On finding out that you have Diabetes 2, you are first instructed by your physician to make diet and exercise changes. Your new changes will include making nutritious food choices, reduced calorie intake, and implementing a regular exercise routine. Such changes may appear overwhelming, but are required in order for you to manage your Type II Diabetes. Also, such changes helps to lower your blood sugar to acceptable limits. But, while these changes are critical and of benefit, there is also the beginning of therapies such as using insulin to help control your Diabetes 2.
??Lifestyle changes unfortunately are not permanent solutions to treating Type 2 diabetes. In time, the pancreas does not make enough insulin and finally it will be unable to make enough for the requirements of the body. This is why insulin injections are necessary. Whether the insulin is injected or infused, this is a highly effective treatment for Type 2 diabetes. It can be hard for some people to begin insulin injections. Some factors may deter many from starting insulin. Most of are psychological; others can be financial or physical. If insulin injections are commenced early there is a largely reduced risk for eye disease, kidney disease and nerve damage. The need to rely on insulin should not be looked at as a failure, but more like the necessary ingredient to treating Type 2 diabetes.
So, when does a person begin taking insulin? Insulin injections are usually started on those who cannot lower their blood glucose levels by either correct diet and exercise. When you begin your insulin injections, it??(EWAS) or to systematically examine the contributions of hundreds of factors in the development of Type 2 diabetes. This “enviromics” approach, which mirrors genome-wide association studies, harnesses high-speed computers and publicly accessible databases.
The first-of-its-kind study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), appears in the May 20, 2010, issue of PLoS One. The article is titled An Environment-Wide Association Study (EWAS) on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
The authors examined 226 separate environmental factors like nutrition and exposure to bacteria, viruses, allergens and toxins. They found that certain factors, notably a pesticide derivative and the environmental contaminant PCB, were strongly associated with the development of diabetes. Other factors, including the nutrient beta-carotene, served a protective role.
The scientists describe their work as a demonstration that computational approaches can reveal as much about environmental contributions to disease as about genetic factors. They posit that the technique could be applied to other complex diseases like obesity, hypertension and cardiovascular disorders.
The authors acknowledge that many challenges remain, including the fact that, unlike the genome, “the environment is boundless.”
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Jeremy M. Berg, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), which played a leading role in supporting the research, is available to comment on this article. To schedule interviews, please contact the NIGMS Communications Office at 301-496-7301 or .
In addition to NIGMS, the work was supported by NIH’s National Library of Medicine and National Institute on Aging.
NIGMS is a part of NIH that supports basic research to increase our understanding of life processes and lay the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. For more information on the Institute’s research and training programs, see http://www.nigms.nih.gov.
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