National Diabetes Awareness month

November is a very significant time for 23.6 million Americans: It is National Diabetes Awareness month.

According to “Understanding Diabetes” written by Dr. H. Peter Chase, there are two types of diabetes, Type 1, also called juvenile, and Type 2.

Type 1 diabetes is when the pancreas is attacked by the body’s immune system and does not produce insulin. These patients become insulin dependent, or rely on insulin injections, for life.

Type 2 diabetes is mostly found in overweight or aged individuals. It is when insulin is still made in the pancreas in normal or increased amounts but does not work well in helping the body regulate glucose in the blood.

Insulin is very important in order to live. According to Jeffery Wilt, certified registered nurse anesthetist, Insulin allows sugar to go into cells to be used for energy that is used for normal body functions. Without the insulin, the body cannot get energy. The blood sugar rises to a high level and overflows into the kidneys passing into urine. This pulls water from the body to get rid of the sugar.

The results of this are the most common symptoms of diabetes. The symptoms include constant urination and drinking of liquids, frequently eating of food to obtain energy, significant weight loss, changes in mood or behavior, extreme sickness and excessive fatigue, which can lead to a coma and death.   

When diagnosed, diabetics have to manage their blood sugars to achieve control and combat the symptoms.

If tight control is not met, Wilt said the long-term effects in a diabetic’s body include loss of eyesight, kidney disease, nerve damage, limb amputation and more.

With so many people affected by this disease in the U.S. alone, there is good reason why so much money goes into research for the illness. According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, last year $171 million went toward research for cures and control.

According to the American Diabetes Association, devices to control diabetes have evolved tremendously. Originally, diabetes was tested by tasting the urine of the patient to see if it was sweet. Now they have glucose monitoring systems that use a drop of blood to read an almost exact number of glucose in the sugar.

Wilt has volunteered for 13 years at the West Virginia diabetes camp, Camp Kno-Koma said the advancements he has seen in his career have been tremendous.

Wilt said a diabetic tattoo is a new treatment scientists are pursuing and they expect it to be in production within the next five years. The tattoo changes from a “funky orange” color when the blood sugar is normal to a purple color when sugar is elevated and yellow when the sugar is low. Scientists hope this will help decrease the amount of finger pricks diabetics endure every day.

Like most diseases, when diabetes was first recognized, there was no treatment for it. Now many options exist to treat the disease, such as pills for Type 2 diabetes and insulin injections and insulin pumps for patients with Type 1 diabetes.

Mallory Evans, Marshall University dietetics major, has been living with the disease for 10 years.

“The methods to control sugar has improved a great deal even when I was first diagnosed,” Evans said. “The meters use to require a lot of blood, but now it is only a little drop.”

Now that control of the disease has advanced, researchers turn to finding a cure, something most diabetics are patiently waiting for.

Many methods of research are being tried to cure this disease.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, pancreas transplants have been successful in some patients. This is performed by obtaining a healthy pancreas from a donor and surgically placing it in the lower-right portion of a patient’s abdomen. The transplant is usually not a form of treatment because the risks that come with the transplant are greater than the complications with the actual disease. About 1,300 patients receive the transplant each year, with 83 percent of them being successful.

According to Junior Diabetes Research Fund, stem cells are the closest solution to finding a cure. This is done by replacing damaged islet cells in the pancreas with islet cells derived from stem cells from a donor. This research is limited because of the sparse number of donors. Only 8 percent of the procedures were successful last year, but recent studies show promise for this treatment.

This year a study conducted by The National Institutes of Health Resource for Stem Cell Research used a bigger number of islet cells and a treatment for immunosuppressant therapy was very successful. All patients who received this treatment were diabetes-free a year from their surgery. This concept is being studied at 10 other centers around the world.
Evans stays positive while dealing with diabetes.

“Diabetes doesn’t make me any different than you, it just gives me a different challenge to face,” Evans said.

The search for the cure will continue until 23.6 million Americans are no longer faced with this daily challenge.

   Heather Crum can be contacted at crum41@marshall.edu.