What is diabetes?
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What is diabetes?
If your doctor recently diagnosed you with diabetes, you're
one of nearly 16 million people in the United States -- nearly one in
17 people -- who have diabetes. Approximately 2,200 new cases are diagnosed
each day.
Technically, this disease is known as "diabetes mellitus" --
diabetes from the Greek for siphon, to describe the excessive thirst
and urination characteristic of this condition, and mellitus from
the Latin for honey; diabetic urine is filled with sugar and is sweet.
Physicians and medical books use the term diabetes mellitus, but commonly,
this disease is simply called diabetes.
There are many types of diabetes, but the three most common are:
- Type 1
- Type 2
- Gestational
All are a little different. But everyone with diabetes
has one thing in common: Little or no ability to move sugar -- or glucose
-- out of the blood into the cells, where it becomes the body's primary
fuel.
Everyone has glucose in their blood, whether or not they have diabetes.
This glucose comes from food. When we eat, the digestive process breaks
down food into glucose, which is absorbed into the blood in the small
intestine.
People who don't have diabetes rely on insulin, a hormone made in the
pancreas, to move glucose from the blood into the body's billions of cells.
But people who have diabetes either don't produce insulin or can't efficiently
use the insulin they produce. Without insulin, they can't move glucose
into their cells. Glucose accumulates in the blood -- a condition called
hyperglycemia ("hyper" = too much, "glycemia" = glucose
in the blood) -- and over time, can cause very serious health problems.
Scientists don't know exactly what causes diabetes, but it appears to
result from a combination of genetics and environmental factors, including
viral infections, poor diet, and sedentary lifestyle
Currently, diabetes can't be cured, but the good
news is that the disease can be managed. People with diabetes can live
fulfilling, healthy lives.
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