“Hangry”: Diabetes and Mental Problems

            As we began our lectures about diabetes and the surrounding impacts of it, I thought it was going to be more about the physical ailments, rather than the mental effects. One lecture stood out more prominently than others, and that was about aggression and diabetes. Many of those links and articles you gave us had tremendous insight and creative experiments to test aggression and low blood glucose levels. At first as I was reading the initial study, I began to laugh and thought it was going to be the most absurd thing I had ever heard. However, the studies caught my attention, because I began to look back and relate it to myself. Now, I do not have diabetes, but a number of my family members do. My family members mainly have Types II, due to an unhealthy lifestyle and refusal to change practices to fix it. I applied many of the concepts and characteristics of aggression applied by a number of those articles to those relatives as well to see if what they were saying was true.

            One of the first connections I made was the ability of self-control and its effect on aggression. In an article it references and states that back in the primitive days of life aggression was seen and power and shouldn’t be hindered, however in this day and age aggression must be hindered (Denson et al. 2012). Self-control has an outstanding role in hindering aggression. There is a saying that I was always told and that is “Anger is not an emotion, it is a reaction”, meaning that we allow ourselves to be anger. Without learning self-control, many reactive emotions can’t be suppressed and chaos could potentially ensue. However, self-control can be taught, but do we always have the energy by which to use it. Pretty much all of our processes occurring in our bodies requires a form of energy, but what happens if that energy runs out? Can we still produce the same response? Can we continue to function at our homeostatic levels needed for optimal performance? The answer is no. Without energy certain functions will be limited and interrupted. This includes our emotions and reactions. How many of you have ever had a meltdown or a pity party, after a long stretch without sleep or type of food? I would guess a great number of us have experienced that type of moment, but how many of us recognized it was because we simply did not have enough energy? Self-control requires energy, therefore if energy is low (such as low-blood glucose), self-control is less hindered and greater aggression ensues (Bushman et al. 2014).

            If low-blood glucose can cause greater aggression, diabetes could be a contributing factor to greater aggression. Diabetic patients have the potential to be more angry, abrupt, and at times more cynical. I don’t think this is the case for every person with diabetes, but they have the potential.  I have one aunt that is currently dealing with type II diabetes, and continues to complain every day about her condition, yet does nothing to fix it. She continues to follow unhealthy eating habits, and never exercises. She is very cynical and abrupt about any discussion about her diabetes and controlling it. She was never this way before hearing her diagnosis. I believe that because diabetes is a serious disease that can be long and grueling to deal with; many people fear getting it, and then lose hope in treating it and “give up” to the stigma of diabetes.

            Stigmas are continuously used in the media today for every type of person or event currently happening in the world. Most stigmas are harmful and skew the reality of what is actually happening. Type II diabetes can have a sever stigma, and can affect those that are diagnosed with the disease. However, many people in society today that do not have diabetes don’t recognize the stigma that is placed on diabetes and the people have it (Browne et al. 2013). There is a large disconnect between diabetes and society. Many individuals see diabetes as a non-stigmatized disease and see it as being an individual disease, meaning that diabetes is better treated as individuals rather than having the community step in and help out. In two different surveys given to people without diabetes, they found that diabetes was not viewed as an epidemic and did not have any community implications or dangers. (Della LJ, 2010). In the same article people that currently have diabetes showed a higher level of concern and embarrassment. These individuals stated that they were worried about rejection and embarrassment, were they going to be seen as illicit drug users when needing to inject their insulin? Were they going to be embarrassed if they have a diabetic event due to low-blood sugar? These are things that people without diabetes cannot recognize or relate to (Della LJ, 2010).

            This social stigma I believe is the cause for the relationship between diabetes and mental health disorders. According to the National Institute of Mental Health states that those with chronic conditions have a higher rater of depression (NIH).  They state that with these illnesses, comes a lot of pain and suffering, with that also comes an increased level of sadness and loss of hope for having a better future. I believe that stigmas increase that level of fear and anxiety of developing a chronic illness such as diabetes. I find that stigmas can cause more tension and lead those individuals into depression and anxiety. Those two articles opened my eyes to see that stereotypes and stigmas are more harmful than helpful. They cause a lot of hurt and pain. If someone has depression due to their disease, their treatment is actually less effective. They are less likely to pursue greater treatment and push themselves to take it seriously. They lose hope in getting better and using their treatment (Browne et al. 2013).

            All of these reading began to coincide and merge as one to explain several problems associated with diabetes. When addressing each issue you have to start looking at the bigger picture and the bigger problem. Each of these issues is related one to another, and each can progress to the next one. Those people diagnosed with diabetes, have to learn how to cope with having the disease. Some people may waiver at the task, while others embrace the challenge. For those that waiver away, they begin to feel lost and scared about their future. They almost become paralyzed at the insurmountable task, and eventually become lazy and indifferent about their condition (such as my aunt). Now after having been beaten up by the social stigma of having the “unhealthy” or “fat” disease, they begin to feel depressed, and falter at managing their diabetes. As the self-care depletes and sadness begins to envelope the person, they begin to feel constantly tired due to a lack of energy. That lack of energy can cause a decrease in self-control and now those people become cynical and let their anger show more each day.

I found through my reading that each of the above mentioned connections eventually interconnected and formed a new connection. It began to show the viscous cycle of a chronic illness, such as diabetes. Diabetes if not regulated can be a greater detriment to society, than what is currently thought. I believe that as a society we need to rally behind those who have diabetes, and truly help them. Instead of passing judgment and demeaning them, build them up and come together as a community to increase treatment efficacy. The only way the stigma of diabetes is destroyed is through the individuals that surround the diabetic population, which is ever increasing. Diabetes can be managed not just by an individual scale, but can be managed greatly on a national scale. Steps need to be taken in order for diabetes to become more recognized as an epidemic.  I believe that more knowledge needs to be made more available to help everyone understand the dangers of diabetes and the repercussions from it as well.

References:

1. Bushman, Brad J., DeWall, C. Nathan, Hanus, Michael, Jr. Pond, Richard S. “Low glucose relates to greater aggression in married couples.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 111 no. 17, pp. 6254-6257.

2. Browne, Jessica L., Mosely, Kylie, Schabert, Jasmin, Speight, Jane. “Social Stigma in Diabetes.” The Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes, vol. 6, 2013,    pp. 1-10.

3. Della, LJ. “Exploring diabetes beliefs in at-risk Appalachia.” National Center of Biotechnology Information, vol. 27, 2011, pp. 3-12.

4. Denson, Thomas F., DeWall, C. Nathan, Finkel, Eli J. “Self-control and Aggression." Association for Psychological Science, vol. 21, no. 1, 2012, pp. 20-25.

5. National Institute of Mental Health. “Chronic Illness & Mental Health.” Publication No. 15-MH-8015.