce a healthy amount of insulin for the body (9). Type 2 diabetes usually occurs in adults, and has more complex impaired mechanisms (9). A major component of Type 2 diabetes onset is insulin resistance, in which muscle, liver, and fat cells do not use insulin to its fullest effect, causing reduced insulin production by the pancreas, which then results in glucose buildup in blood and urine (4). It is noted that a major cause of insulin resistance is due to being overweight or obese (7). The most common factor, which influences insulin resistance, is excessive

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