There are two clear reasons why diabetes is one of the most critical health issues facing Americans.
First, the situation continues to get worse, not better. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), doctors diagnose 1.2 million people with diabetes every year. Roughly 38.4 million people in the U.S. currently affected. A whopping 38% of American adults also have prediabetes, which means they’re at high risk of the disease as well.
Second, research has linked diabetes to many serious health complications: heart issues, stroke, vision issues, kidney damage, and many more.
The biology of diabetes shows how things go awry. In a person without the disease, a hormone called insulin breaks down the sugar (glucose) in our food so it can go into our cells and turn into energy. That process doesn’t work well in someone with diabetes. This leads to higher sugar levels in the blood and a cascade of other problems.
Symptoms of diabetes can include feeling very thirsty, frequent urination, losing weight without trying to, feeling tired, and having blurry vision. Worth noting: People with prediabetes may not show any of these symptoms.
There are two types of diabetes—type 1 and type 2—and there are key differences between them.
What’s the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes?
“Type 1 diabetes is when the pancreas, the organ that makes insulin, doesn’t make the hormone because your immune system is attacking the cells of the pancreas,” explains Shirley Jiang, MD, Chief Medical Officer for ReflexMD.
Type 1 is far less common than type 2—only 5.7% of all U.S. adults with diabetes have it. And it typically develops in kids and young adults, although it can come on at any age. The exact cause is unknown and lifestyle factors don’t affect its development. Treatment requires lifelong insulin therapy and careful monitoring.
“In type 2 diabetes, your pancreas used to make insulin,” says Dr. Jiang. “But now it makes less because it’s kind of being ‘burned out.’ And your body also has become more resistant to insulin.” Lifestyle factors such as a poor diet, being obese, or being sedentary often contribute to type 2 diabetes.
“Type 2 typically happens to older people, those over age 45,” Dr. Jiang. “However, given the current issues with obesity, lifestyle, and diet, more people are now developing it at an earlier age, even as kids.”
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Semaglutide and the big step forward
To treat type 2 diabetes, experts recommend a healthy diet rich in nutrients and low in processed sugars and fats, as well as regular exercise to help prevent obesity and manage blood sugar. There are also medications that can help, including metformin, an oral drug. And in 2017, the FDA approved a new medication that has given the medical world a load of excitement and hope—semaglutide.
“Semaglutide helps promote weight loss, and if you’re overweight and have diabetes it can be really helpful,” says Dr. Jiang. In a study on people with type 2 diabetes, semaglutide users lost an average of 9.6% of their body weight over 68 weeks. More than two-thirds of all enrollees lost at least 5% of their body weight.
Semaglutide offers other benefits to people with type 2 diabetes as well. “It reduces the risk of stroke and heart attack,” Dr. Jiang says. “There was a clear and significant reduction of those risks in those with diabetes.”
A large study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that, for overweight and obese people with preexisting cardiovascular disease, semaglutide lowered the risk of a heart event or death from heart disease by 20%.
Given the high rates of both diabetes and heart disease in the U.S., it’s safe to call that a real two-for-one boost for our health.
If you’re interested in finding out whether semaglutide is right for you, take our short quiz to see if you qualify.
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