What is Diabetes?

Diabetes mellitus is a disease where there is insufficient production of insulin in the body or it is not utilized appropriately.



Insulin is that hormone which is required for converting starches, sugar and other forms of food into energy for the regular functions of the body. The detailed diabetes information regarding its causes is as yet shrouded in mystery though a combination of several factors may work towards its development.



Generally, people remain unaware that they are suffering from diabetes and only in the advanced stages they could discern it. Fasting blood sugar test conducted in the morning is commonly used to examine diabetes in non-pregnant adults and children.



Different people suffer from different diabetes type and display various diabetes symptoms.

The major diabetes types are Type 1 diabetes also known as juvenile or juvenile-onset diabetes, brittle diabetes or unstable diabetes; Type 2 diabetes, gestational diabetes and pre diabetes (also known as impaired fasting glucose-IGF or impaired glucose tolerance-IGT, depending on the kind of test used to diagnose it). Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease where the patient is needed to take insulin everyday.



The immune system hits and annihilates the insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas which lose their capacity to produce insulin or else they produce a very little amount of it. Type 2 diabetes is the most common category of diabetes which generally occurs in older age, obese people and in people with certain ethnicities.

If an individual has a previous history of gestational diabetes or family history of diabetes, then their chances of extracting diabetes are high. In gestational diabetes, the body produces enough insulin but for unidentified reasons the pancreas cannot use it efficiently and this condition is called insulin resistance.



Eventually insulin production decreases and glucose builds up in the blood and the main source of its fuel is not used proficiently. Some women develop diabetes during pregnancy which although disappears after child birth but they have a fair chance of developing type 2 diabetes during the next 10 years. Pre diabetic people have higher than normal glucose levels but not enough for its diagnosis. There is always a threat of developing type 2 diabetes, stroke or heart diseases and some people have both IGF and IGT forms of pre diabetes. There are quite a number of associations like American Diabetes Association and material available to make people aware of diabetes and provide relevant information about diabetes. Information on diabetes can also be gathered through the internet and queries can be sent online