The Diabetes Series: Am I destined to have diabetes Type I?
With so many people getting diabetes nowadays, will you be one of them? Does it matter whether you are rich or poor, thin or fat, old or young? Surely, you can’t catch diabetes from someone who has it - that is it’s not contagious! But how then does a person get diabetes? Does it come from eating too much sugar? And who is likely to get it?
Risks for the two main types of diabetes are quite different. Let’s take a look at the Type I first:
1. Genetic factors:
There are at least two particular genes that give a person the tendency toward developing type I diabetes. They belong to the so-called HLA system, which controls the body’s defenses against infection.
2. Diabetes as an Autoimmune Disease
Many scientists now believe that type I diabetes is the result of the body’s immune system attacking its own insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas.
3. Diabetes from various infections
Some diabetes specialists believe that diabetes may actually have come from various viral infections. There is not a diabetes virus, like we know the flu (influenza) viruses or the chickenpox or measles viruses. Diabetes cannot be “caught” from someone else. But in some people who are genetically susceptible to diabetes, a virus such as that which causes some of the common illnesses may directly attack the beta cells of the pancreas. Or it may possible trigger an attack by other forces such as the body’s own immune system.
Next in series: Am I destined to have diabetes Type II?
