M1 Unit 14

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SECTIONS Diabetes: signs, symptoms and making a diagnosis 7 JANUARY, 2003 At least 1.3 million people in the UK have diabetes. It can affect people of all ages and all ethnic groups. This first article in a three-part series provides an overview of type 1 and 2 diabetes. It explains the aetiology, signs and symptoms and how a diagnosis is reached. Risk factors and psychosocial implications are also considered. ABSTRACT VOL: 99, ISSUE: 01, PAGE NO: 30 Mary Burden, RGN, MPH, is consultant nurse, diabetes, Heart of Birmingham Teaching Primary Care Trust At least 1.3 million people in the UK have diabetes. It can affect people of all ages and all ethnic groups. This first article in a three-part series provides an overview of type 1 and 2 diabetes. It explains the aetiology, signs and symptoms and how a diagnosis is reached. Risk factors and psychosocial implications are also considered. Types of diabetes Diabetes mellitus arises through a lack of insulin or resistance to its action. It is clinically defined by symptoms of diabetes and by measurement of fasting or random blood glucose concentration (and occasionally by glucose tolerance test). There are two principal classes of diabetes - type 1 and type 2. 1. Type 1 diabetes, also referred to as insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus because it requires the administration of insulin, is an autoimmune disease where there is destruction of the insulin-producing (beta) cells in the islets of Langerhans of the pancreas. Before the isolation of insulin in 1922, type 1 diabetes was fatal. It can occur at any age, but most often it is children who develop this type of diabetes. 2. Type 2 diabetes, also referred to as non-insulin-dependent diabetes, is caused as the result of reduced secretion of insulin and to peripheral resistance to the action of insulin; that is, the insulin

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