Module 12

 

Disease- 


One disease that I have studied quite a bit is diabetes. Type II diabetes is growing at an alarming rate around the world, In 2018 the CDC estimated that 26.9 million people in the United States alone had been diagnosed with diabetes (RHIhub 2019). What is more alarming, however, and what may give clues about what is causing this disease is the prevalence of type II diabetes in rural areas, at 12.6%, compared to urban areas at 9.9% (RHIhub 2019). It is well known that a large risk factor for type II diabetes is being overweight, or obese. Rural areas have a higher amount of overweight and obese people than urban areas, which may be partly due to it being harder to obtain fresh fruits and vegetables in rural areas compared to urban areas (RHIhub 2019). One study done by the US Diabetes Prevention Program showed that the best way to prevent or slow diabetes is through proper diet and exercise. The study found that increasing the amount of physical activity and decreasing the number of fats and sugars in the subjects' diet decreased the risk of developing type II diabetes by 58% over the course of 8 years (Chatterjee, Khunti, Davies, 2017). This statistic by itself is astounding and leads me to believe that as a more sedentary lifestyle has become common in everyday life, the risk of developing type II diabetes has also increased. In today's modern world more than ever, it's easy to do everything you need to do, including work, from home, at a computer or workstation. As sedentary lifestyles and bad eating habits rise, so do the numbers of people afflicted with diabetes, and that can't be a coincidence with the evidence that people with a healthier lifestyle are less likely to develop type II diabetes by an astounding percentage of 58%. Especially now, with more people working from home thanks to COVID-19, we may see the number of people with type II diabetes rise even more as people are less likely to leave their homes. It would be interesting to see a graph of the total amount of cases of type II diabetes, and how that correlates with worldwide disasters like COVID-19, but I could not find one.

Why diabetes is a concern for rural communities - rhihub toolkit. (2019, January 1). Retrieved April 29, 2021, from https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/toolkits/diabetes/1/rural-concerns

Chatterjee, S., Khunti, K., & Davies, M. (2017, February 10). Type 2 diabetes. Retrieved April 29, 2021, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673617300582?casa_token=oFkH2dwTQCQAAAAA%3A9iRsS_wAeb2cSsPjiXlmVSA-jkToYGLzzFBNB_fScTRwvm5IqWxbrJDZssn_h1YWDdwPWsImp8E

Comments

  1. Paige PNovember 18, 2021 at 5:48 PM

    Ian,
    I like how many statistics you included in your post! They really helped drive home the issue of rising rates of diabetes. I hope that a study comes out about total number of type II diabetes cases and COVID-19, that would probably show some really interesting things.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Victoria GaaDecember 16, 2021 at 7:29 PM

    It is interesting to see how urban and rural areas are affected differently by the rise in type II diabetes as I had never thought of that before. Do you think there would be similar discrepancies between different countries based on their cultures/lifestyles?

    ReplyDelete

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