It is now a well known and established fact that we are facing a global pandemic of Diabetes Mellitus. Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest growing and most costly disorders worldwide. Scientists report that at least 25 per cent of the population are walking around undiagnosed and insulin resistant (the latter is the syndrome just preceding diabetes). The sad news is that the age bracket is sliding lower and lower.

Children are affected!!
Type 2 diabetes used to be called "adult-onset" diabetes, because it mostly occurred in people over 50. But no longer! The rising rate of diabetes in children is epidemic. "If you go back 20 years, about two per cent of all cases of new onset diabetes (type 2) were in people between nine and 19 years old. Now, it's about 30 per cent to 50 per cent " said Dr. Gerald Bernstein, an endocrinologist with New York's Beth Israel Medical Center.

Among Americans in their 30s, the 1990s saw a 70 per cent rise in type 2 diabetes, reports the CDC (Centre for Disease Control). Other age groups also showed significant increases. For those in their 40s the disease rose by 40 per cent, and by 31 per cent for those in their fifties. It is also important to note that blacks seem to be the most susceptible race in America. A lot of developing countries are in the grip of this global pandemic. While countries, like India seem to be most adversely affected, Nigeria is now having an explosion in the level of occurrence.
I was going to write a different topic today, but decided to write on free radical damage with regards to diabetes, because of a specific request by someone. I felt, it is a topic that would benefit others so I decided to share it.

The statistics I quoted above show that there is serious cause for concern. You may begin to wonder what is going wrong or what are we doing wrong?

I and probably a lot of others have written exhaustively about the predisposing factors. People usually do not bother and feel insulated against ailments, like diabetes until a relative or they themselves are diagnosed. It is important, to be well educated about issues around you and adopt measures that will reduce ones susceptibility as well as ensure a healthier lifestyle for the diagnosed. People with a positive family history (i.e. with one or both parents who have been diagnosed as diabetic), should adopt lifestyles which would reduce the probability of their developing the disease.
While free radicals is the focus for today in relation to diabetes; I will briefly mention exercise, which is a very important factor.

Inactivity: These days, more and more people are engaged in blue collar jobs, which do not necessitate their working their bodies. Nobody wants to be a labourer or a farmer. Nigerian engineers are always teased about being in the office! These days, it is literarily unheard of for anybody to trek to the office. You either catch a bus and the more affluent drive or are driven. The bottom line is that rich or poor, day in day out, people sit on their buttocks to and from work. By the time they get back from work at the close of day, they are so tired that wild horses would not be able to drag them to do any form of exercise!!

Children and adolescents are not spared. Not exercising, being sedentary (watching TV, spending time on the computer, and playing video games), and eating larger portions of foods than they need take the lion's share of blame for the downward age progression of the diabetes epidemic. It is very important for people to arrange their lives in a way to increase the amount of exercise they do. Start small. Easy to do activities, like walking and dancing, can make a huge difference to tuning the body for good health. Sports like tennis (table and lawn), swimming, etc can be picked up with time. What are free radicals?

What do they have to do with diabetes?
What are free radicals? I will give the straight scientific definition of free radicals which may be a bit difficult for non-science oriented readers to understand. But that is what free radicals are Free radicals are atoms or groups of atoms with an odd (unpaired) number of electrons and can be formed when oxygen interacts with certain molecules. Free radicals are not completely bad. They are generated during normal biological processes that take place within our body. In fact, they are needed in vital body metabolic processes. The problem starts when free radicals that the body cannot handle or neutralize are generated. Some are xenobiotic or alien free radicals to the body. Certain substances are potent free radical generators.

Once formed, these highly reactive radicals can start a chain reaction. Their chief danger comes from the damage they can do when they react with important cellular components, such as DNA, or the cell membrane. Cells may function poorly or die if this occurs. Now imagine that these cells are the cells of an important organ, like the pancreas, which secretes insulin. What do they have to do with diabetes? Free radical stress has been implicated in the pathogenesis of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Free radical stress would contribute to spontaneous type 2 diabetes development. I had written about free radicals in this column precisely in 2004 though not in specific relation to diabetes. Despite this, I mentioned that free radicals is the way a lot of substances and microbes exert their damage on cells of the body.

Free radicals are implicated in a wide assortment of diseases. With diabetes, some chemicals used in processing modern day food are potent agents that exert free radical stress on the pancreas. One of them is ALLOXAN, which is used to bleach wheat and make flour white. While Parental stock is an important determinant of susceptibility for glucose intolerance disorders, it wise to adopt a lifestyle which ensures reduced exposure to potent food toxins. In food toxins, I mentioned that we eat toxins in our food everyday.

Some are used to preserve or process the food. The bottom line is that certain substances can generate free radicals, which increase the probability of developing type 2 diabetes, especially in positively predisposed persons. It is important to eat a diet that is low in such substances, but high in antioxidants containing foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. The latter help to neutralize free radicals before they are able to exert any damage.