Living with Diabetes

What You Should Know

Type 1 and Type 2

Diabetes type 1 is an autoimmune disease which affects the beta cells of the pancreas that produces insulin. This disease was formerly known as insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). This disease presents in children, as well as in adults, and is characterized by the loss of the beta cells of the pancreas, which are known as the islets of Langerhans. However, since type 1 diabetes was most commonly associated with children, it was formerly known as juvenile diabetes.

Diabetes is incurable; there is no method of prevention, and no way to reverse the disease. In type 2 diabetes, it can be managed by diet and a healthy lifestyle. In some cases a patient with type 1 diabetes can have a transplant of the islet cells of the pancreas to arrest the disease, but in type 2 diabetes this option is not available, because this from of the disease is not an autoimmune disease.

Signs and Symptoms

The symptoms of diabetes present itself with excessive thirst, frequent urination, unexplained weight loss, and extreme fatigue. These symptoms of diabetes can be present in both types of diabetes, especially if the patient has poor eating habits and leads a sedentary lifestyle.

Diagnosis

The diagnosis is usually made when patients report their symptoms of diabetes and complaints to their doctor. In the case of children the parents notice their symptoms of diabetes and complaints and take the child to their physician to be examined. Diabetes is often discovered when a patient is having other problems that they are seeking help for, such as: poor wound healing, ulcers of the feet, eye problems and fungal infections.

In the diagnostic phase of the examination, the doctor will test the patient’s blood glucose level when fasting. A normal fasting blood sugar (FBS) ranges from 70-99 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl). Diabetes should be suspected if the FBS levels run between 100 mg/dl and 126 mg/dl, which are considered above normal for fasting levels.

Treatment and management

In type 1 diabetes the treatment is insulin replacement; without it diabetic ketoacidosis and coma can develop which will lead to death if not treated. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease and is caused by the patient’s own immune system waging war against the proteins within the islet cells of the pancreas.

The antibodies of the immune system “see” these necessary proteins as a threat to the body and set out to destroy them, which results in the inability of the islets to produce insulin.

Insulin is a natural hormone produced in the islet cells of the pancreas. The function of insulin is to counteract high levels of blood glucose (hyperglycemia), by regulating glucose metabolism. Without the production of insulin, glucose, the fuel that our cells need to survive, cannot cross the outer membranes of the cells to nourish the cells of our body. Insulin carries glucose into the cells by a process called active transport. In short, insulin functions like a little taxi that carries the glucose molecules into the cells. The cells have a receptor, or more like a lock, and insulin has the key to unlock it, to allow the glucose to enter and nourish the whole body. Without insulin we would die.