What Is Diabetes?
The two types of
diabetes, insulin-dependent and noninsulin-dependent, are different
disorders. While the causes, short-term effects, and treatments for the
two types differ, both can cause the same long-term health problems. Both
types also affect the body's ability to use digested food for energy.
Diabetes doesn't interfere with digestion, but it does prevent the body
from using an important product of digestion, glucose (commonly known as
sugar), for energy.
| Points to Remember
- Diabetes interferes with the body's use of food for energy.
- While noninsulin-dependent diabetes are different disorders,
they can cause the same complications.
|
After a meal the digestive system
breaks some food down into glucose. The blood carries the glucose or sugar
throughout the body, causing blood glucose levels to rise. In response to
this rise the hormone insulin is released into the bloodstream to signal
the body tissues to metabolize or burn the glucose for fuel, causing blood
glucose levels to return to normal. A gland called the pancreas, found
just behind the stomach, makes insulin. Glucose the body doesn't use right
away goes to the liver, muscle or fat for storage.
In someone with diabetes, this process doesn't work correctly. In
people with insulin-dependent diabetes, the pancreas doesn't produce
insulin. This condition usually begins in childhood and is also known as
type I (formerly called juvenile-onset) diabetes. People with this kind of
diabetes must have daily insulin injections to survive.
In people with noninsulin-dependent diabetes the pancreas usually
produces some insulin, but the body's tissues don't respond very well to
the insulin signal and, therefore, don't metabolize the glucose properly,
a condition called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is an important
factor in noninsulin-dependent diabetes.