Disuss the evaluation of Impact of nature versus nurture in the cause of a health problem?
Most of the people who have lung cancer are the people who smoke. But not all people who smoke get lung cancer. Not everybody who is obese gets diabetes. Diet, cigarette smoke and influences of environment give rise to disease in some of the people but not all people. It is a topic to be understood that why does nature and nurture affect people differently. Most diseases are complex, and involve environmental and genetic factors. Research is going on to understand the assortment of genetic structure, exposure to environment and individual habits that together cause a disease. We think diseases to be simple. But we must understand the role of genetic factors, environment and behaviour and habits of people in cause of serious health issues (Genomenewsnetwork.org, 2015). The topic of nurture versus nature is one of the chosen topics for debate in today’s times and in the current situation there is no particular conclusion. This is because both nature and nurture play a crucial role in health issues. The phrase nature versus nurture is the comparison of a person’s innate qualities and a person’s individual experiences. We are still not able to understand the fitting of nurture in nature paradigm. There are schools of thoughts who argue that environmental factors exert influence on DNA. The casual factors of human diseases can be fully understood once we get a clear idea on this matter (Faqs.org, 2015).
A person’s biochemical and genetic makeup is the nature for a disease. It is the genetic inheritance. It is the information that is encoded in our genes. We get it from both the parents at the time of birth and it is carried throughout our lives (heredity Meaning, 2015). Many a things in our body are inherited genetically. These include gender, height, colour of eyes, nature and texture of hair, risk of developing certain disease, metabolic problems, etc. The definition of nature is thus the biologically inherited abilities and tendencies that a person has at the time of birth and gets revealed as they grow older. The genetic makeup is one of the most important factors for development of a disease (Butler.org, 2015). The personal habits and behaviours of a person and the environmental influences are what we know as nurture. A person may be subjected to several environmental factors throughput his life time. These include physical trauma, infections, chemicals and pesticide exposure, rural living, drinking water, air pollution, metals like lead and mercury, natural hazards, occupational health like exposure to electromagnetic radiation, climatic change, diseases from virus and insects like swine flu, (Better Health Channel, 2015). There are many dimensions to these factors. Physical and social factors are part of these. Social factors include drinking and eating habit, smoking habit. The environmental factors have levels of impact on development. This is because they have many layers of action. There are some macro factors too like global warming (Butler.org, 2015).
One of the most important health concerns of today’s time are diabetes. So it was a good thought to evaluate the impact of nature and nurture on cause of diabetes. Diabetes was the 7th leading cause of death in USA in 2010. It caused death of around 69,071 people (American Diabetes Association, 2015). Diabetes is not the cause of death solely in aged people; many youths are also affected by this. It causes the death of around 2012, 86 million of American citizen whose ages were around 20. So based on this statistics it is clear that the mortality of diabetes is very high and is not restricted only among old people but in young people also (Wild et al., 2004). Death is not the only result of diabetes. The other complication of diabetes are Cardio vascular disease, risk of stroke, chances of heart attack, Blindness and Eye problem, Dyslipidemia and renal problem (Health.ny.gov, 2015). So to address the issue of diabetics first we need to know the impact of nature and nurture on diabetes. Diabetes is referred to as diabetes mellitus by doctors. It describes a group of metabolic diseases which increases the blood glucose level, either because of inadequate insulin production or body cells become insensitive to insulin, or some time both. Patients who has high blood sugar normally experience polyuria (frequent urination), tendency of thirst (polydipsia) and other complications like cardio vascular disease, eye problem etc. (Matthews, 2008).
Basically there are two types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes and Type 2 diabetes. In Type 1 diabetes production of insulin becomes impaired. As a result blood glucose level increases. Injection of insulin from outside can improve the condition. It is also called Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. In Type 2 diabetes, body does not produce sufficient insulin to perform its normal function, or body becomes insensitive to insulin. This is called Insulin independent diabetes mellitus. An insulin injection from external source can’t improve the condition. This state is called insulin resistance (Meisenberg and Simmons, 2012). The incidence of Type 2 diabetes is mostly prevalent in those people who have increasing levels of obesity, decrease physical activity or lack of exercise, excess consumption of junk foods, irregularity in food intake, and habits of excessive smoking and consumption of alcohol.
Genetics does play an important role in type 2 diabetes. But recent studies have shown that only genetics do not cause diabetes. Environmental triggers are also present. Almost everyone is prone to these triggers. There are no doubts that genes are the important factors for diabetes. In identical twins, if one has type 2 diabetes mellitus there is 80% chance that other twin will develop too. A number of genes are associated with diabetes like PTPN, TCF7L2, SHIP2, HNF4-a, ENPP1 (Stehouwer and Schaper, 2009).
Heredity plays a vital role in the determination of occurrence of type 1 diabetes. Genetic factors are passed from generation to generation. Some gene variants that has instructions for synthesis of certain proteins called HLA are in connection with the risk of developing type1 diabetes. The proteins made up by HLA genes are determining factors for recognition of a cell as foreign or part of own body. Environmental factors like food, toxins, and virus also play an important role in the development of type 1 diabetes. Some suggest that environmental factors cause destruction of beta cells in the people who are genetically susceptible to diabetes. Some suggest that these factors have an ongoing role in the cause of diabetes. A virus cannot cause diabetes but people have a chance of developing diabetes after a viral infection. The common viruses causing diabetes are mumps, rubella, adenovirus. They damage the beta cells and trigger autoimmune response in people who are susceptible to diabetes. Dietary factors may alter chances of developing diabetes. Like, babies who are breastfed and get vitamin D have less chances of developing type 1diabetes. In case of type 2 diabetes too genes play an important role. People with a family history of diabetes are more prone to develop this disease. The TCF7L2 gene variation increase chances of developing diabetes. People who have this variant are 80% more prone to this disease. Genes can increase chances of diabetes by increasing tendency to become obese or overweight. Obesity and physical inactivity are associated with development of diabetes. People who are susceptible are vulnerable when they are obese. Imbalance between food uptake and physical activity can lead to being obese. Abdominal fat increases. It becomes a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Millions of people can change their chances of getting diabetes by changing lifestyle and losing some weight (Niddk.nih.gov, 2015).
For many years, contribution of nature and nurture in type 1 diabetes has been a topic of discussion. Much to disappointment, the knowledge that has been produced was scattered. This is because there was no model to consider the contributions. Thus a model was designed to follow up the interactions of nature and nurture for type 1 diabetes. The model suggested that studies on aetiopathogenesis of diabetes type1 should address both environmental and genetic influences (Wasserfall et al., 2011).
Diabetes is a disease which leads a person slowly to death. It is an inheritance disorder. If a member within a family has the previous history of diabetes then there is a high risk of getting this disease to the other members of the same family and to the future generation at any moment in their life. But we can control the situation by maintaining a good and healthy lifestyle. Most of the diabetes can be managed by following strict regulation. Exercise helps a lot in controlling the disease. Exercise reduces the excess fat from the body so it reduces the chances of developing the disease and complication like heart attack. Apart from that a proper balanced diet is also helpful in controlling this. People need to avoid junk food. So people need to understand that if they can’t prevent diabetes they can manage it. The topic regarding which factor is more important for the cause of diabetes is still in debate across the globe.
References:
Butler.org, (2015). How nature and nurture may interact to cause severe psychiatric illness. [online] Available at: https://www.butler.org/patientsandcommunity/nature-nurture-interaction.cfm [Accessed 27 Jun. 2015].
Faqs.org, (2015). Nature vs. nurture: does biology or environment influence development? – Mental Health – body, brain, children, disorder, high, meaning, disease, human, people. [online] Available at: https://www.faqs.org/health/Healthy-Living-V3/Mental-Health-Nature-vs-nurture-does-biology-or-environment-influence-development.html [Accessed 27 Jun. 2015].
Genomenewsnetwork.org, (2015). Nature and Nurture in Disease. [online] Available at: https://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/09_03/environ_genome.shtml [Accessed 27 Jun. 2015].
American Diabetes Association, (2015). Statistics About Diabetes. [online] Available at: https://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/ [Accessed 27 Jun. 2015].
Meisenberg, G. and Simmons, W. (2012). Principles of medical biochemistry. Philadelphia: Elsevier/Mosby
Niddk.nih.gov, (2015). Causes of Diabetes. [online] Available at: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-topics/Diabetes/causes-diabetes/Pages/index.aspx [Accessed 27 Jun. 2015].
Stehouwer, C. and Schaper, N. (2009). Diabetes. Oxford: Clinical Pub.
Health.ny.gov, (2015). What Complications (Problems) are Caused by Diabetes?. [online] Available at: https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/conditions/diabetes/problems_caused_by_diabetes.htm [Accessed 27 Jun. 2015].
Matthews, D. (2008). Diabetes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wild, S., Roglic, G., Green, A., Sicree, R. and King, H. (2004). Global Prevalence of Diabetes: Estimates for the year 2000 and projections for 2030. Diabetes Care, 27(5), pp.1047-1053.
Better Health Channel, (2015). Environmental health – Better Health Channel. [online] Available at: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Environmental_health?open [Accessed 27 Jun. 2015].
heredity Meaning, d. (2015). heredity Meaning, definition in Cambridge English Dictionary. [online] Dictionary.cambridge.org. Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/heredity [Accessed 27 Jun. 2015].
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