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Running head: AN ANALYSIS OF DIABETES AS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE 1

AN ANALYSIS OF DIABETES AS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE 2

Revision feedback MILESTONE TWO PBH-02

You provided some solid information in this assignment regarding your topic of diabetes. For this milestone you needed to talk specifically about current programs and strategies that are in place to address diabetes. You also needed to go over their effectiveness. Great job covering the history. In order to substantiate its legitimacy as a problem you needed to include statistics regarding those that are impacted. Include information such as prevalence, incidence, mortality, etc. You also needed to provide statistics in the last section when discussing the target population that's impacted. Also you need to include in-text citations whenever you are using information from additional sources. Your history section should have at least once citation. Please make corrections prior to your final project. If you have any questions please let me know.

An Analysis of Diabetes as a Public Health Issue

The public health problem to be addressed

The long term complications of diabetes are said to develop gradually. The longer a person has diabetes, and has less controlled blood sugars, the higher the chances of getting complications. Apparently, the diabetes complications are disabling and life threatening. Diabetes is a deadly disease if left untreated. Diabetes is also said to increase the risks of developing cardiovascular problems that include coronary artery diseases and heart attacks. If a person has diabetes, that person is likely to have heart diseases or even stroke. On the other hand, diabetes is linked with nerve damages, a condition that is known as neuropathy. Excess sugar can cause injuries on the walls of blood vessels. It causes numbness and burning. If left untreated, it could affect the limbs. It also damages the nerves related to digestion and can even cause nausea as well as vomiting (Ramachandran & Snehalatha, 2011). For men, diabetes may cause erectile dysfunction. In some people, diabetes may lead to kidney damages. Diabetes may cause an irreversible end stage kidney disease that may call for a kidney transplant. Some of the things that make diabetes a debilitating condition are the fact that diabetes causes damages to the eyes. It may lead to permanent blindness. Women may also develop gestational diabetes. However, the babies are born healthy. All the same, if left untreated, the blood sugar levels may affect the baby as well. The child may develop low sugar diabetes which may cause early deaths. Thus, for this several reasons, diabetes needs to be addressed. It not only deprives the nation of a productive workforce, but it also leads to a loss in federal funds.

History of the issue

Scientists and the physicians have for a long time been documenting about diabetes for thousands of years. The doctors have been investigating about the discoveries and the dramatic breakthrough in the treatment of diabetes. In this regards, many brilliant minds have played a role in the history of diabetes. As far as history is concerned, the first known mention of diabetes was in the year 1552 BC when an Egyptian physician documented frequent urination as symptoms of a mysterious illness that caused emaciation. At that time, the ancient medicine men also noted that insects such as ants seemed to be attracted to the urine of people with this disease. In the year 150 AD a Greek physician described diabetes as the melting down of flesh and limbs into urine. Afterwards, the doctors then gained a better understanding of the disease. Centuries later, there emerged people who later came to be known as water tasters. They diagnosed diabetes by tasting urine of individuals suspected to have it. If the urine had a pleasant taste, then diabetes was diagnosed. In the year 1675, the word mellitus was added to the name diabetes which means to siphon. Even so, it wasn’t until the year 1800 those physicians devised a new chemical test that would be used to detect the presence of sugar in urine.

As the doctors understood about diabetes, they began to understand how to manage it. The first treatment involved exercises such as horseback riding which was assumed to relieve excessive urination. In the year 1700 and 1800, the physicians began to experiment dietary changes that could help manage diabetes. They advised the patients to eat animal fats and consume large amounts of sugar. During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, the French doctors discovered that diabetic patient’s symptoms improved as a result of war related rationings. The doctors developed individualized diets as a treatment for diabetes. It led to the invention of oat cure and potato therapy to help people with diabetes. In the year 1916, Elliot Joslin created a book known as the treatment of diabetes. The book made him an instant expert in that field. He suggested that fasting diet combined with regular exercises could reduce the risks of death among the patients with diabetes. Currently, the physicians utilize the book by Elliot to teach their patients about lifestyle changes for the containment of diabetes.

All the same, despite the advances people still died as a result of diabetes. It led to premature deaths among the patients. Nonetheless, the first breakthrough resulted in the invention of insulin to treat diabetes. Researchers at the University of Strasbourg in France identified that the removal of dog’s pancreas could lower the risks of diabetes. In early 1900, a German scientist determined that injecting pancreatic extracts into the patients could assist in controlling diabetes (Dunkley et al, 2014). Frederick Banting from Ontario developed an idea on how to use insulin to treat diabetes in 1920. The scientist had been trying his theory with animal experts. Banting finally used insulin to treat diabetes in 1922. For this reason, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in the field of medicine. Today, insulin has become the primary treatment for diabetes. However, other medications have also been used to control blood glucose levels. Besides, the diabetes patients can quickly test their blood sugars at home and use dietary changes, regular exercises and insulin to control blood glucose levels.

Policies and stakeholders involved

In a nutshell, the burden of chronic diseases in the United States is enormous and still growing. The control of chronic illnesses demands practical approaches. They include patient education and provider’s knowledge (Baker, 2011). The effective policies must also be implemented to address the issues of chronic diseases at the local and federal levels. It is true in regards to diabetes. The disease has cost the United States a sum of $245 billion in 2012. It consumed approximately one dollar in every 10 dollars of health care funds. Even so, implementing the policies to treat an illness is not a trivial matter. The efforts seem to be effective when proper goals are set. For example, child immunization is a perfect example. In the year 1990, half of the children in the United States were not immunized against communicable diseases (Ali et al, 2011). It took the powerful political movement to get the 90 percent of children to receive immunization. It meant winning the support from several states as well as professional groups. The federal government is the major stakeholder should evaluate the impacts of affordable care act and Medicaid expansion on diabetes. The ACA should cater for treatment and diagnosis of diabetes. In areas where Medicaid was expanded to provide for people with diabetes, more people were diagnosed with diabetes at earlier stages. To sum up, Medicaid expansion may lead to the increase in the number of recipients with identifiable diabetes. Also, more rapid diagnosis and support from respective States may result in long term outcomes. Lastly, if proper mechanisms are enforced, most of the people may overcome diabetes.

References

Ali, M. K., Echouffo-Tcheugui, J. B., & Williamson, D. F. (2012). How effective were lifestyle interventions in real-world settings that were modeled on the Diabetes Prevention Program?. Health affairs, 31(1), 67-75.

Baker, M. K., Simpson, K., Lloyd, B., Bauman, A. E., & Singh, M. A. F. (2011). Behavioral strategies in diabetes prevention programs: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Diabetes research and clinical practice, 91(1), 1-12.

Dunkley, A. J., Bodicoat, D. H., Greaves, C. J., Russell, C., Yates, T., Davies, M. J., & Khunti, K. (2014). Diabetes prevention in the real world: effectiveness of pragmatic lifestyle interventions for the prevention of type 2 diabetes and of the impact of adherence to guideline recommendations. Diabetes care, 37(4), 922-933.

Ramachandran, A., & Snehalatha, C. (2011). Diabetes prevention programs. Medical Clinics of North America, 95(2), 353-372.