Diabetes mellitus pronounced often referred to as diabetes—is a condition in which the body either does not produce enough, or does not properly respond to, insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas. Insulin enables cells to absorb glucose in order to turn it into energy. This causes glucose to accumulate in the blood, leading to various potential complications.

Most of what we eat is broken down into glucose. Glucose is a form of sugar in the blood – it is the principal source of fuel for our bodies.

When our food is digested the glucose makes its way into our bloodstream. Our cells use the glucose for energy and growth. However, glucose cannot enter our cells without insulin being present – insulin makes it possible for our cells to take in the glucose.

Insulin is a hormone that is produced by the pancreas. After eating, the pancreas automatically releases an adequate quantity of insulin to move the glucose present in our blood into the cells, and lowers the blood sugar level.

A person with diabetes has a condition in which the quantity of glucose in the blood is too elevated (hyperglycemia). This is because the body either does not produce enough insulin, produces no insulin, or has cells that do not respond properly to the insulin the pancreas produces. This results in too much glucose building up in the blood. This excess blood glucose eventually passes out of the body in urine. So, even though the blood has plenty of glucose, the cells are not getting it for their essential energy and growth requirements.

What are the Types of DIABETES?

The following are the types of DIABETES

Diabetes Type 1: Results from the body’s failure to produce insulin. Presently most persons with type 1 diabetes take insulin injections.

Diabetes Type 2: Results from insulin resistance, a condition in which cells fail to use insulin properly, sometimes combined with absolute insulin deficiency.

Gestational diabetes Pregnant women who have never had diabetes before but who have high blood sugar (glucose) levels during pregnancy are said to have gestational diabetes. Gestational diabetes affects about 4% of all pregnant women. It may precede development of type 2 (or rarely type 1) DM.

Other forms of diabetes mellitus are categorized separately from these. Examples include congenital diabetes due to genetic defects of insulin secretion, cystic fibrosis-related diabetes, steroid diabetes induced by high doses of glucocorticoids, and several forms of monogenic diabetes.

What are the symptoms of diabetes?

High blood sugar causes excess urination, excess thirst, difficulty in vision, increased chances of infections. Inability of body to use glucose causes excessive hunger, irritability, confusion, weakness, tiredness and weight loss that can be dangerous.

What are the causes of DIABETES?

Researches say the causes for Diabetes are not fully know. They say that hereditary is one of the reasons. In typ1 diabetes, the immune system is weakened by a virus.

Then another microorganism destroys the cells in the pancreas resulting in insufficient production of insulin. The type2 form of diabetes is because of age, obesity, hereditary factors, etc. Alcoholism, stress, malnutrition are the other causes of diabetes.

How to Treat DIABETES?

All types of diabetes are treatable, but Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes last a lifetime; there is no known cure. The patient receives regular insulin, which became medically available in 1921. The treatment for a patient with Type 1 is mainly injected insulin, plus some dietary and exercise adherence.

Patients with Type 2 are usually treated with tablets, exercise and a special diet, but sometimes insulin injections are also required.

If diabetes is not adequately controlled the patient has a significantly higher risk of developing complications, such as hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis, and nonketotic hypersosmolar coma. Longer term complications could be cardiovascular disease, retinal damage, chronic kidney failure, nerve damage, poor healing of wounds, gangrene on the feet which may lead to amputation, and erectile dysfunction.

Type 1 diabetes (formerly called insulin-dependent diabetes or juvenile diabetes) results when the pancreas loses its ability to make the hormone insulin. In type 1 diabetes, the person’s own immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Once those cells are destroyed, they won’t ever make insulin again.

Although no one knows for certain why this happens, scientists think it has something to do with genes. But just getting the genes for diabetes isn’t usually enough. A person probably would then have to be exposed to something else — like a virus — to get type 1 diabetes.

Type 1 Diabetes can be caused by two ways

1. Environment Factors
2. Genetics

1. Environment Factors: Environmental factors can strongly influence expression of type 1. A study showed that for identical twins, when one twin had type 1 diabetes, the other twin only had type 1 30%–50% of the time. Despite having the exact same genome, one twin had the disease, where the other did not; this shows that environmental factors, in addition to genetic factors, can influence disease prevalence.

2. Genetics: Type 1 diabetes is a polygenic disease, meaning many different genes contribute to its expression. Depending on locus or combination of loci, it can be dominant, recessive, or somewhere in between. The strongest gene, IDDM1, is located in the MHC Class II region on chromosome 6, at staining region 6p21.

This is believed to be responsible for the histocompatibility disorder characteristic of type 1: Insulin-producing pancreas cells (beta cells) display improper antigens to T cells. This eventually leads to the production of antibodies that attack these beta cells. Weaker genes are also located on chromosomes 11 and 18.

What are the Symptoms for Type 1 Diabetes?

Type 1 diabetes may come on gradually or suddenly.

Parents of a child with typical symptoms of type 1 diabetes may notice that their child:

How to Prevent Type 1 Diabetes?

Type 1 diabetes can’t be prevented, and there is no practical way to predict who will get it. There is nothing that either a parent or the child did to cause the disease. Once a person has type 1 diabetes, it does not go away and requires lifelong treatment. Kids and teens with type 1 diabetes depend on daily insulin injections or an insulin pump to control their blood glucose levels.

What is the Diet for Type 1 Diabetes?

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Diabetes mellitus type 2 or type 2 diabetes (formerly called non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), or adult-onset diabetes) is a disorder that is characterized by high blood glucose in the context of insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency. While it is often initially managed by increasing exercise and dietary modification, medications are typically needed as the disease progresses.

Traditionally considered a disease of adults, type 2 diabetes is increasingly diagnosed in children in parallel to rising obesity rates due to alterations in dietary patterns as well as in life styles during childhood.

Unlike type 1 diabetes, there is very little tendency toward ketoacidosis in type 2 diabetes, though it is not unknown. One effect that can occur is nonketonic hyperglycemia which also is quite dangerous, though it must be treated very differently.

Complex and multifactorial metabolic changes very often lead to damage and function impairment of many organs, most importantly the cardiovascular system in both types. This leads to substantially increased morbidity and mortality in both type 1 and type 2 patients, but the two have quite different origins and treatments despite the similarity in complications.

What are the Causes of Type 2 Diabetes?

1. Medical conditions
2. Genetics
3. Medications

What are the Symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes?

* Early symptoms may be nothing more than chronic fatigue, generalised weakness and malaise (feeling of unease)
* Excessive urine production
* Excessive thirst and increased fluid intake
* Blurred vision (typically from lens shape alterations, due to osmotic effects, e.g., high blood glucose levels)
* Unexplained weight loss
* Lethargy
* Itching of external genitalia

How to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes (or) Diabetes mellitus type 2

Onset of type 2 diabetes can often be delayed through proper nutrition and regular exercise.

Interest has arisen in preventing diabetes due to research on the benefits of treating patients before overt diabetes. Although the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded that “the evidence is insufficient to recommend for or against routinely screening asymptomatic adults for type 2 diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance, or impaired fasting glucose,” this was a grade I recommendation when published in 2003. However, the USPSTF does recommend screening for diabetics in adults with hypertension or hyperlipidemia (grade B recommendation).

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