Diabetes is a type of disease that is very common among humans all around the world, getting first diagnosed in the twentieth century. It can be the cause of blindness, kidney and heart failure, amputations, or even stroke, and yet many people don’t know what it’s like for people living with diabetes. We’re here to shed some light on the disease.
What is diabetes?
To find out the answer to that, you first need to understand the role of insulin in your body. While you eat, your body turns food into sugars, or glucose. In that process, your pancreas is supposed to release insulin, which serves as a “key” to open your cells, in order to allow the glucose to enter. Glucose is the main source of energy to the body.
Stages of diabetes
There are three main stages of diabetes that get more severe by the degree. It starts with prediabetes, often referred to as borderline diabetes – when blood sugar is usually in the range of 100-125 milligrams per deciliter. Normal blood sugar levels sit between 70 and 90 milligrams per deciliter, whereas a person who has diabetes will have a blood sugar level way higher than 125.
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Type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes affects the way the body uses insulin. While the body still generates insulin, the cells do not respond to it as effectively as they normally should. This is the most common type of diabetes around the world, according to the National Institute of Diabetes. This type also links strongly with obesity. The treatment focuses on a very strict diet, and if the blood sugar levels remain still very high, oral medications are used to help the body use it’s own insulin more efficiently.
Type 1 diabetes
The most severe of the diabetes stages is the type 1. The person suffering from this stage of diabetes is called insulin-dependent diabetes, or “juvenile” diabetes. This type usually develops in the early stages of life, like childhood, but sometimes it can develop at a later stage also. The body’s immune system attacks parts of its pancreas. It mistakenly sees the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas as foreign, and kills them. This attack is known as the “autoimmune” disease. So, a person with type 1 diabetes treats the disease by taking insulin injections. This outside source of insuline will serve as the main “key” of bringing glucose to the body’s cells.