The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 25.8 million people were living with diabetes in the U.S. in 2011 (8.3 percent of the population). A whopping 79 million Americans have prediabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.
With nearly two million new cases diagnosed in 2010 in people age 20 and older, and increased risks for stroke, kidney failure, limb amputations and other complications when its not controlled, diabetes knowledge and research is crucial to finding different ways to prevent it and treat it.
The notion that there are only two types of diabetes is a misnomer. Additionally, there is no longer one type of diabetes for young people and another type of diabetes for older folk. And there is a genetic component in most types of the disease.
The two well-known types are type 1 or T1D, origin of which is autoimmune in nature – and type 2, primarily caused by sedentary lifestyles and eating habits that promote insulin resistance. But it also has a genetic component – it’s not all about obesity and drinking sodas, said Marie Davis, executive director of JDRF.
“In type 2, it is 50 percent genetic, so it’s a high, high likelihood that if it’s in your family, you have the opportunity for it,” Davis said. “If anyone in your family has type 2 – you have a 50 percent chance of getting it. It goes all the way back to DNA.”
There are more than 50 genes that can cause type 2 diabetes under the right circumstances, she said. Davis adds that you don’t have to be obese to have type 2 diabetes, but having type 2 diabetes can make you obese.
“Therefore its even more important that ‘type 2s’ regiment themselves on what they eat, when they eat, when they exercise, how much they exercise – all those details that none of us want to think about,” Davis said.
But there is something in the middle – a type of diabetes that has properties of type 1 and type 2. Some call it type 1.5 and others call it LADA – Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults.
“It’s a slow onset type 1 in adults and usually people are misdiagnosed as having type 2 because they are adults and they still don’t need a lot of insulin yet, and sometimes they can do the typical things that they have type 2s doing,” Davis said.
Exercise and close attention to meal planning only works okay for a while, Davis said.
“But in time, their bodies will be more harmed because they didn’t find out they had this 1.5 and they didn’t start the insulin regimen early enough,” she explained.
Gestational diabetes, as the name indicates, is a condition of pregnant women.
“It usually goes away after the birth of the child, but sometimes it lingers and it either becomes type 1 or type 2,” Davis said. “Normally when women get pregnant, they produce more insulin because they need to produce insulin for themselves and their fetus. So for a woman to have gestational diabetes, that’s a very unique situation.
“About 40 percent of women who have gestational diabetes will end up with some form of diabetes later in life.”
To review for a moment: diabetes can be caused by a body’s immune system attacking and killing insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas at any age (T1D); it can be caused by lifestyle behaviors causing insulin resistance (Type 2); diabetes can present with properties similar to types 1 and 2 (T1.5 or LADA); diabetes can appear during pregnancy (gestational).
The fifth presentation of diabetes can be caused by a flaw in a single gene (MODY), an acronym for Mature Onset Diabetes of the Young.
“It’s really a mutation of the gene that caused it to happen,” Davis said, adding that MODY is rare and often misdiagnosed.
“It is more like a type 1 and it is very genetic,” Davis said. “If one parent has the gene, then you can get the disease.”
Regardless of the origins of diabetes, all forms should be taken seriously and all types of diabetes can cause other health complications that can shorten or end your life if one is not carefully following doctor’s advice on how to best keep his/her particular type of diabetes under control.