DIABETES

Diabetes is a disease that is having a status of a likely epidemic in India. More than 62 million individuals are currently diagnosed with diabetes.  In 2000, India (31.7 million) had maximum number of individuals in the world diagnosed with diabetes mellitus, followed by China (20.8 million) and then the United States (17.7 million). According to data prevalence of diabetes is expected to double globally from 171 million in 2000 to 366 million in 2030 with a maximum number of patients in India. 

Diabetes occurs when the body does not produce any insulin or less insulin, or the body does not properly use the insulin that is produced, or it can be a combination of both. When any of these happens, the body is not able to get sugar from the blood into the cells. This leads to high levels of blood sugar.

Glucose, in our blood is a form of sugar which is one of our main energy sources. A decrease in levels of insulin or improper utilization of insulin causes glucose levels to increase in our blood. This can cause many health problems.

TYPES OF DIABETES

       There are three types of diabetes:

1                            Type 1 Diabetes

2                            Type 2 Diabetes

3                           Gestational Diabetes

Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder. It means that our immune system itself attacks and destroys the beta cells present in the pancreas which produce insulin. This damage is permanent. What initiates the attacks is not clear. The reasons may be both genetic and environmental.

Type 2 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes starts due to resistance to insulin. It means our body is unable to use insulin efficiently. This stimulates the pancreas to produce more insulin. Pancreas keeps on producing more and more insulin until it can no longer keep up with demand of the body.  The Insulin levels decrease  gradually, which is the cause of higher levels of blood sugar. The exact cause of type 2 diabetes is not known. But contributing factors may include:

a) Genetics

b) Sedentary life style

c) Obesity

d) Other health factors and environmental reasons.

Gestational diabetes

This type of diabetes is caused due to hormones which block insulin. These insulin-blocking hormones  are produced during pregnancy. Gestational Diabetes occurs only during pregnancy.

SYMPTOMS

Symptoms of diabetes include:

1.       Excessive thirst and hunger

2.       Frequent urination

3.       Drowsiness or fatigue

4.       Dry, itchy skin

5.       Blurry vision

6.       Slow-healing wounds

Type 1 diabetes  develops more quickly and cause symptoms like weight loss or a condition called diabetic ketoacidosis. Diabetic ketoacidosis  occurs when we have very high blood sugar levels and little or no insulin in our body.

Type 2 diabetes may cause dark patches in the folds of skin like armpits and neck. Type 2 diabetes takes longer to diagnose, we may feel symptoms at the time of diagnosis, like pain or numbness in the feet.

The symptoms of both the types of diabetes (Type and Type 2) can appear at any age, but generally type 1 diabetes occurs in children and young adults. Type 2 Diabetes occurs mostly in people over the age of 45. But now a days younger people are also increasingly being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes due to sedentary lifestyles, lack of exercise and obesity.

Complications of Diabetes

Complications of diabetes develop over time. If the blood sugar levels are poorly controlled it may increase the risk of serious complications that can also become life-threatening.

 Chronic complications of Diabetes include:

1.       Vascular diseases which may lead to heart attack or stroke

2.       eye problems(retinopathy)

3.       infection of skin

4.       nerve damage( neuropathy)

5.       renal damage( nephropathy)

6.       amputations which may be due to neuropathy or vascular disease

Type 2 diabetes also may  increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s,  if your blood sugar is not well controlled.

Complications during pregnancy

During pregnancy high blood sugar levels can harm both mother and child. It increases the risk of:

1.       High blood pressure

2.       Preeclampsia

3.       Miscarriage or stillbirth

4.       Birth defects

Prevention of Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes cannot be prevented.

The risk of type 2 diabetes can be lowered if you:

1.       Control your body weight

2.        manage your diet

3.       exercise regularly

4.       smoking should be avoided

If one had gestational diabetes, these factors can delay or prevent the start of type 2 diabetes.

GENE THERAPY FOR CANCER

India currently has approximately 2.5 Million people living with cancer and is the world’s 3rd highest cancer cases amongst women with abysmal survival rates. The usual brand of treatment involving chemotherapy and radiation therapy while with reduced side effects still includes mouth sores, acute and delayed nausea, and mild cognitive impairments. Chemotherapy might even make a patient more susceptible to certain other types of cancer. The treatment for metastatic prostate cancer might cause impotence, hot flashes, incontinence and an increase risk of fractures.

Among the various alternative treatment programs under development, there is one in particular that grabs attention- Gene Therapy.

Gene therapy is focusing on augmenting the current treatment patterns by majorly taking three broad routes: Immunotherapy, Oncolytic Agents (engineered viruses), Gene Transfer.

Immunotherapy works on the basic principle of making the cancer cells detectable to the immune system. This is done in two ways:

Cancer vaccines and modifying the immune system directly. Cancer vaccines train the immune system to identify cancer cells by exposing it to  highly antigenic and immune stimulatory cell debris. The latter approach directly sensitizes the immune system towards causing an immune response against cancer cells.

Initial first generation vaccines produced in the immunotherapy research have produced mixed results showing both the potential and the way left to cover. Current vaccines using engineered cells have shown a positive response to many types of cancers that do not respond to conventional treatment.
Oncolytic Agents are engineered viruses that have been specially modified to attack cancer cells and leave the normal cells unaffected. These viruses infect the cancer cells and lead to cell death via propagation of the virus.

Trails demonstrate unique prowess and obstacles in the use of this particular brand of treatment. While mammalian models have worked remarkably well showing success in even immunocompromised dogs, a major issue with using this treatment for humans is that most humans possess immunity against the common viruses used and their body filters the virus out before the treatment has even had a chance to take effect.

Gene Transfer, however, is probably the most exciting and trending area for research. It focuses on getting a foreign gene into the cancer cell or the surrounding gene. These genes vary from suicide genes to cellular stasis genes. A large variety of viral vectors have been used to introduce genes into the cells.

Currently Gene Transfer is the only gene therapy product to achieve regulatory approval as demonstrated by China’s Gendicine.

The field is growing and new avenues are being explored everyday. With scientists leaving no stone unturned, Gene therapy might soon become a part of the regular treatment for cancer.

Books to movies- disastrous altering

What does a story justice are its characters, its details and the emotion it contains for everyone linked with it. What a book does is it connects to its readers. That’s what the best part of being a reader is, you get to live more than one life. Experiences teach us something and books get us experiences that people sometimes might not be able to.

Movies do the same thing except one might say they target a broader audience and a combination of the two just sounds heavenly. Reading a story and seeing it unfold in front you are two very different things and the second one sounds a lot better to most people.

Unfortunately, that is not how things work out 95% of the time. Movies do pick up the major events of a book but they surely do not do it justice. A character isn’t just built on major events to the story or what would get the maximum ratings, a character is built on every day incidents that are portrayed in the books. These seemingly insignificant events are actually what back the major events. Why did someone do this? Another way as to how the plot is twisted is to change the nuances of the very incident.

Movies based on books have always been a major outrage from the part of the fans. From the acclaimed Harry Potter movies taking away a lot of important parts from the plate of Ron Weasely to there being entire changes in the dynamic in the movies in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. The fact never changes.

Even in the movie adaptation of Eragon there are a lot of major events that were changed. First of all the events leading to Brom’s death and then the fact that Murgath wasn’t kidnapped at the end of the movie.

Now the truth is that using movies to depict a book or a series isn’t the wrong thing to do. It’s actually the correct idea. Movies do target a better audience and can actually portray what needs to be, but the editing of the basis isn’t the way to go about it. Fan demands for a TV show based on their favorite books seems to be a better way to go about it because then each episode can simply address the nuances of each episode better and a wider audience could still be targeted.

The fact of the matter is that books are connected to a reader’s soul, and that soul being violated is quite a painful experience. The only hope that the readers possess at this point in time is that as the sands of time flow the depictions will come closer to representing the actuality of their basis.