The Health Blog

Accurately speaking, we should call the disease by its full name, diabetes mellitus, to avoid confusion with a much rarer and totally different type of diabetes, called diabetes insipidus. The the average person knows the disease simply as diabetes, so that’s how are we going to call it in this blog.

Diabetes is a lifelong disease in which a person’s body either does not produce enough insulin or cannot makes proper use of the insulin which it does not produce.

Insulin is a hormone - a chemical which helps regulate and control certain body functions. Insulin is made by the pancreas, which is a small endocrine gland located just below the stomach. In the pancreas, special beta cells in the areas called the islets of Langerhans secrete insulin directly into the bloodstream. There insulin works to control the amount of glucose in the blood.

Glucose is really just sugar. When your body digests the foods you eat, it changes the carbohydrates (as well as some of the proteins and fats) into glucose. Glucose is your sources of energy - the fuel for your body. And glucose is the nourishment for the various cells in the body.

If your body had no insulin, no way of controlling the amount of glucose in the blog - you would be in serious trouble. All the glucose from your dinner would stay in the bloodstream, your blood glucose level would be extremely high after meals, and you would feel very sick. You could even become unconscious. The body cannot cope with such an overload of sugar in the blood all at one time. You would have the condition called hyperglycemia.

On the other hand, without insulin you would be in an even more dangerous condition a few hours after your meal. If you exercised a lot or if you went too long without food, your blood glucose level would get lower and lower as your body used up the glucose for energy. You would develop the condition known as hypoglycemia - very low blood sugar.

Hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia are both complications of diabetes. Diabetics lack insulin to regulate glucose uptake.