Diabetes Mellitus: Symptoms and Treatment
Diabetes Mellitus
By Shane O’Shaughnessy
Contents
Page 1: Description of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes
Page 2: Type 1 Diabetes
Page 3: Symptoms of Type 1 Diabetes
Page 4: Type 2 Diabetes and Symptoms
Page 5: Aims of Treatment
Page 6: Medication
What is diabetes mellitus?
The term ‘diabetes’ means excessive urination and the word ‘mellitus’ means honey.
Diabetes mellitus is a lifelong condition caused by a lack, or insufficiency of insulin. Insulin is a hormone – a substance of vital importance that is made by your pancreas. Insulin acts like a key to open the doors into your cells, letting glucose in. In diabetes, the pancreas makes too little insulin to enable all the sugar in your blood to get into your muscle and other cells to produce energy. If sugar can’t get into the cells to be used, it builds up in the bloodstream. Therefore, diabetes is characterized by high blood sugar levels. Excess sugar is also excreted in the urine, hence the practice, in days gone by, of tasting it to diagnose the condition.
Types of diabetes:
There are two main categories of diabetes: Type 1 diabetes tends to occur in childhood or early adult life, and always requires treatment with insulin injections. It is caused by the body’s own immune system destroying the beta cells of the pancreas. Type 2 diabetes usually develops slowly in adulthood. It is progressive and can sometimes be treated with diet and exercise, but more often Type 2 diabetes may require ant diabetic medicine and/or insulin injections.
Before you got diabetes:
Before you got diabetes, your body automatically kept your blood sugar exactly at the right level. Here is how that worked: After a meal containing carbohydrates, sugar is absorbed into the blood stream very quickly. The amount of sugar in your blood must not get too high or too low. Two hormones called insulin and glucagon were produced in the pancreas to ensure that the blood sugar was always well controlled no matter how
By Shane O’Shaughnessy
Contents
Page 1: Description of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes
Page 2: Type 1 Diabetes
Page 3: Symptoms of Type 1 Diabetes
Page 4: Type 2 Diabetes and Symptoms
Page 5: Aims of Treatment
Page 6: Medication
What is diabetes mellitus?
The term ‘diabetes’ means excessive urination and the word ‘mellitus’ means honey.
Diabetes mellitus is a lifelong condition caused by a lack, or insufficiency of insulin. Insulin is a hormone – a substance of vital importance that is made by your pancreas. Insulin acts like a key to open the doors into your cells, letting glucose in. In diabetes, the pancreas makes too little insulin to enable all the sugar in your blood to get into your muscle and other cells to produce energy. If sugar can’t get into the cells to be used, it builds up in the bloodstream. Therefore, diabetes is characterized by high blood sugar levels. Excess sugar is also excreted in the urine, hence the practice, in days gone by, of tasting it to diagnose the condition.
Types of diabetes:
There are two main categories of diabetes: Type 1 diabetes tends to occur in childhood or early adult life, and always requires treatment with insulin injections. It is caused by the body’s own immune system destroying the beta cells of the pancreas. Type 2 diabetes usually develops slowly in adulthood. It is progressive and can sometimes be treated with diet and exercise, but more often Type 2 diabetes may require ant diabetic medicine and/or insulin injections.
Before you got diabetes:
Before you got diabetes, your body automatically kept your blood sugar exactly at the right level. Here is how that worked: After a meal containing carbohydrates, sugar is absorbed into the blood stream very quickly. The amount of sugar in your blood must not get too high or too low. Two hormones called insulin and glucagon were produced in the pancreas to ensure that the blood sugar was always well controlled no matter how