Diabetes+Mellitus

Diabetes mellitus is a group of diseases characterized by hyperglycemia, or high blood glucose levels. The issue of hyperglycemia results from deficiencies in the body's metabolic processes involving either the secretion of insulin or a organ or tissue's response to insulin. The deficiencies of the normal insulin-secretion and uptake processes can be due to autoimmune destruction of β-cells from the pancreas or "abnormalities that result in resistance to insulin action" (American Diabetes Association 2008). In the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet, released Jan. 26th 2011, data that had been collected estimated a total of 25.8 million people in the United States (8.3% of the total population) have a form of diabetes. Of those 25.8 million 18.8 million are diagnosed with a form of the disease while 7.0 million are undiagnosed. Data from 2007 revealed that diabetes was listed as "cause of death for 71,382 people and as a contributing factor for an additional 160,022 people," totaling 231,404 deaths (American Diabetes Association 2008).

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is characterized by an abnormality in the body's ability to either produce or use insulin efficiently, known as insulin resistance (Diabetes Mellitus 2014). According to the American Diabetes Association, "In people with type 1 diabetes, the pancreas no longer makes insulin. The beta cells have been destroyed and they need insulin shots to use glucose from meals. People with type 2 diabetes make insulin, but their bodies don't respond well to it. Some people with type 2 diabetes need diabetes pills or insulin shots to help their bodies use glocose for energy" (American Diabetes Association 2008). According to various epidemiologic studies, there is an increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer (PC) that is associated with having diabetes mellitus (Mohammad et al. 2013). We are interested in why there is a connection between these two conditions. Obviously there is overlap in the organs involved, the pancreas being an integral part of insulin production and secretion, but what further connects the two?


 * Figure 1.** Glucose uptake in body and the effects on type 2 diabetes mellitus on this process (American Diabetes Association 2008).