IELTS Reading Passage

You are advised to spend 20 minutes to read the passage and answer the following
questions.
Diabetes; A Sweet Disease!
Diabetes is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism characterised by impaired ability of the body
to produce or respond to insulin and thereby maintain proper levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood.
This relatively frequent disease can be a major cause of morbidity and mortality, although these
outcomes are not the immediate effects of the disorder. In fact, it is the untreated chronic diabetes
that can be fatal.
Insulin is a hormone secreted by beta cells
in the pancreas. Insulin's role in the body is to
trigger cells to take up glucose so that the cells
can use this energy-yielding sugar. Patients
with diabetes may have dysfunctional beta
cells, resulting in decreased insulin secretion,
or their body cells may be resistant to the
effects of insulin, resulting in a decreased
ability of these cells to take up and metabolise
glucose. In both cases, the levels of glucose in
the blood increase, causing high blood sugar or
hyperglycemia.
There are two major forms of the disease.
Type I diabetes, formerly referred to as insulin-
dependent diabetes or juvenile-onset diabetes,
as it usually arises in childhood. Type II
diabetes, formerly called non-insulin-dependent
diabetes or adult-onset diabetes, which usually
occurs after age 40 and becomes more
common with increasing age.
People with Type I diabetes have low or
absent levels of insulin and must inject insulin
into their bodies each day. Less than 10
percent of all diabetics have this form of the
disease. Type I diabetes accounts for about 5
to 10 percent of cases of diabetes. Most
patients with type I diabetes are children or
adolescents, but about 20 percent are adults.
The frequency of type I diabetes varies widely
in different countries, from less than 5 cases
per 100,000 people per year in several Asian
countries to more than 30 cases per 100,000
people per year in Finland. Some patients with
type I diabetes have genetic variations. In
general, 2 to 5 percent of children whose
mother or father has type I diabetes will also
develop type I diabetes.
Type II diabetes is far more common than
type I diabetes, accounting for about 90
percent of all cases. The frequency of type II
diabetes varies greatly within and between
countries and is increasing throughout the
world. Most patients with type II diabetes are
adults, often older adults, but it can also occur
in children and adolescents. There is a
stronger genetic component to type II diabetes
than to type I diabetes. For example, identical
twins are much more likely to both develop
type II diabetes than to both develop type I
diabetes, and 7 to 14 percent of people whose
mother or father has type II diabetes will also
develop type II diabetes; this estimate
increases to 45 percent if both parents are
affected.
Type II diabetes is strongly associated with
obesity and is a result of insulin resistance and
insulin deficiency. In other words, if blood
glucose concentrations is increased to a similar
level in a healthy person and in an obese
person, the healthy person will secrete more
insulin than the obese person.
A third but less common type, gestational
diabetes is a temporary condition associated
with pregnancy. In this situation, blood glucose
levels increase during pregnancy but usually
return to normal after delivery. However,
gestational diabetes is recognised as a risk for
type II diabetes later in life.
When blood glucose concentrations
increase, more glucose is filtered by the
kidneys than can be reabsorbed, resulting in
glucose excretion in the urine. High glucose
concentration in the urine reduces the
reabsorption of water by the kidneys, causing
excretion of large volumes of urine. The
immediate symptoms include excessive
urination, thirst, appetite loss, and vomiting. If
not treated quickly, coma and death can follow.
Symptoms of Type II and gestational diabetes
include excessive urination, thirst, hunger,
some weight loss, and fatigue. These
symptoms appear gradually and may even go
unnoticed until early adulthood. If not
recognised and treated properly, prolonged
high levels of blood sugar can cause the walls
of small blood vessels to thicken. This
condition can culminate in heart attack, stroke,
gangrene, vascular collapse, nervous system
dysfunction, kidney failure, and blindness.
Before the isolation of insulin in the 1920s,
most patients died within a short time after
onset. Today, however, treatment for diabetes
is aimed at reducing blood glucose
concentrations to normal levels in various ways
from pancreas transplantation, beta cell
transplantation, implantable mechanical insulin
infusion systems for insulin injection to
prescribing special diet and exercise. All these
promote well-being and tend to minimise the
development and progression of the long-term
complications of diabetes.
All diabetes patients are put on diets
designed to help them reach and maintain
normal body weight, and they often are
encouraged to exercise regularly, which
enhances the movement of glucose into
muscle cells and blunts the rise in blood
glucose that follows carbohydrate ingestion.
Even those patients taking insulin may need to
vary food intake from meal to meal, according
to their level of activity; as exercise frequency
and intensity increase, less insulin and more
food intake may be necessary. In general,
patients are encouraged to follow a diet that is
relatively low in fat and contains adequate
amounts of protein. In practice about 30
percent of calories should come from fat, 20
percent from protein, and the remainder from
carbohydrates, preferably from complex
carbohydrates rather than simple sugars.
Diabetics who are unable to produce insulin
in their bodies receive regular injections of the
hormone, which are often customised
according to their individual and variable
requirements. Beef or pork insulin, made from
the pancreatic extracts of cattle or pigs, can be
used to treat humans with diabetes. However,
modern human insulin treatments are based on
recombinant DNA technology. Human insulin
may be given as a form that is identical to the
natural form found in the body, which acts
quickly but transiently, or as a form that has
been biochemically modified so as to prolong
its action for up to 24 hours.


Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?
Write
True if the statement is true according to the passage
False if the statement is false according to the passage
Does Not Say if the statement is not given in the passage
Example:
0 If diabetes is not taken care of for a long time, it can cause death. .True.
1 In some cases diabetes is caused as some cells fail to absorb glucose for their
metabolism. .
2 30% of the Finnish suffer from type I diabetes while in many Asian countries the rate is
much below this.
3 There is a direct relationship between certain physical features such as a person's
height and weight with type II diabetes.
4 Type II diabetes is usually diagnosed in early ages.
5 Balanced diet and regular exercise can play an effective role in prevention and
treatment of both Type I and II diabetes.
6 Extracting artificial insulin from some species of animals is much easier than producing
it in biochemical laboratories.

Questions 7-10
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER to complete each
sentence.
7 ... are responsible to produce insulin for the metabolism of the
body cells.
8 In the past, the term . was used instead of Type I diabetes to
show the young age of the sufferers.
9 Research has found that Type II diabetes .... to children from the
parents who suffer from the disease.
10 Women suffering from gestational diabetes will usually get rid of it after their
.
Questions 11-14
Complete the flowchart with words taken from the reading passage.
Use ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.