Diabetes prevents your body from properly absorbing energy from the food you eat because you can’t make insulin or because you can’t use it correctly. There is no cure, but treatments allow you to manage your condition.
- The pancreas (an organ behind your stomach) produces little insulin or no insulin at all. Insulin is a naturally occurring hormone, produced by the beta cells of the pancreas, which helps the body use sugar for energy.
- The pancreas makes insulin, but the insulin made doesn’t work as it should. This condition is called insulin resistance.To better understand diabetes, it helps to know more about how the body uses food for energy (a process called metabolism).
Your body is made up of millions of cells. To make energy, the cells need food in a very simple form. When you eat or drink, much of your food is broken down into a simple sugar called glucose. Glucose provides the energy your body needs for daily activities.
The blood vessels and blood are the highways that transport sugar from where it is either taken in (the stomach) or manufactured (in the liver) to the cells where it is used (muscles) or where it is stored (fat). Sugar isn’t able to go into the cells by itself. The pancreas releases insulin into the blood, which serves as the helper, or the “key,” that lets sugar into the cells for use as energy.
What are the types of diabetes?
There are two main types of diabetes: Type 1 and Type 2:
- Type 1 diabetes occurs because the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas (beta cells) are damaged. In Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas makes little or no insulin, so sugar can;t get into the body’s cells for use as energy. People with Type 1 diabetes must use insulin injections to control their blood glucose. Type 1 is the most common form of diabetes in people who are under age 30, but it can occur at any age. Ten percent of people with diabetes are diagnosed with Type 1.
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