What Is Diabetes

Diabetes is one of the biggest dangers to your health and the chance of getting diabetes is increasing. Everyone needs to know how to prevent it, and if you have it you need to become an expert on treating it.

Diabetes And Sugar

Diabetes is diagnosed when you have too much sugar in your blood and your body can't cope with it. At this stage the sugar is excreted in your urine and a simple urine test will detect the presence of this sugar. This type of diabetes is also called diabetes mellitus, the mellitus part coming from the Latin word for honey.

Glucose is the sugar in question and it is produced from carbohydrates during digestion as well as being present in some naturally sweet foods. It is also used as a sweetener in many drinks, and is quickly absorbed into the blood unchanged. Glucose is the main energy source in the body.

Glucose is slowly poisonous to many tissues in the body if it is present in the blood at a high level.

The Types Of Diabetes

There are two main types of diabetes, and it is important to understand the difference:

Type 1 or insulin dependent diabetes is usually seen in young people and comes on quickly. Sufferers have to then inject themselves with insulin for the rest of their life. This is fortunately not that common, but worryingly this is now rapidly increasing.
Type 2 or non-insulin dependent diabetes is usually seen in adults over 40 and in overweight people, it is the most common form of diabetes, and the one you are most likely to be diagnosed with. This is the one that used to only be seen in adults over 40 or very overweight people. Worryingly this has increased dramatically over the last 50 years to become one of the major health problems in the world, and you should do everything you can to prevent yourself getting type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes isn't just a mild form of type 1diabetes, and isn't just 'A bit of sugar in your urine' it is a major disease which is slowly destroying your whole body.

There are other types of diabetes which are less common:

Pregnancy diabetes also called gestational diabetes, which can happen during pregnancy and then disappear after the birth, though once you have suffered with this you have a greater risk of having diabetes later in your life.
Secondary diabetes is caused by another condition, such as inflammation of the pancreas for example by alcohol, and can also be caused by some medicines, such as steroids or diuretics.

Diabetes insipidus is unrelated to the diabetes discussed here (Diabetes mellitus) and is a rare condition caused by a hormone imbalance in the pituitary gland.

How Common Is Diabetes?

There are about 2.3 million people in the UK diagnosed with diabetes, with Type 2 Diabetes accounting for about 90% of this, and the incidence of diabetes is increasing. Type 2 diabetes has tripled over the past 30 years. This equates to 1 person in every 25 having diabetes.

'The missing Million' is a phrase that has been used to describe the people in the UK who have diabetes but don't know about it, as it hasn't yet been diagnosed. This is 1 in every 60 people in the UK, which puts this figure into perspective. This estimate may be a little high but is entirely realistic.

What Are The Health Risks Of Diabetes?

All types of diabetes carry health risks and even if the blood sugar is well controlled the body is now working in a new way and damage is being done to the blood vessels, nerves, eyes and kidneys which is progressive. This means that your chance of death is at least doubled with diabetes. For more information see Health Problems Caused By Diabetes .

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