When you have diabetes, it is important to continually learn about the disease. The diabetes kind that you have is going to have a major impact on how you live your life. So, taking the time to understand the diabetes kind you have, as well as others, will help you differentiate the information as you learn more and more about your disease.
There are actually many different types of diabetes, and as research goes on, more differentials are being found. For example, latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA) is very much like juvenile diabetes, except it occurs at a later age than expected for this diabetes kind. It used to be mistaken for type 2 diabetes. Also, gestational diabetes is a lot like type-2 diabetes, except it only comes about during pregnancy. Sometimes medications can also cause a person to have diabetes-like metabolic problems as well. All types of diabetes have one thing in common. The hormone insulin is not being utilized correctly, resulting in too much sugar (glucose) being left in the bloodstream.
To understand diabetes you must understand insulin. Insulin is the hormone which the body uses to transfer glucose from the blood to the cells. Then the cells take that glucose and turn it into energy. In diabetics, the sugar cannot be transferred, which makes it harder for the body to make energy. The most dangerous part, however, is that high amounts of sugar in the bloodstream essentially tears up the internal parts of your body over time, causing a wide range of complications.
Types of Diabetes
The kind of diabetes that you have depends primarily on what type of problem you have involving insulin. Type-1 diabetes, for example, is caused because the body is not able to make enough insulin to pull the sugars from the bloodstream. So, type-1 diabetics must take doses of insulin through a needle in order for their body to function properly. This diabetes kind is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s own immune system attacks the cells of the pancreas which make insulin. Scientists are still not sure why this occurs.
Type-2 diabetes is the most common kind of diabetes. The cause is much different than that of type 1. It seems as though, over years of eating sweet food and foods that are high in carbohydrates, the cells begin to “refuse” to take in the blood sugar and start to ignore the insulin. This is called insulin resistance. When the insulin is ignored the body responds by making even more of the hormone. Now the body has built up a tolerance to the hormone, and more insulin will be needed to take in the blood sugar next time as well. This imbalance causes fluctuations in the blood sugar levels and insulin levels of the body. Therefore, a type-2 diabetic must carefully monitor these fluctuations as well as eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly in order to keep these levels from fluctuating.
According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA) genetics also play a role in insulin resistance and the development of diabetes, no matter what diabetes kind you have. For example, if you have a parent or sibling with the disease, you are at a high risk of having it someday. Then again, many people genetically at risk have been able to avoid the type 2 diabetes by keeping a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and not allowing themselves to become overweight. Some people that are genetically predisposed to type 1 have also been able to avoid the disease, though the reason why is still a mystery.
