The diabetes fact sheet
YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW: ONE-THIRD OF ALL ADULTS WITH THE DISEASE ARE UNAWARE OF IT
Diabetes in its various forms causes heart disease, stroke and kidney failure – and causes 200 000 deaths every year.
Diabetes mellitus is a chronic or lifelong condition that affects your body’s ability to use the energy found in food.
There are three major types of diabetes: type 1 diabetes, type 2, and gestational diabetes. All types of diabetes mellitus have something in common.
Normally, your body breaks down the sugars and carbohydrates you eat into a special sugar called glucose. Glucose fuels the cells in your body. But the cells need insulin, a hormone, in your bloodstream in order to take up the glucose and use it for energy.
With diabetes mellitus, either your body doesn’t make enough insulin or it can’t use the insulin it does produce, or a combination of both. Since the cells can’t take up the glucose, it builds up in your blood.
High levels of blood glucose can damage the tiny blood vessels in your kidneys, heart, eyes, or nervous system. That’s why diabetes, especially if left untreated, can eventually cause heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness and nerve damage to nerves in the feet. It has been estimated that about one-third of adults with diabetes do not know they have it.
About one million cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year, and it is the direct or indirect cause of at least 200 000 deaths each year.
TYPES OF DIABETES Type 1 diabetes
The body stops producing insulin or produces too little insulin to regulate blood glucose level.
This type affects about 5% of all people with diabetes. It is typically diagnosed during childhood or adolescence. It used to be referred to as juvenile-onset diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. This insulin deficiency can occur at any age due to destruction of the pancreas by alcohol, disease, or removal by surgery. Type 1 diabetes also results from progressive failure of the pancreatic beta cells, the only cell type that produces significant amounts of insulin. Type 1 diabetes require daily insulin injections.
Type 2 diabetes
Although the pancreas still secretes insulin, the body of someone with type 2 diabetes is partially or completely incapable of responding to insulin.
This is often referred to as insulin resistance. The pancreas tries to overcome this resistance by secreting more and more insulin. People with insulin resistance develop type 2 diabetes when they fail to secrete enough insulin to cope with their body’s demands.
It is typically diagnosed during adulthood, usually after age 45 years. It was once called adult-onset diabetes mellitus, or noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.
These names are no longer used because type 2 diabetes does occur in young people even children, and some people with type 2 diabetes require insulin therapy. Type 2 diabetes is usually controlled with diet, weight loss, exercise, and/or oral medications.