The Effect of Barley and Oat in Blood Glucose Level in Diabetic Assignment

The Effect of Barley and Oat in Blood Glucose Level in Diabetic Patients - Assignment Example People suffering from diabetes have a condition whereby the level of glucose in their blood is much higher than normal, scientifically known as hyperglycemia. In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) estimates patients with diabetes as 3.8 million, with the figure projected to grow to 6.2 million in 2035 (Stewart et al 2007). 17 percent of the NHS’ healthcare budget will also be spent on diabetes by 2035. Diabetes, or diabetes mellitus as doctors refer to it, is a collection of chronic, metabolic diseases characterized by the patients’ high level of blood sugar (or blood glucose). It occurs in three key forms; type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes. A report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States placed the prevalence of type 2 diabetes at 90 percent of all reported cases, with type 1 taking up the remaining 10 percent (Polonsky 2012). Gestational diabetes was not in the statistics, which only affects 2 to 5 percent of pregnant women. Out of the affected pregnant women, 20 to 50 percent of them develop type 2 diabetes in later years of life. There is also a condition known as prediabetes, which most of type 2 diabetes patients experienced in their early stages of the disease. Typically, they had higher blood sugar levels than normal, although not high enough to warrant a diabetes diagnosis but rendering body cell s resistant to insulin. In that stage, the damage will usually have occurred to the heart and the circulatory system (Piller, Chang-Claude & Linseisen 2006). Other common characteristics observed in diabetes patients include increased thirst, increased hunger and more frequent urination, known as polydipsia, polyphagia, and polyuria respectively. The condition is as a result of either insufficient production of insulin by the pancreas or the improper response to the insulin by the body cells, with the occurrence of both circumstances not being a rare phenomenon (Jensen et al 2004).