Causes Of Secondary Diabetes Mellitus

Secondary diabetes mellitus, also known as type 2 diabetes or adult onset diabetes, is a form of disease which leads to high levels of blood glucose by adversely affecting the insulin production in the body. Unlike type 1 diabetes, secondary diabetes mellitus doesn’t destroy the insulin producing beta cells but makes them less efficient in tackling the sugar content of the body.

Common Causes of Secondary Diabetes Mellitus

This disease hampers the insulin resistance of the body by weakening the cells and gradually starts to show in the functioning of muscles, liver and tissues. The causes of this disease can be attributed to the following reasons:

Unhealthy Lifestyle

There are a number of contributing factors related to one’s lifestyle that lead to the onset of type 2 diabetes. This includes obesity, lack of proper physical exercise, poor diet and excessive stress. All the fat that accumulates in arteries and tissues affects the body by clogging the blood flow and making the person obese over a prolonged period of time. If the body mass index gets greater than 30, it is a case of obesity.

Mainly the people from America and other European countries, and also of African, Chinese and Japanese descent are more prone to type 2 diabetes because of the unhealthy lifestyle they lead. Their diet is one of the main concerns behind such state of affairs.

Because of the high intake of fast food items which these people have incorporated as a normal and regular part of their diets, they suffer from this and various other diseases.This diet contains too much of trans fatty acids, artificial flavors,  and saturated fats and thus increase the risk. Almost about 95% of the diabetes cases in the US have lifestyle issues as the core reason behind them.

Genetic Disorders

Genetic disorders, although constituting a small risk percentage (10%), is another cause of the development of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Also, one can’t do anything to avoid a faulty genetic development inside the body, which makes it an important cause of this disease.

In twins, the probability of one twin contracting diabetes is about 90% if the other twin has it; in siblings the same percentage is decreased to 25-30%. Most of the times, these genetic complications are found to be related to the beta cell structure. Various diabetic conditions such as maturity onset diabetes of the young (MODY) and Rabson-Mendenhall syndrome are the results of monogenic type of diabetes, which arises out of a single gene malfunction, hence the name.

Existing Medical Conditions

Many already existing health conditions can also lead to the development of diabetes in the patients. Medical conditions like hyperthyroidism, glucagonomas (a form of cancer), testosterone deficiency, etc. are all potential causes of the growth of type 2 diabetes. Medications too, like atypical antipsychotics, thiazides and others, are responsible for triggering diabetes in the patients. So these medicines must be avoided, or not taken without the proper guidance of your doctor.

So these are the primary causes of secondary diabetes mellitus in people. Improving one’s lifestyle at once, including the diet, is the only way of avoiding this disease.