Diabetes in Men

Why should I care about diabetes?

After years of warning about an epidemic of diabetes, researchers are beginning to see clear signs that it’s underway. The incidence of this devastating disease has doubled in the past 30 years, according to a 2006 report in the journal Circulation. And the biggest jump in diabetes diagnoses was among men.

The risk for type 2 diabetes typically climbs after the age of 45, although the disease is now showing up in younger and younger people. In fact, type 2 diabetes used to be called adult onset diabetes because it usually didn’t occur until middle age. No longer. “We’re beginning to see type 2 diabetes showing up in people in their 20s now,” says David Ludwig, MD, PhD, an endocrinology expert at Children’s Hospital in Boston.

The risk factors for type 2 diabetes include:

• being overweight or obese
• a sedentary lifestyle
• a diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates and low in fiber and whole grains
• a history of type 2 diabetes in your immediate family (mother, father, sister, or brother)

African-Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Native Alaskans, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders also have an increased risk.

Having diabetes, in turn, increases the danger of heart disease, as well as a range of problems associated with impaired circulation, such as eye disease and nerve damage.

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease that occurs when the body can’t control blood glucose levels properly. Normally, the digestive tract breaks down food into glucose, a form of sugar, which is released into the circulating blood. The hormone insulin, produced by the pancreas, stimulates cells to absorb glucose from the bloodstream and use it for energy.

Type 1 diabetes, which typically shows up in childhood, is caused when the immune system mistakenly attacks insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Type 2 diabetes occurs when tissues in the body gradually become resistant to the effect of insulin. The pancreas responds by churning out more of the hormone. But eventually it can’t keep up, and blood glucose levels begin to climb.

That’s bad for many reasons. High glucose levels damage nerve and blood vessels, leading to heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney disease, and gum infections. Advanced type 2 diabetes can result in blindness and the need to amputate limbs that no longer get adequate circulation.

One of the main causes of the current epidemic of type 2 diabetes, researchers believe, is the rise in obesity. Over time, excess weight makes cells in the muscles, liver, and fat tissue less responsive to insulin — a condition called insulin resistance.

Another contributing cause — to both obesity and the rise in type 2 diabetes — is likely to be increasing consumption of sugar and highly refined carbohydrates such as white flour.