Diabetes in Pacific Islanders Essay
Diabetes has been a major health issue in the United States of America in the last 20 years or so. In the resent years, statistics show that a great population in United States has highly been affected by diabetes while there are a growing number of young people already diagnosed with diabetes. Today, diabetes remains to be an increasing health issue among the Native Hawaiians. Generally, according to healthcare reports, diabetes is a risk issue for cardiovascular illness which is remains to be the leading cause of death among the Native Hawaiians. It has been recently reviewed that diabetes occurrence in Native Hawaiians is high due to their poor diets. According to statistics, there are approximately 1 million residents that identify themselves as Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders. Type 2 Diabetes has been the major threat to these ethnic groups for quite a long period of time. The Hawaii department estimates of healthcare estimates that nearly 70,000 to 9,000 Hawaii residents have diabetes. This has remained to be a great challenge to the people of America despite the effective measures in healthcare.
Type DM:
The economy of Native Hawaiians /Pacific Islanders is one of the worst in United States. This is one of the major factors that have influenced the rate of diabetes to increase. The diet of Native Hawaiians /Pacific Islanders is the major contributing factor that has influenced the growing number of type 2 Diabetes within their region. Native Hawaiians /Pacific Islanders feed on one type of food mostly such as starch. However, a good number of residents within the region are said to have this diabetes because it is genetic. Generally, type 1 diabetes is also known as insulin-independent, Juvenile-onset, or immune mediated. This kind of diabetes is causes by auto-immune reactions which occur in the body (Curtis, 2004).
People with this kind of diseases do not produce insulin in their bodies. According to research, type 1 diabetes can occur to any age but mostly it affects people at the age of 40 years. Based on healthcare research, it is evident that type 1 diabetes is influenced by environmental factors like virus, chemicals, or diet. Careful diet is the only solution to this disease. Very few cases in Hawaii are reported to have type1 Diabetes because it is rare to them according to research conducted in the year 2001. Type 2 diabetes is different from type 1 diabetes. This is the most common diabetes associated with Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders people (Erber, 2010).
Type 2 diabetes can also be referred as late-onset diabetes because it is characterized by insulin resistance and virtual insulin scarcity or deficiency. There are more than a few factors that increase the danger of developing type2 diabetes such as obesity, low level of physical activity, or vulnerability. The link between genetic risk aspects and diabetes is not clearly known. According to medical research, family background of diabetes and ethnicity are the major aspects that can influence the development of type 2 diabetes (Furubayashi, 2005).