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Essay on Diabetes in the UK

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Diabetes in the UK Synopsis: Diabetes has recently become a focal point of health care systems around the world due to its high prevalence and the severity of secondary complications caused by the disease. Over the course of my project on diabetes, I have had the opportunity to speak with a group of diabetics to understand from a patient’s perspective how diabetes is managed in a rural community. While I found that while some patients ignored treatment and refused to make any dietary changes, the majority of the patients I interviewed were well-informed and actively managing diabetes in their everyday life. Background on Diabetes: Throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, between 2 and 3 of every 100 people have a …show more content…

Accompanying genetics, environmental factors, such as lack of exercise and obesity, play major roles in causing type II diabetes. Why do we treat diabetes? There are a number of downstream events associated with abnormal blood glucose levels. If glucose levels are managed properly, the complications associated diabetes can be controlled, and sometimes completely prevented. The main problem with having more than the normal amount of glucose circulating in the blood stream is the effect that excess glucose can have on both large and small blood vessels (DTC, 2004). Micro-vascular and macro-vascular problems associated with diabetes can be seen in the heart, eyes, kidney, legs and feet. Diabetic patients are twice as likely to suffer from a mycocardial infaraction, twenty-five times more likely to suffer blindness, and seventeen times more likely to suffer kidney failure compared to a non-diabetic (DTC, 2004). Because of great number of risks associated with abnormal blood glucose levels, diabetes is aggressively treated to improve the quality of life and prevent complications in patients. Diabetes can be treated in three basic ways: by diet, by diet in conjunction with tablets, or diet in conjunction with insulin. Diet serves as an initial control for non-urgent patients. If a person’s diet will have a major effect on glycaemic control, it does so reasonably quickly, within a few weeks of changing

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