What is diabetes?

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that is inherited or acquired by a deficient production of insulin in the pancreas or caused by ineffective insulin. The deficiency results in increased concentrations of glucose in the blood, which in turn damage many of the body's systems, in particular the blood vessels and nerves.

Insulin is one of the hormones responsible for metabolic processes in the human body through providing living cells with basic nutrition substances.

Role of insulin focuses foremost on:

• Use of glucose and fat as the energetic fuel for the cells;
• Storing excess amounts of glucose;
• Production of protein from food consumed.

Insulin is a form of conveyor or catalyst which ensures that living tissues in human organism are provided with nutrition substances like protein, glucose and fat. When the body lacks insulin or if the insulin produced is defective, the human body is unable to feed itself on the cellular level. At the same time, glucose levels in blood will rise. Thus an excessive amount of glucose flows through the kidneys and is transferred to the urine causing glycosuria and other symptoms of the disease.

Symptoms

Untreated diabetes results in a set of symptoms which can be pronounced, subdued, and even absent. Typical clinical symptoms are:

• tiredness
• weakness
• polyuria, i.e. excessive secretion of urine
• excessive hunger
• weight loss

The basic symptom of diabetes relates, however, to increasing glucose levels in blood (glycemia) and in urine (glycosuria).

Types of diabetes

The most common types of the disease are simply described by medicine as TYPE 1 and TYPE 2.

Type 1 diabetes was previously called insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) or juvenile diabetes. Type 1 diabetes develops when the body's immune system destroys pancreatic beta cells, the only cells in the body that produce insulin. This form of diabetes usually strikes children and young adults, although disease onset can occur at any age.
Approximately 20% of patients suffer from type 1. Juvenile diabetes can be very intensive with frequent tendencies to severely drop glucose levels (hypo glycemia) or increase glucose levels. Hyper glycemia, i.e. drastic surge of glucose concentration which can lead to coma. Type 1 treatment requires unconditioned blood glucose monitoring, exercise, training and insulin injections.

Type 2 diabetes is also known as non-insulin-dependent and occurs mostly in adult age. Type 2 is not caused by the lack of insulin; rather, it results from a malfunction of this hormone and is often correlated to obesity and arterial hypertension. Familial susceptibilities are observed, however, unhealthy life style is one of the factors which accelerate the development of the disease. The problem of type 2 diabetes relates to 80-85% of the patients. Treatment focuses on appropriate diet and exercise but insulin injections are usually inevitable in the advanced stage.
Apart from Type 1 and 2, there are also other types of diabetes including diabetes in pregnancy which often disappears after a child is born. Diabetic symptoms can be caused by hormonal problems or by medication as side effects.

Prevelence

Recently compiled data shows that approximately 150 million people have diabetes mellitus worldwide, and that this number may well double by the year 2025. Much of this increase will occur in developing countries and will be due to population growth, ageing, unhealthy diets, obesity and sedentary lifestyles.
By 2025, while most people with diabetes in developed countries will be aged 65 years or more, in developing countries most will be in the 45-64 year age bracket and affected in their most productive years.