There is a high possibility that the number of people who have diabetes in the U.S. will overwhelm the nation’s healthcare system with time. Currently, over thirty-seven million Americans suffer from diabetes mellitus (DM), and the trend keeps increasing. The illness occurs when the body exhibits issues in converting food into energy. The inability to produce adequate insulin or the body’s resistance to the hormone is the primary cause of diabetes. Currently, the world tries to combine both contemporary medical and alternative therapies to manage the terminal condition.
Prominent Aspects of Diabetes
DM is a chronic condition that affects humans across the world. The disease’s prevalence in the U.S. and other developing economies depicts trends that may overwhelm the healthcare system. There exist at least three types of DM; Type 1, Type 2, and gestational diabetes. Persons with Type 1 diabetes acquire it since birth and live on medication for survival (“Diabetes,” 2021). Gestational diabetes affects expectant mothers, putting their lives and unborn babies at significant risks. Early diagnosis and testing and indiscriminate access to care for all DM patients form part of the best ways that the world can adopt to manage the condition (“Diabetes,” 2021). Diabetes remains a killer condition requiring proper management to realize a healthy world.
Current Data and Statistics Related To Diabetes
Diabetes is a serious health condition in the U.S. and the world. DM currently affects over thirty-seven million Americans, making the illness’s burden more severe than many other terminal conditions (“National diabetes,” 2022). Moreover, about nine million American adults living with diabetes are undiagnosed, while nearly twenty-nine patients know their case (“National diabetes,” 2022). The CDC reports that ninety-six million American citizens are prediabetes, while nearly forty-nine percent of Americans above sixty-five years exhibit prediabetes (“National diabetes,” 2022). The rise in diabetes cases against the efforts put to counter the illness pushes world researchers to recommend the adoption of complementary prevention and management tactics to aid in curbing the matter.
Health Disparities Related to Diabetes
DM does not affect all Americans in the same way. For example, its risk among Indian Americans was the highest in 2017 at 15.1 percent (“Addressing health,” 2021). Hispanics followed in the DM’s risk during the same period by a prevalence rate of 12.7%. Other ethnic communities with significantly high DM threat included Non-Hispanic Blacks, Asians, and Non-Hispanic Whites (“Addressing health,” 2021). According to the report, the Aboriginals and Hispanics constitute the two ethnic groups with an exceedingly high risk of conducting diabetes. Education attainment and thus socioeconomic stability variations also substantially affect the condition’s risk, where Americans with less than high school education have over 12% risk of Type 2 diabetes. The data mainly reports the Type 2 diabetes cases due to its increased prevalence over the other two forms.
Prevention Strategies Including Complementary and Alternative Health Therapies of Diabetes
Diabetes is a lifestyle condition and can be managed through complementary therapies. Agu et al. (2019) purport that living a responsible life can prevent a prediabetes person from conducting the illness in a lifetime. Conditions like obesity and inactivity increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes substantially (Agu et al., 2019). The human being’s body requires a balance between the consumed and utilized energy, where the failure to consume forces the body to store the excess energy in a life-threatening form (Adeniyi et al., 2021). That is why nutrition, exercise, and acupuncture constitute some of DM’s best alternative or complementary health therapies (Adeniyi et al., 2021). The first two remedies help the body regulate the intake and consumption of energy. At the same time, acupuncture aids in relieving diabetes-related pains experienced in different parts of the body, mainly the lower limbs.
Contemporary Research and Clinical Studies Related to Diabetes
The American Diabetes Association finances many research and clinical investigations concerning the condition. Examples of recent studies targeting diabetes include Baker et al. (2019) that identifies Hybrid Insulin Peptides (HIPs) found on beta-cells of people with type 1 diabetes as the main trigger of beta-cells’ recognition as foreign by their immunity cells. Haque et al. (2019) further report the development of immunotherapy that prevents the immune attack of beta-cells in Type 1 diabetes treatment. Moreover, Chaurasia et al. (2019) identify ceramides molecules as the crucial trigger of insulin resistance in diabetes. Such, plus several other studies, purpose to help the world understand DM better to resolve the matter.
Analysis of the Pathophysiologic Effects of Stress Related to Diabetes
Stress often causes a fight or flee feeling, often triggering the body to generate more energy. The condition leads to the pumping of more sugar into the blood plasma for quick utilization (Subba et al., 2021). A normal human body has a mechanism to balance this effect after the stress is no more. However, a diabetic patient’s compromised insulin generation makes it hard for the body to metabolize the released blood sugar (Subba et al., 2021). The situation thus implies a direct connection between stress and blood sugar problems among diabetes patients.
Evidence-Based Stress Management Interventions that Might Help with Prevention or Cure
Accepting diabetes as a normal manageable condition is the first move towards a stress-free life among patients. Many people become restless and depressed on learning about their diabetic condition, which worsens their case. Physical exercises such as yoga also play a crucial part in managing stress and body weight. The deep stretches allow patients to focus on other things other than worrying about their condition (Hoogendoorn et al., 2021). Moreover, meditation helps the brain to focus and leave behind troubling ideas about sickness and stressful life. Adopting a combined stress management approach promises to deliver better results for patients with diabetes.
References
Addressing health disparities in diabetes | Diabetes | CDC. (2021). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web.
Adeniyi, O., Washington, L. T., Glenn, C. J., Franklin, S. G., Scott, A., Aung, M., Niranjan, S. J., & Jolly, P. E. (2021). The use of complementary and alternative medicine among hypertensive and type 2 diabetic patients in western Jamaica: A mixed methods study.Plos One, 16(2), 0245163. Web.
Agu, J. C., Hee-Jeon, Y., Steel, A., & Adams, J. (2019). A systematic review of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine use amongst ethnic minority populations: a focus upon prevalence, drivers, integrative use, health outcomes, referrals and use of information sources.Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 21(5), 1137–1156. Web.
Baker, R. L., Rihanek, M., Hohenstein, A. C., Nakayama, M., Michels, A., Gottlieb, P. A., Haskins, K., & Delong, T. (2019). Hybrid Insulin Peptides Are Autoantigens in Type 1 Diabetes. Diabetes, 68(9), 1830–1840. Web.
Chaurasia, B., Tippetts, T. S., Mayoral Monibas, R., Liu, J., Li, Y., Wang, L., Wilkerson, J. L., Sweeney, C. R., Pereira, R. F., Sumida, D. H., Maschek, J. A., Cox, J. E., Kaddai, V., Lancaster, G. I., Siddique, M. M., Poss, A., Pearson, M., Satapati, S., Zhou, H. & Summers, S. A. (2019). Targeting a ceramide double bond improves insulin resistance and hepatic steatosis.Science (New York, N.Y.), 365(6451), 386–392. Web.
Diabetes | Healthy people 2020. (2021). Healthy People 2030 | health.gov. Web.
Haque, M., Lei, F., Xiong, X., Das, J. K., Ren, X., Fang, D., Salek-Ardakani, S., Yang, J.-M., & Song, J. (2019). Stem cell-derived tissue-associated regulatory T cells suppress the activity of pathogenic cells in autoimmune diabetes.JCI Insight, 4(7). Web.
Hoogendoorn, C. J., Schechter, C. B., Llabre, M. M., Walker, E. A., & Gonzalez, J. S. (2021). Distress and type 2 diabetes self-care: Putting the pieces together.Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 55(10), 938-948. Web.
National diabetes statistics report | Diabetes | CDC. (2022, January 18). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web.
Subba, R., Sandhir, R., Singh, S. P., Mallick, B. N., & Mondal, A. C. (2021). Pathophysiology linking depression and type 2 diabetes: Psychotherapy, physical exercise, and fecal microbiome transplantation as damage control. European Journal of Neuroscience, 53(8), 2870-2900. Web.