Diabetes Today Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Diabetes Today - Essay Example Gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy, which can potentially develop into type 2 diabetes later in life. Diabetes mellitus is characterized by long-term complications involving small and large blood vessels (micro and macroangiopathy) affecting the eyes, kidneys, and nerves. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in childhood and accounts for 5-10% of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes mellitus is considered to be an autoimmune disease, where there is destruction of the beta cells of the pancreas, which produces insulin. This results in absolute insulin deficiency. Type 2 diabetes is more common than type 1 and accounts for 90%-95% or more of all cases of diabetes. It is characterized by insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency. Although it usually occurs in adults over the age of 45, it is increasingly being seen in obese individuals of all age groups, including children and adolescents (New York State Department of Health, 2006). Other causes of diabetes include: due to chronic pancreatitis in alcoholics, hormonal abnormalities like pheochromocytoma, acromegaly, and Cushing’s syndrome, steroid hormone administration, endogenous release of glucagon and catecholamines following severe burns, acute myocardial infarction (â€Å"stress hyperglycemia†), diabetes caused by drugs or chemicals, diabetes caused by insulin receptor abnormalities, and diabetes associated with genetic syndromes like lipodystrophies, myotonic dystrophy and ataxia-telangiectasia (Foster,1998.) It has been suggested that modern food processing methods result in glycation end products, oxidized ascorbic acid and lipoic acid, all of which are potential causes of diabetes. High levels of glycation products are also found in infant formula, which also has added ascorbic acid. Adverse immune effects leading to diabetes can result from glycation of a casomorphin released from A1 beta-casein (Elliott, 2006). Since the 1960s, there has been

Beauty and the Beast Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Beauty and the Beast - Essay Example The cues are hidden in plain sight in childhood movies and cartoons by Disney, as safe and American as apple pie. When I watched the bathing scene before, I never noticed the many clues to what I am expected to believe, what I am expected to perform in heteronormative society. When I paused the film to look carefully, I was flabbergasted by what I found! As the scene opens, the big, ugly, hairy beast is taking a bath (Jazzbo). He is golden, in color, and his neck hair culminates in a frontal mane, like a lion, He is over-sized, sitting in a golden, claw foot bathtub with graceful scrollwork designs, and royal blue ceramic interior. Nearby is a golden hamper and on the wall is a golden mirror. These are obvious signs of wealth. In a heteronormative culture, wealth is something that particularly makes a male marriage candidate desirable, in that his role is to protect his woman and give his children a good life. When we look through the darkness (transparent black curtains) that separa tes the surface from more intimate access, we find gentleness (pink walls, pink floor, insecurity and an endearing lack of sophistication). We also find that instead of being consumed by the off-putting, objectifying lust we might expect, he claims that he cares for Beauty but is afraid to confess his love. This sweet sensitivity is something valued in a male, in heteronormative culture, only so long as male strength, fierceness and lion-like pride are firmly in place. Indeed, if sensitivity is present without the other qualities, the unfortunate fellow is labeled a sissy, a fag, a queen. It is imperative that, whatever gender identity is enacted in private, the heteronormative one is especially performed in public. The Beast, however, is able to socially construct his heteronormative male role performance sufficiently to counterbalance his more feminine and queer performance. In fact, there is a golden mirror on the wall and, counter-intuitively, it reflects nothing, suggesting the strong silent hero of heteronormative culture. The beast harbors an undiscovered depth. Discovering and nurturing his unseen depth will be the duty of Beauty, once she accepts his confession of love and proposal of marriage. The servants can bathe him, advise him, snip and curl his hair, and structure his days with a schedule, but they cannot co-constuct his gender identity as effectively as a woman can, as they perform together the dance of heteronormative cultural mythology. The water is white foam. His eyes are rolled back in apparent ecstasy. There is foamy white water spilling from the tub, onto the floor, from the vicinity of his reproductive organs. An octopus servant is bathing him, and bubbles float down from the brushes. A double bubble also drifts downward. We are thus reassured about his sexual vigor and potent fertility. The bubbles are a symbol of her eggs, her fertility, which his gender construction scripts him to long for. Two of the egg-like bubbles are joined, as though the egg is splitting to become a baby. A baby is absolutely necessary to the heteronormative recipe for happily-ever-after. Where there is no baby, there will be whispers of speculation, eventually, calling into question his potency, his heteronormative manhood, and her heteronormative womanhood. All of this imagery is carefully constructed to define an environment aimed at socializing us, and particularly young children, into