Metabolism and Diabetes

    There are many processes in our body to make it function each and every day. One of the biggest and main process is our metabolism which is the storage, transfer, and break down of energy to ensure that our cells are prolific in their jobs. Other processes, when they don’t function correctly, leave the systems in our body vulnerable to attack or even are prevented from performing their normal functions such as the shutdown of insulin in its role to signal for glucose transporters, something that we see in diabetes. I would like to focus on those two subjects, 1) the amazing ability of a healthy body to regulate energy through the metabolic pathway, and 2) some of the effects of unhealthy life styles on our bodies like diabetes. This will hopefully give a greater appreciation to the delicacy of our internal systems that require us to treat them well and in return, the majority of the time, the body will reciprocate by functioning properly to allow us to live our daily lives.

    Metabolic pathways are absolutely amazing. They are the process in which the body takes energy and breaks it down to its fundamental forms and then builds it back up to run our cells and many of our essential biochemical systems. There are two important stages in the conversion of energy in our body to make it usable. The first is catabolism, it is the act of breaking down the energy molecules in our body, providing the chemical energy needed for the maintenance and growth of cells. On a molecular level this occurs when the body takes proteins, lipids, and polysaccharides and through a series of oxidation ATP is generated, the phosphate groups are cleaved and go from a high energy to a low energy state which releases that energy into the cell for use. Anabolism is the act of building using the energy that was released during catabolism. Our bodies will take simple compounds, and using the recently released energy, construct larger molecules for biochemical use throughout the body.

    A basic foundation for understanding the metabolic pathways in our body, is recognizing where all of this energy came from. We might think, “well it must just appear in the food we eat”, but there is much more to it than that. With our best knowledge, smaller gaseous elements floating in space begin to collect as a cloud and soon for stars which tightly pack those small elements together. Through high levels of energy and fusion, those small elements are converted into larger elements (Khan Sept. 25). The most basic life on earth relies on bigger elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen for energy and building. Plant life relies on the energy rays from the sun that carry electrons to the plant which the plant can then use to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugars. Animals, such as herbivores, rely on the nutrients that the plant makes to provide energy and nutrients for themselves. Carnivores will get their energy from herbivores and so along the food change energy is transferred. Eventually we as omnivores either collect our energy from other animals or certain plants that our body is able to digest. The fact that we have evolved to be able to survive off of the conversion of energy from one source to another helps us understand more about our evolution and that of other animals, plants, bacteria, and all other living organisms.

    It’s great to know where I energy comes from but it’s even more important to understand how our body utilizes that energy and what molecules are needed. One of the most common and most important molecules for energy transfer is ATP. The full name of ATP is adenosine triphosphate. This comes from one of the four nucleotides Adenine, which is essential for our DNA mechanisms. On the adenine group is a sugar ring and three phosphate groups. The way that ATP generates energy in our body is when one of the phosphate groups is hydrolyzed and that phosphate group goes from a high energy state to a low one releasing all of that energy into the cell for use. ATP converts into ADP as that phosphate group is cleaved and enters a low energy state. Fortunately, through anabolism energy can be stored again as a phosphate group is added back to the ADP molecule to make more usable ATP.

    We see how functional the body is when its host is healthy, now let us talk about some of the damage that is caused to the body when a disease such as diabetes takes over. Diabetes occurs when the body loses control over the levels of glucose in the bloodstream due to the lack of the hormone insulin, whose role is to signal the glucose transporters to take the sugar to metabolize it (DRI 2018). The glucose continues to build up in the bloodstream increasing the concentration to unsafe levels. Even though there is glucose all around and ready to be synthesized, the cells starve. There are two forms of diabetes that we have detected in the body, type 1 and type 2. Type 1 diabetes can happen at any age regardless of the health of the host and is much less prevalent than type 2. Type 2 diabetes has slower progression and is usually found in adults and patients who are obese or unhealthy.

    There are many causes for type 1 diabetes, some of these agents are drugs and chemical toxins, endocrine diseases, hereditary dispositions, autoimmune disease, viruses or infections, environmental factors, damage of pancreas, and destruction of beta cells. I have been so interested in this topic because just a few months ago my cousin got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. It hit my aunt and uncle out of nowhere because no one else in my family has been diagnosed with type 1. My aunts and uncles are avid family historians and couldn’t find a trace to a relative that was thought to have it as well. We aren’t exactly sure where it came from because my cousin lives a very healthy life style but maybe was introduced to the disease via his environment or imbalances in his body’s biochemistry. The doctors are still looking into it and it will be interesting to know what the cause of his diabetic onset was.

    Unlike in type 1, where it isn’t as much in the hosts control, it seems that type 2 diabetes has a few factors that can prevent the onset of the disease. Factors such as physical activity to maintain a healthy body fat ratio and better control blood pressure, as well as a clean diet to prevent too much cholesterol are some of the habits that one can make in their life to prevent Type 2 diabetes. Someone who is obese is three to twenty times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than someone who is healthy or can keep their body mass index lower than 35kg/m2 (Rogers et al. 2005). But there are also some factors that have heavy correlation to type 2 diabetes that one can’t change. Things such as a history of type 2 diabetes in the family, certain racial groups, and being over the age of 45.

    I've gone over the differences of type 1 and type 2 and what causes them, now I want to talk about what damage these diseases cause to the human body. I’m sure that there are hundreds of effects to the body but I’d like to discuss just a few. One of the scariest to me is the harm it causes to the brain like increased risk of strokes, cerebrovascular disease and cognitive impairment. The brain is one of the most important organs in the body, without proper function the rest of the body begins to shut down and if enough damage is done to the brain, either severe cognitive deterioration can occur or even death. Other effects such as nerve damage, eye blood vessel damage, small blood cell damage, and increased risk of coronary heart disease are also damage done to the body over time when blood glucose levels are not maintained by proper amounts of insulin.

    Changes in lifestyle and diet choices are essential in either preventing, or successfully managing diabetes. According to the World Health Organization, diabetes is the number seven cause of death in 2016, and in 2000 it wasn’t even on the charts (WHO 2018). That is so many people every year that could be saved due to simple changes in their life such as eating healthier and physical exercises, things as simple as playing outside for 20min a day as a child or 30 min walks as adults. That is time well spent and time that is affordable for greater longevity. Not only does diabetes affect the host, but it also effects the economy. Some studies show that people with diabetes on average have 2.3x the amount of medical expenses than those without. It is estimated that about 18% of diabetics are on medicade or medicare because they cannot afford their own health insurance plans (Stark et al. 2012). About 5% have no insurance coverage at all, which leaves around 75% of diabetics with their own health care plan. For a health care company to be able to take on a client that will cost more than the average person, they will need to raise everyone’s rates in order to account for the costly treatments and medication for those with diabetes. Not only does a unhealthy lifestyle affect the person who must now deal with the disease, but it also affects everyone else around. Diabetes is an epidemic in our country and ever growing as one across the world as well. This is something that we as a nation need to take more seriously as it the cause of millions dead each year as well as spikes in medical care coverage for everyone else as well.

Works Cited

“Introduction to metabolism: Anabolism and catabolism” (video). Khan Academy. Accessed November                   25, 2020. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/high-school-biology/hs- energy-and-                                transport/hs-introduction-to-metabolism/v/introduction-to-metabolism- anabolism-and-                               catabolism

Rogers, Joanne Z., and Christopher D. Still. “Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.” Obesity Action Coalition,                       OAC Community, 2005, www.obesityaction.org/community/article- library/obesity-and-type-2-                  diabetes/.

Stark Casagrande, Sarah, and Catherine C Cowie. “Health Insurance Coverage among People with and                  without Diabetes in the U.S. Adult Population.” Diabetes Care, American Diabetes Association,                Nov. 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3476921/.

“The Top 10 Causes of Death.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 24 May 2018,                   www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death.

“What Is Diabetes?”, Diabetes Research Institute, 2018, https://www.diabetesresearch.org/what-                             isdiabetes#:~:text=Diabetes%20occurs%20when%20your%20body,uses%20that%20gluco                         se%20for%20energy.