2023-10-22 07:40:39
On the 22nd, with sunny fall weather, citizens are walking along the Namsan Trail. Reporter Seunghwan Lee Currently, the prevalence of diabetes is high in Korea, with one in six to seven adults over the age of 30 suffering from diabetes. As of 2021, it is known that the number of diabetes patients in Korea has exceeded 6 million. In addition, the number of people with prediabetes, a high-risk group for diabetes, is approximately 15.83 million. In 2012, the Korean Diabetes Association warned of a ‘diabetes crisis’ and predicted that there would be 6 million people with diabetes by 2050, but diabetes is occurring at a much faster rate than that.
At the doctor’s office, I often get asked, ‘Isn’t diabetes hereditary?’ It is difficult to explain the sudden explosion of diseases that were very rare before the 1970s following the 1980s through genetic factors alone. However, if one parent has diabetes, the risk of a child developing diabetes increases approximately two-fold, and if both parents have diabetes, it increases three to five times. Looking at this, we can clearly see that genetic influence is significant. Ultimately, there are genes that convey the risk of developing diabetes, but diabetes develops due to excessive nutrition and lack of exercise. To use an analogy, genes play the role of loading bullets in a pistol. People without diabetes risk genes do not have bullets loaded in their pistols. For the bullet called diabetes to be fired, a trigger must be pulled, and the trigger is excessive nutrition and lack of exercise. People who eat a lot and don’t exercise but don’t get diabetes are lucky enough to not have a pistol loaded with bullets.
Anyone who has a parent or family member with diabetes should get a blood sugar test to determine if they are at risk for diabetes. In general, it is recommended to take a blood test to check for diabetes following the age of 35 to 40, but if you have a strong family history and are obese, you may need to take a blood test in your 20s or even before. As a result of collecting blood in a fasting state and testing blood sugar, if it is less than 99 mg/dl, it is normal, if it is 100-125 mg/dl, it is pre-diabetic, and if it is more than 126 mg/dl, it is diagnosed as diabetes. It can also be classified by the glycated hemoglobin result: 5.6% or less is normal, 5.7-6.4% is pre-diabetes, and 6.5% or more is diabetes.
If the test results show that you have pre-diabetes, what can you do to prevent it from progressing to type 2 diabetes? Type 2 diabetes is caused by impaired insulin secretion and increased insulin resistance. Although there is no way to improve insulin secretion disorders, insulin resistance can be relatively easily improved by losing weight. Therefore, progression to type 2 diabetes can be prevented by improving lifestyle habits and losing weight. According to large-scale prospective clinical trials, it is well known that the progression of type 2 diabetes was suppressed by 58% in the group that modified lifestyle habits compared to the control group that did not. Studies conducted in the United States and Finland used the strategies shown in the table.
We are sometimes asked, ‘Is there a vaccine to prevent type 2 diabetes?’ The author answers, “A small rice bowl and sneakers are the vaccines.” If you have a family history of type 2 diabetes, do not think that you are doomed. Please keep in mind that diabetes can be fully prevented by maintaining a healthy lifestyle to avoid triggering the development of diabetes.
[조영민 교수(서울대 내분비대사내과)]
1698004924
#건강메신저 #메디TALK #Sneakers #small #rice #bowl #diabetes #vaccine
