Diabetes Disease
Diabetes is a condition that describes a group of metabolic diseases where a person’s blood sugar tends to rise above the usual and required standard (McCarthy, 2014).
Individuals with high blood sugar typically experience several symptoms. One of the symptoms is the frequent passing of urine. They get thirsty most often. They also get hungry every time. It is a long-term condition. Sometimes intense weight loss or weight gain can be a symptom (McCarthy, 2014).
The disease has two categories. Type 1 Diabetes is a condition where the body does not produce insulin (McCarthy, 2014). It is a condition that affects ten percent of all diabetes cases. There is also type 2 diabetes. The pancreas makes less insulin than is required by the body.
The Burden of the Disease in the United States of America
The population estimates of the United States in the year 2014 were approximately about three hundred million. The undiagnosed make up 27.8%. Diagnosed people add up to 21 Million Americans (Lobo, 2014).
The 2009-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey revealed that more men were living with diabetes than women. 15.5 million Men had diabetes as compared to 13.4 million women. The comparison by age showed some facts too. There were 13.4 million people from the ages of 45 years to 64 years old who had Diabetes as compared to 4.3 million people between 20-44 years. From the age of 65 and above, there were only 11.2 million persons (McCarthy, 2014).
The disease has become a burden to the city of Baltimore in the state of Maryland. When people, especially the very active adults die of diabetes, it robs the city of very productive citizens. The city has to reallocate billions of money to control the disease. The city has to concentrate on prevention awareness campaigns and treatment. It makes it costly both to the city and to the population.
Another problem is that one can only manage diabetes. Most of the research work is yet to find a cure. There are myths people have come up with about what causes the disease. Once someone acquires the disease, it becomes part of him/her for life. With a greater percentage of people suffering from the condition, it causes laxity in the labor force and a lot of expenses in the budget.
Diabetes can result in kidney damage, cardiovascular diseases, blindness, lower-limb amputations, and other expensive and incurable complications. It reduces the city’s productive labor force. Diabetes causes many complications in the body. As a result, people become unsettled at their workstations and insurance companies also have the trouble of catering for the ailments.
The prevalence of diabetic adults in Baltimore and Houston, Texas has drastically risen. It has been a tense process trying to educate people about the disease. People have had to adopt a different lifestyle to avoid having the disease. Another concern is the myths surrounding the disease which the government has to address. The CDC has a program that outlines the requirement and lifestyle program to prevent diabetes. Organizations can adopt it.
People with Type 1 can receive an injection or pump to survive. Type 2 case people can just watch their diet and healthy living. There are prevention campaign measures on social networks (Sepah, Jiang & Peters, 2014).
They can also take medication to control their blood pressure. Diabetes has caused people to develop a series of complications. Some of them are heart disease and stroke, blindness and or eye problem, kidney disease, and amputations.
References
Lobo, P. (2014). New diabetes screening recommendations in the USA. The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 2(12), 934. Web.
McCarthy, M. (2014). Nearly one in 10 US residents has diabetes, CDC reports. BMJ, 348(jun11 10), g3962-g3962. Web.
Sepah, S., Jiang, L., & Peters, A. (2014). Translating the Diabetes Prevention Program into an Online Social Network: Validation against CDC Standards. The Diabetes Educator, 40(4), 435-443. Web.