Palm Beach focuses on Diabetes during November Awareness Month

November 12, 6:27 AMMiami Health Care ExaminerDeborah Shlian

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Palm Beach focuses on Diabetes during November Awareness Month
AP

November is Diabetes Awareness Month and the Greater Palm Beach county chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has planned a number of activities to focus on the disease. Last Thursday, LoLa’s in Delray Beach had a celebrity bartending event. Last Saturday Palm Beach Diabetes and Endocrine Specialists hosted a World Diabetes Day event at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. Last Sunday, children with diabetes and their families had bowling outings around the county,

This Saturday  (November 14),The Fresh Market in Boca Raton will sponsor a car wash and barbecue to support diabetes awareness.

Nearly 8 percent of the American population (around 24 million people) have diabetes, a chronic disease in which the body has difficulty regulating blood glucose (sugar) levels. There are two major type of diabetes: type 1 and type 2

Type 1 (also called juvenile diabetes or insulin dependent diabetes) is an autoimmune disease in which the pancreas stops producing insulin, a critical hormone that enables people to derive energy from glucose in food. As many as 3 million Americans have type 1.

Type 2 diabetes is generally seen in adults. It is a metabolic disorder in which the body produces insulin, but does not use it effectively. With the increased rise in obesity in the United States, many more individuals have now developed type 2 diabetes,

Both type 1 and 2 are polygenic meaning the risk of developing these forms of diabetes is related to multiple genes. In addition to these two main types, there are rare forms of diabetes called monogenic that result from mutations in a single gene.

Monogenic forms of diabetes probably account for about 1 to 2 percent of all cases of diabetes in young people. In some cases, the gene mutation is inherited; but in others, the gene mutation develops spontaneously. Because most mutations in monogenic diabetes reduce the body's ability to produce insulin, it may be mistaken for type 1 diabetes, but it can generally be diagnosed through genetic testing.

JDRF is the largest charitable funder of type 1 diabetes research.  

For more information: Learn about diabetes from the American Diabetes Association

To learn more about monogenic diabetes, check  the National Institutes of Health (NIH)