As living standards improve and science advances in the modern era, the extension of human lifespan has led to a clear shift from acute to chronic diseases. Among chronic diseases, diabetes is known to be sensitive to the socioeconomic status of a country, as it reflects changes in disease prevalence rates.
Furthermore, as society develops and lifestyles become more westernized, the prevalence of diabetes is increasing. In South Korea, with rapid economic growth and westernization over the past 30 years, the estimated prevalence rate of diabetes, which was less than 1% in the 1970s, increased to approximately 3% in the 1980s. In the 1990s, reports indicated prevalence rates exceeding 3% and ranging from 5-8% in certain regions.
Diabetes, as the name suggests, is a disease in which glucose is excreted in urine. In normal cases, most ingested food is converted to glucose, and the blood carries this glucose to the body’s cells. However, in diabetes, insulin (a hormone) is either not produced properly or does not function correctly, preventing glucose from entering the cells.
In other words, diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by chronic hyperglycemia and its accompanying complications. If efficient blood sugar control is not achieved, the complications associated with diabetes make it difficult to maintain a good quality of life. Due to the burden of managing blood sugar, diabetes has the potential to significantly impair a person’s life more than other diseases.
As chronic diseases often focus on controlling disease progression rather than complete recovery, lifelong treatment and management are essential. The principles of diabetes treatment include dietary therapy, exercise therapy, and medication. However, in cases where stress is considered to contribute to the onset or worsening of diabetes, stress relief can aid in blood sugar regulation.
Recent studies have reported that over 80% of all diseases are related to stress. High-stress life events are associated with individuals’ physical dysfunction and psychological adaptability. With society undergoing rapid and increasingly complex changes and growing uncertainty about the future, modern individuals experience more stress than ever before. Stress has become an integral part of life in contemporary society, to the extent that it is considered to be part of life from birth to death.
Stress can be categorized into physical stress, such as chronic diseases, infections, surgery, trauma, and famine, and psychological stress, such as high anxiety or a state of tension. Although the detailed mechanisms by which stress affects the body have not been clearly established, stress is initially recognized in the central nervous system and then influences various organs in the body through the endocrine or autonomic nervous system.
Diabetes is no exception, as stress has long been recognized as one of the causes of diabetes. Since the early 20th century, as experimental research replaced medical research based on clinical observations, efforts have been made to investigate the relationship between diabetes and stress through experimental studies. Research has revealed that stress not only promotes the onset of diabetes but also worsens blood sugar control in diagnosed diabetic patients.
Recent research presentations on diabetes and stress show that individuals with type 1 diabetes have experienced significantly more severe stress events within three years prior to diagnosis compared to non-diabetic individuals. Additionally, for individuals with insulin-dependent diabetes, stress factors do not affect stress perception but do influence the onset and exacerbation of the disease.
Numerous studies emphasize the importance of stress in diabetes and suggest that experiences of stress or stress perception have a significant impact on diabetes patients. Regarding stress and diabetes management in diabetes patients, it is argued that the quantity of stress is not the crucial factor, but rather the patient’s ability to adapt to stress determines the different manifestations of crises in daily life. Therefore, how patients perceive and cope with stress is more important.
In the future, efforts will continue to investigate the impact of stress on blood sugar management in diabetes patients and to determine the most appropriate coping strategies for stress. I hope that my writings can be helpful to many people with diabetes and their families who are struggling with diabetes.