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Currently diabetes cases are classified into two types: 1 and 2. However, an investigation led by the Diabetes Center of the University of Lund (Sweden) indicates that there would actually be five categories of the disease.This new classification, published in The Lancet Diabetes & AMP;Endocrinology could help choose the best treatment for each patient, depending on the symptoms that present.
While the incidence of diabetes does not stop increasing worldwide, doctors continue to diagnose it using criteria that have not been updated for twenty years and that are based fundamentally on measuring sugar levels - glucose - in blood.
“The early treatment of diabetes is crucial to prevent complications that can shorten life.Diagnosing the disease with greater rigor could give us valuable clues about how it will develop over time, which could help predict and treat complications before they develop, ”says Leif Groop, a researcher at the University Diabetes Centerof Lund and the Institute of Molecular Medicine of Finland that has directed the study, in a statement issued by The Lancet.
According to the current classification, type 1 diabetes, which generally develops in childhood, occurs when the body does not generate sufficient insulin to regulate glucose, because the immune system mistakenly attacks the pancreas cells that produce the hormone that produce the hormoneAnd they destroy them.In type 2 diabetes, however, what happens is that the body becomes resistant to insulin, so that, no matter how much the pancreas strives, the hormone fails to keep glucose levels under control.This type, which constitutes between 75 and 85% of diabetes cases, usually occurs in advanced ages and is associated with overweight and obesity.
The research has been based on the study of 14,775 adult patients from Sweden and Finland to which diabetes had recently been diagnosed.The authors have analyzed six parameters usually used to monitor the disease: the age at which they received the diagnosis, the body mass index, the control of the blood sugar level, the operation of the insulin producing cells of the pancreas, the resistance, the resistanceto insulin and the presence of antibodies involved in autoimmune diabetes.
From these data, researchers have concluded that there are five different types of diabetes: three serious and two slight.Among the serious forms, there is an associated with the obesity that it takes with high insulin resistance and with an especially high risk of developing kidney diseases, another that affects young people but who do not have antibodies against pancreas cells and finallyAutoimmune Diabetes, which currently corresponds to type 1 diabetes
The most common type of diabetes is one of the slightest forms, which affects between 39 and 47% of patients, mostly older people.The last type, in which about 20% of diabetics are grouped, occurs mainly in obese people.
Scientists have also studied what treatments were given to each group of patients and have found that many were not receiving adequate therapy.
The authors admit that their work has some limitations.For example, they have not been able to determine if the type of diabetes changes over time.In addition, only Scandinavian patients have participated in the study, so it should be repeated in other populations to check if the results are repeated.