Diabetes

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**Diabetes: Introduction ** Diabetes Mellitus or how it is known to a majority of people: Diabetes, comes in various shapes and sizes, however there are two main forms of Diabetes: type one and type two diabetes.

**Diabetes: Discovery ** Diabetes was discovered long before its current name was attributed to it. The most original knowledge of diabetes has been found to be by Indian physician Susharta (400 B.C.E.) who noted the sweet taste of urine in diagnosing this illness, he knew this because of the observation that flies and ants were attracted greatly to the urine of one suffering diabetes.

The actual start of discovering diabetes in modern terms was by two German doctors Joseph von Meringand and Oskar Minkowski (1889) discovered that the pancreas and diabetes were related. To research this they removed the pancreas of a dog which suffered diabetes and analysed it, finding that it did not contain any insulin.



**The Causes of Diabetes: Insulin, Glucose and Glycogen ** Your blood contains glucose, which is the simplest form of a sugar, its glucose level must be controlled however, or else the consequences could possibly be fatal. Your body’s way of controlling the glucose level in the blood stream is the pancreas. A small organ just below the stomach, it contains special cells that can detect when your blood has too much glucose in it. So it sends out a hormone into the blood stream called insulin.



Insulin regulates the amount of glucose in the blood stream, which carries the excess glucose to the liver which converts the glucose to another chemical called glycogen which is deposited around the body, mainly in the liver and muscle tissue as a store of carbohydrates. Diabetes occurs either when the body fails to produce any insulin, this results in the need for insulin to be injected in the patient suffering from the disease, or when the liver cannot successfully convert the glucose to glycogen, therefore leaving too much glucose in the blood stream. The former of these is called type one diabetes, and the latter being type two diabetes.

**Diabetes: Common Symptoms ** The most common symptoms for Diabetes are:
 * Polyuria: Frequent urge to urinate
 * Polydipsia: Increased thirst
 * Polyphagia: Increased hunger
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Rapid weight loss
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Increased fatigue
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Blurry vision

**<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif';">Diabetes: A Cure or Treatment **

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">There is no way to cure type one diabetes at the present, however there are numerous treatments that are available for diabetic patients. For type one diabetes, which is when the body does not produce any insulin, one treatment that is being utilized is the patient receiving an injection of insulin. <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">For type two diabetes, which is the most common form of the disease, it is actually possible to be fully cured from it. A few treatments that can actually cure it are healthy eating and regular physical exercise.



**<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif';">Diabetes: Interesting Facts **
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Diabetes is mainly a genetic disease, which means that it is passed down from parents to child and is usually universal in a family which has a known history of diabetes. //
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Every twenty-one seconds somebody is diagnosed with diabetes. //
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Diabetes affects over 16 million people in America alone! //
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Diabetes Mellitus is called Mellitus because it means honey in Latin, this describing the smell of a diabetic’s urine. //
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">The amount of people in the world living with diabetes has more than doubled since the 1980’s from 153 million people to 347 million people in the present day. //
 * <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">//There are actually many more forms of diabetes, however uncommon they are, the two main forms however are type one and type two diabetes, as coverered in this article.//

**<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif';">Diabetes: Bibliography ** <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">All references were viewed on Sunday the 26th of June, 2011

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">[] - <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">No listed author- <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Interesting Facts about Diabetes.

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">[] - <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Author: Summarised from the National Institution of Health, The Genetic Landscape of Diabetes- <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Timeline of the history of Diabetes.

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">[] – <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Author: Thomas H. Moore II, Los Angeles Times- <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Article about British medical researchers discoveries on a cure for type two diabetes.

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">[] - <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Author: Various Wikipedia Users- <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Wikipedia page on Diabetes.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Book: Science Quest 2: Year 7, page 136 – <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Explaining the pancreas, glycogen, glucose and insulin.

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">[] - <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Author: Unknown- I only got the images from there- <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Images of the two discoverers of Diabetes.

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">[] - <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Author: Kamilah Qasimi- <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Image of a syringe being filled with insulin.

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">[] - <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Author: Unknown- I only used the image on this page- <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Image of a broccoli.

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">[] - <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Author: Unknown- <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">List of some symptoms of Diabetes

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;"> TV: SBS News - <span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Piece about Diabetes

<span style="font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">Thank You for reading :) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">By Deylan Kilic-Aidani <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Adobe Caslon Pro','serif'; font-size: 21px;">7B3

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