Diabetes Discovery Shows There May Be As Many as 5 Kinds of This Dreadful Disease

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    Diabetes

    By Adam

    When it comes to preventable diseases, type 2 diabetes is one of the few diseases medical professionals believe could be virtually wiped out with little more than lifestyle changes.

    The research thus far proves that many cases of type 2 diabetes are the result of behavior.

    While this much is true, there’s new research that’s led to a diabetes discovery that shows there may be as many as 5 kinds of this dreadful disease.

    While type 2 diabetes is treatable via lifestyle changes, if there are, in fact, 5 different kinds of diabetes, it may mean that curing oneself of diabetes could only be done when one knows precisely which form of this disease they have.

    Swedish researchers recently analyzed diabetes and how it manifests because they believe the only way to effectively treat diabetes is to be as precise as possible to give a person the best results.

    The 5 Kinds of Type 2 Diabetes

    In their study, they broke type 2 diabetes down into 5 different subtypes.

    They are as follows:

    1.) The Most Common:

    The most common form is what the researchers described as “mild age-related diabetes.”

    In this form of the disease, a person’s progression in age makes it so that the body begins to make less insulin after not having been able to use it properly for many years.

    It’s reversible provided it’s caught early enough.

    2.) Very Common:

    In the second type, and what researchers would consider the second most common, a person’s weight gain (or lack of weight loss) is what contributes to poor insulin management.

    The researchers called this subtype of type 2 diabetes, “mild obesity-related diabetes.”

    Though it is common, it’s not nearly as severe as 3-5 as it can be reversed with reductions in weight.

    3.) Not as Common But Serious:

    The third kind of diabetes is called “severe insulin-resistant diabetes.”

    In this form of diabetes, overweight individuals produce insulin as required for good health, but their bodies don’t utilize it correctly.

    In this case, a person’s weight loss is critical to regaining normal pancreatic and insulin function.

    If a person remains in this zone for too long, it may eventually lead to liver disease and/or chronic kidney disease.

    4.) Not Common But Severe:

    This form of diabetes affects younger people who aren’t overweight, which is somewhat confounding to researchers as patients have an apparent immune system disorder that interferes with insulin production.

    Because of that, they may have trouble balancing blood sugar.

    While similar to type 1 diabetes (where the body does not produce insulin), there are ways to adjust lifestyle to get insulin production up.

    5.) The Least Common But Deadly:

    According to the researchers, this kind of type 2 diabetes actually resembles the type 1 disease.

    These patients are generally quite young at diagnosis, do not have issues with obesity, and possess some immune system disorder that prevents the body from producing insulin correctly.

    Here’s How This Affects People with Type 2 Diabetes

    By breaking type 2 diabetes out into 5 different kinds of the disease, it offers specialists the opportunity to create individual treatment plans.

    According to Dr. Weil, who reported on this, “These new findings may lead to more precise treatment of diabetes, but as the Swedish team noted, there is still much to learn, such as whether patients’ classifications can change over time.”