What is Diabetes?
Posted on November 10, 2009
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What Is Diabetes?
There are three types of diabetes, Type 1, Type 2, and Gestational diabetes, each marked by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both. If not medically attended to diabetes can lead to serious complications and premature death. Fortunately, diabetics can take steps to control the disease and lower the risk of complications.
Points to Remember:
- Diabetes interferes with the body’s use of food for energy.
- While noninsulin-dependent diabetes are different disorders, they can cause the same complications.
After a meal the digestive system breaks some food down into glucose. The blood carries the glucose or sugar throughout the body causing blood glucose levels to rise. In response to this rise the hormone insulin is released into the bloodstream to signal the body tissues to metabolize or burn the glucose for fuel, causing blood glucose levels to return to normal. A gland called the pancreas, found just behind the stomach, produces insulin. Any glucose the body doesn’t use right away, goes to the liver, muscle or fat for storage.
In people with insulin-dependent diabetes, the pancreas doesn’t produce insulin. This condition usually begins in childhood and is also known as type I (formerly called juvenile-onset) diabetes. People with this type of diabetes must have daily insulin injections to survive.
In people with noninsulin-dependent diabetes the pancreas usually produces some insulin, but the body’s tissues don’t respond very well to the insulin signal and therefore, don’t metabolize the glucose properly, a condition called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is an important factor in noninsulin-dependent diabetes.
Approximately 15% of all diabetics without proper medication, management, and a healthy diet, typically suffer from high glucose levels, which stimulates low insulin production. Diabetes is a common disease that’s associated with numerous complications that can effect the entire body and in the most extreme cases without proper diabetes treatment or management not taking care of your feet and legs by wearing diabetic socks, compression socks, or compression stockings, it can lead to amputation of the extremities, particularly the legs and feet. To help alleviate some of those symptoms,
Types of Diabetes
Type 1 (previously called insulin-dependent or juvenile-onset) – This is where the pancreas ceases production of insulin (Insulin helps the body use the glucose it gets from food for needed energy) completely and accounts for 5 to 10 percent of all diagnosed cases of diabetes. It can be treated by a direct dose of insulin, usually in the form of several injections a day.
Type 2 (previously called non-insulin-dependent or adult-onset) – This is the most common form of diabetes where the pancreas produces an insufficient amount of insulin. This is usually treated by tablets or insulin and in mild cases, diet alone. It accounts for 90 to 95 percent of all diagnosed cases of diabetes.
What Causes Noninsulin-Dependent Diabetes? There is no simple answer to what causes noninsulin-dependent diabetes. While eating sugar, for example, doesn’t cause diabetes, eating large amounts of sugar and other rich, fatty foods, can cause weight gain. Most people who develop diabetes are overweight. Scientists do not fully understand why obesity increases someone’s chances of developing diabetes, but they believe obesity is a major factor leading to noninsulin-dependentdiabetes. Current research should help explain why the disorder occurs and why obesity is such an important risk factor.
Points to Remember:
- In people with noninsulin-dependent diabetes, insulin doesn’t lower blood sugar, a condition called insulin resistance.
- Obesity is a risk factor for diabetes.
A major cause of diabetes is insulin resistance. Scientists are still searching for the causes of insulin resistance, but they have identified two possibilities. The first could be a defect in insulin receptors on cells. Like an appliance that needs to be plugged into an electrical outlet, insulin has to bind to a receptor to function. Several things can go wrong with receptors. There may not be enough receptors for insulin to bind to, or a defect in the receptors may prevent insulin from binding.
A second possible cause involves the process that occurs after insulin plugs into the receptor. Insulin may bind to the receptor, but the cells don’t read the signal to metabolize the glucose. Scientists are studying cells to see why this might happen.
Gestational diabetes- affects about 7 percent of all pregnancies, resulting in more than 200,000 cases annually. Gestational diabetes raises a woman’s risk of getting either type 1 or type 2 (most prevalent) for the rest of her life. It also raises her child’s risk of being overweight and getting diabetes.
Some facts about diabetes you may not be familiar with:
- Diabetes is not caused by eating too much sugar. It is genetic.
- Craving sugar and/or junk food is not a sign of diabetes development.
- Type one diabetes is not a ‘worse’ form of the disease, it is a variant.
- Type one diabetes and type two diabetes are generally very different. Type one diabetics cannot produce insulin on their own and type two diabetics cannot process the insulin they produce correctly.
- Every diabetic has a different treatment plan for their disease, so there is no universally ‘diabetic friendly’ food.
- Sugar free does not necessarily mean that a diabetic can consume it without having a negative effect on their blood sugar.
- We can usually eat things that contain sugar.
- Diabetes is a very serious disease, but easy to manage.
- There is no cure for diabetes, only treatment.
- Diabetes is not curable.
- Having to urinate frequently is not always a symptom of diabetes.
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