The effect of food on triggering type II diabetes: modeling a CBD Pancreas




Type II diabetes affects around 350 million people worldwide. It is a disease that results in the failure of the pancreas to produce enough insulin in the human body. This failure of meeting the body's insulin demands results in high glucose concentration in the blood and low glucose absorption into the heart, muscles and adipose tissue. As such, patients with the disease are required to inject insulin daily to survive. The pancreas fails to produce enough insulin due to the death of its overworked and overstressed beta-cells. In this paper, we use Causal Block Diagrams to model the cooperation of beta-cells to produce insulin upon the detection of glucose in the blood. We simulated a pancreas of 100 beta-cells that responds to a glucose release of a 3 meals / day metabolic behavior. Our model suggests that a daily intake of 1300 - 1850 calories keeps the pancreas in the best health. We show that any added stress starts to kill the beta-cells, and at a rate of 4500 calories / day diabetes becomes inevitable if serious measures to improve one's health are not taken.