Satire in Huck Finn

Diabetes is a very well known disorder. Nearly eighteen million people in the United States alone have diabetes. Diabetes is a serious illness, and there are about 1,800 new cases are being diagnosed each day. To completely understand diabetes, a person must first know how the body works with the disease and then determine which type of diabetes he/she has. There are three types of diabetes: Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 diabetes, and Gestational diabetes. There are many factors that play into the development of this disease. Type 1 diabetes is a disease that affects the way your body uses food. In Type 2 the body still makes insulin, but is not using it correctly, resulting in elevated blood sugars. Gestational diabetes occurs in pregnancy, but goes away after birth. These are the three different types of diabetes, and what type of effect they have on the body. There are many different scientists who are out there trying to come up with a cure for diabetes, and hopefully in the near future they will do so.

As stated earlier, to understand diabetes completely, one must first understand how the body works. During digestion, your body changes most of the foods you eat into glucose. Also during digestion, your body tells the pancreas to make important chemical called insulin. Insulin, like glucose enters your blood and travels to your cells. Glucose and insulin meet at your cells, where the insulin acts as a key unlocking the cells to let the glucose enter. Type 1 diabetes develops because the body destroys the beta cells in the islet tissue of the pancreas that produce insulin. The rate at which the beta cells are destroyed varies. Infants and children usually develop the disease suddenly because the beta cells are destroyed rapidly. Adults tend to develop the disease slowly because the beta cells are destroyed gradually. Occasionally, people notice diabetes symptoms after an illness, such as the flu. If they do not seek medical care quickly, the lack of insulin can cause the blood sugar level to rise much higher than normal. The body then uses fat and muscle for energy, which causes the release of ketones, or fatty acids. Once this happens the person is receptive to go into a reaction which symptoms are confusion; strong fruity breath, and drowsiness, or even coma.

Type one diabetes is usually diagnosed in younger children, but can be diagnosed at any age. Type 1 is the type of diabetes that people most often get before 30 years of age. All people with type 1 diabetes need to take insulin because their bodies do not make enough of it. Their pancreas no longer creates enough insulin to sustain life, if any at all. To live, type one diabetics must take insulin through injections or a newer method, called an insulin pump. Blood sugars are usually tested four or more times a day. Type one diabetes is not caused by being overweight, not exercising enough, or eating too much junk food. It maybe inherited, but type two diabetes in more likely to run in families. Type 1 diabetes, is a chronic illness this means that it has no cure and the symptoms persist over a long period of time.

Type 2 diabetes is more likely to run in families than type one, but science has not yet shown whether this is because families have similar lifestyles that cause this, or due to genetics. Most believe it is a combination. Type 2 diabetes is the type that is increasing. Type 2 is the type of diabetes most people get as adults after the age of 40, but you can also get this kind of diabetes at a younger age. Risk factors include a sedentary lifestyle and being overweight. Type 2 diabetes is controlled through pills, diet, and exercise. If these treatments do not work they usually resort to Insulin. Insulin is usually not the first resort for type two, but many people find they need insulin after several years with it. Monitoring is also very important. Blood sugar tests are usually done two or more times a day. There are no known effective ways of preventing it.

Gestational diabetes occurs in pregnancy. During pregnancy, your hormones make it tougher for your body to use insulin, so your pancreas needs to produce more of it. For most moms-to be, this isn't a problem: As your need for insulin increases, your pancreas secretes more of it. But when a woman's pancreas can't keep up with the insulin demand and her blood glucose levels get too high, the result is gestational diabetes. Insulin may or may not be needed, but tight control is essential for a healthy birth. Gestational diabetes may be at increased risk factor for type 2 diabetes later in life. Most women with gestational diabetes don't remain diabetic once the baby is born. Once you've had it, though, you're at higher risk for getting it again during a future pregnancy and for becoming diabetic later in life. Testing may continue after birth to ensure that it really was gestational diabetes and not type one or two.

There are other blood sugar problems that may occur other than diabetes, such as hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia is considered by many to be the opposite of diabetes. It means low blood sugar. There are over a thousand causes of this. The most common ones are relative hypoglycemia, and reactive hypoglycemia. In both relative and reactive hypoglycemia the blood sugar level drops quickly after eating, resulting in a feeling of low blood sugar. In reactive hypoglycemia the level actually goes low, in relative hypoglycemia is stays normal, but drops quickly. Treatment for these two type includes diet modification and blood sugar monitoring may possibly be advised. Other types of hypoglycemia may be caused by food moving at the wrong speed through the digestive tract or too much insulin. Some people require medication or surgery to remove part of the pancreas if this type exists.

Scientist has asked them selves this question. "What if a non functioning pancreatic islet cells could be made to produce insulin once again. That would cure diabetes. The possibility has set the diabetes world excited over the past few months--ever since researchers at McGill University in Canada and the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) successfully regenerated islet cells in diabetic hamsters. The researchers used a mixture of proteins called llotropin to "turn on" nonfunctional islet cells. The treatment also caused new islet cells to grow where there had been few or none. Since then, in a report in the May 1997 Journal of Clinical Investigations, the researchers have identified the gene that llotropin triggers, the one involved in regenerating the islet cells" (Eastman). This seems like great idea, and defiantly