Why are Asian Americans at High Risk of Type 2 Diabetes?

There’s no denying that Diabetes is a worldwide epidemic – the condition was found to affect the wellbeing of 370 million people across the globe last year – but 50% of these cases came from Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. According to a study conducted in New York City, Asian Americans have the highest prevalence of having diabetes or pre-diabetes, with one in every two adults of Asian descent having diabetes or at risk of the disease.

If your body is unable to produce insulin, or unable to properly use and store glucose, this is what’s known as diabetes. Insulin is a hormone made by your pancreas, which is important for your wellness as it helps glucose get into your cells and turn into energy. Usually, your body turns the food you eat into glucose, and the glucose is then used as energy. However, when you have diabetes, this glucose isn’t absorbed but instead builds up in your bloodstream, reaching dangerously high levels.

Diabetes breaks down into two major types; type 1 and type 2. In the case of type 1 diabetes, which is often caused by genetic factors, your body completely stops producing insulin. With type 2 diabetes, which is more related to lifestyle factors, your body is unable to produce insulin and/or it cannot use insulin properly.  Of those of Asian American descent with diabetes, up to 95% of cases are type 2.

So why is the disease so prevalent among this population group? Asian Americans who are overweight, have a family history of diabetes, or have a personal history of pre-diabetes or gestational diabetes (diabetes occurring only during pregnancy) are at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. More and more Asian Americans have adopted a less active lifestyle and diet of Western food that is low in fiber, high in fat and calories, which has further contributed to the epidemic of type 2 diabetes in Asian Americans.

The problem that then arises is that language barriers and a lack of culturally appropriate diabetes materials make it more difficult for some Asian Americans to achieve good diabetes control. More needs to be done to produce health care providers who understand their cultural values and the unique cultural challenges that Asian Americans may face. That way, this high risk population group can receive individualised treatment, as well as better prevention strategies.

Why are Asian Americans at High Risk of Type 2 Diabetes?

Categories: Americans, Asian, Asian Americans, Diabetes, Epidemic, high risk, population group, Pre-Diabetes, produce insulin, type, Type 2 Diabetes

Asians Have Gene That Makes Cancer Drugs Less Effective

There are a number of mysteries in medical science regarding why drugs sometimes work and sometimes don’t. One of those mysteries is, why a number of drugs that work well on certain lung and blood cancers do not appear to be effective at all on some patients. Trying to understand why this is the case is a lengthy process, as it needs to be established what the specific cause of the problem is. However, now a team of researchers from Singapore appear to have come up with the answer.

It appears that the culprit is a gene variation which is present in about 15 percent of Asians. Interestingly, however, it does not surface at all in Caucasians and Africans. Now that the problem has been identified, the authors were able to suggest a potential way to overcome the issue, which involved adding another drug to the mix. This solution has worked very well in the testing environment and it is hoped that it will be equally successful in human patients.

Cancer drugs are extremely expensive and if they are ineffective it can waste not only a lot of money but also time, which can be just as valuable when trying to fight the condition. Thankfully the researchers were able to figure out how the gene variant caused resistance to the cancer drug, and then found another drug that was able to restore the treatment’s ability to kill cancer cells.

Even if the new course of treatment turns out to ineffective in human subjects, the important factor of the research will still stand which has ensured that we now understand why certain cancer drugs to do not work in Asians in that same way that they do for other races.

Google+
Asians Have Gene That Makes Cancer Drugs Less Effective

Categories: Asian, cancer, drugs