All About Diabetes
Have you ever asked your parents how they came up with your name or what your last name means? The history of "diabetes mellitus" is kind of funny. Read the D-Fact to learn why.
What is diabetes mellitus?
Diabetes is a disease where the body does not make or use the hormone (a chemical made by your body) insulin properly. Insulin is a hormone made in your pancreas by beta cells.
Insulin has a very important job: it helps glucose feed your cells. Without insulin, your cells can't get glucose and your body can't get the energy it needs.
Confused? Let's break it down.
Your body is made up of millions and millions of different kinds of cells. When you put a whole bunch of cells together, they make you! Cells are like bricks. Just like it takes a lot of bricks to build a house, it takes a lot of cells to build YOU.
Unlike bricks, cells are living and need to eat. When you eat food, especially carbohydrates like a baked potato, your body turns the food into a sugar called glucose that your cells can use for energy. Different foods are broken down into glucose in different ways.
Once food becomes glucose, it travels through your blood providing food (or fuel) to your cells.
Now for its own protection, your cells have a cell wall around them. They're pretty picky about what they let inside. For glucose to get into your cells, it needs some help. Here's where insulin becomes important.
Insulin acts like a key to open the cell wall door and let glucose into the cell. When insulin works right, the cells gets the food it needs. When there is no insulin or it isn't working properly, the cells can't function and your body doesn't have the energy it needs.
You need insulin to survive. Without insulin, you can get very sick. Insulin keeps you alive. Food keeps you in control.
About type 1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease where the body does not make any insulin at all. For some reason, the cells in your body that usually protect you from germs got confused. They thought your beta cells were germs and attacked them. With no beta cells, you can't make insulin.
As you know, without insulin, your body can't use any of the food you eat for energy. Since it can't get into the cells, all the glucose (sugar) has nowhere to go and hangs out in your bloodstream. That's why your blood glucose level can get so high.
When all the glucose is in your blood instead of your cells, your cells are starving so you feel hungry and tired all the time. Your body has no energy.
Type 1 diabetes can not be prevented and has to be treated with insulin. If you go for a long period of time with no insulin, your blood glucose can get really high and you can get really sick.
About type 2 diabetes
When you have type 2 diabetes, the insulin your pancreas makes does not work well, and it doesn't make enough insulin either. Like with type 1 diabetes, the glucose from the food you eat can't get through the cell walls. Your cells starve for glucose and you feel hungry and tired all the time.
Often, people who eat healthy foods and exercise can delay or prevent type 2 diabetes.
Some people with type 2 diabetes need to have insulin injections, while others can take pills to help manage their blood glucose.
Effects of diabetes
The short- and long-term effects of diabetes are important to know. They can motivate you to "manage" your diabetes by controlling your blood glucose and making healthy choices.
There is a greater risk of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) for people who are treated with insulin, whether you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
On the flip side, if your blood glucose stays high for a long time (hyperglycemia), your eyes, kidneys and heart could develop problems regardless of the type of diabetes you have.
As the leader of your D-team, you can work together to keep your blood glucose levels in target range. You may not have been able to prevent diabetes but you can prevent or delay issues with your eyes, kidneys and heart.