Global Pulse Blog

From Washington D.C.'s Department of Health Page

According to a recent study, the estimated number of people living with Diabetes is now at 347 million worldwide. This figure shows that the prevalence of this chronic condition has doubled since 1980.  With 2.7 million participants, this study was the largest of its kind for diabetes. It was led by Majid Ezzati, from Britain’s Imperial College London, and Goodarz Danaei from the Harvard School of Public Health and the results were published in the Lancet.  Diabetes is a progressive condition that can affect all the organ systems of the body leading to serious complications like heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, nerve damage, and blindness. It is as a metabolic ailment in which the body fails to adequately move sugar from the blood stream into tissues.  Diabetes comes in two forms.  Type 1 is an autoimmune disease that is usually acquired in childhood to early adulthood and requires the person with type I to take insulin for their rest of their life in order to survive.  Type 2 accounts for 90 percent of diabetic cases and is more common to develop after the age of 25, even though it is becoming more common for those younger than 25 to develop the metabolic disease. It is controlled by insulin, oral medication and, for some people, it can be controlled with weight loss and exercise.

The latest issue of The Journal of Biological Chemistry reports a surprising new mechanism of beta cell destruction.  Beta cells are the cells in the pancreas responsible for producing the insulin needed to keep the body’s blood glucose levels within a normal range by decreasing excess levels of glucose throughout the day; their destruction is a core defect in Diabetes.  Alpha cells are also found in the pancreas and also play a role in keeping the blood glucose levels normal by producing glucagon.  Glucagon counteracts the action of insulin by raising the blood glucose levels when glucose levels fall below the normal range.    Alpha cells also secrete another substance, glutamate, which acts as a signaling molecule in both the pancreas and brain. The results of this study showed that glutamate is toxic to the beta cell.  The study also found the presence of a key regulator of glutamate concentration near the beta cells called the glial glutamate transporter 1 (GLT1).  GLT1 is located on the plasma membrane of beta cells and is integral in protecting the beta cells from the toxic effects of glutamate. The authors are presently working on developing a diagnostic test for glutamate toxicity in the pancreas. The hope is to eventually develop an intervention that will slow or completely stop the further destruction of beta cells in diabetic patients. This study was a collaborative effort between researchers in Milan, Italy and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, TX.

Many news articles have been written recently on the increase in the prevalence in chronic diseases across the globe.  Rapid economic development is seen as one possible cause of the swift spread of chronic diseases in the developing world.

Let’s take the increase in the prevalence of Diabetes Type II for example. China has nearly 250 million and India has about 50 million people with Diabetes and prediabetes.  It is estimated that by 2030, 366 million or 6% or the world’s population will have Diabetes. This condition has two different modes of contraction, one for the wealthy, mainly being obesity resulting from over-nutrition, and another for the poor via changes in the amount of exercise and diet that once consisted mainly of vegetables but now has switched to foods that are high in sugar, salt and fat.    The change of diet is a direct result of the increase in the numbers of people moving from villages to cities in search of work.  A study found that the influence of urbanization and change of living habits have a greater influence than genetic predisposition for  determining whether a person develops Diabetes Type II, these migrants were twice more likely to have hypertension and to have higher blood sugar than villagers.

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