Diabetes: Types and Treatment

Diabetes is a condition in which normal blood sugar levels are too high. The foods you eat are broken down into a simple sugar called glucose in your body. In response to a meal and a rise in glucose, your pancreas secretes a hormone called insulin. Insulin acts to move the glucose from your blood stream into the cells where it can be utilized for energy.

• Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the pancreatic beta cells that secrete insulin have been damaged or destroyed. The result is that the body is unable to make insulin, and without insulin, the body cannot move glucose from the bloodstream into the cells. As a result, the sugar levels in the blood become very high, and this high blood sugar damages the body systems. If not treated, type 1 diabetics can develop serious health problems such as blindness, kidney disease, heart disease, and nerve damage.

  There is mounting evidence that Type 1 diabetic conditions are caused by autoimmune reactions within the body. Autoimmune diseases are those in which the immune system attacks body tissues and cells as it would a foreign invader. Most autoimmune diabetic illness is rooted in the damage caused by antibodies that target the insulin-secreting beta cells of the pancreas.

  Studies conducted in North America and Europe have shown that the autoimmune reaction that causes Type 1 occurs in early childhood. These antibodies typically develop many years before the development of the clinical condition and diagnosis. According to one source, 90 percent of children who test positive for islet or beta cell antibodies, GAD antibodies and IA-2 antibodies go on to develop diabetes. If even two of these antibodies are present, up to 75 percent of these children are given a diabetic diagnosis within the next 15 years.

• Type 2 diabetes, which is by far the more common type, is characterized by a condition called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is the result of chronically elevated blood sugar and insulin. These elevated levels of sugar and insulin have the effect of "numbing" the cellular processes which are involved with moving sugar from the blood stream to the cells. As a result, the body cannot respond to the insulin "requests" to move blood sugar into the cells, and the sugar in the blood stream rises to damaging levels.

  The symptoms of a Type 2 diagnosis can be controlled and in some cases, reversed using the correct diet.

More Information

• Classic and not so classic diabetic symptoms
• The Best Diet for Stabilizing Blood Sugar
• Prediabetes symptoms: warning signs of a diabetic diagnosis
• Diabetic Blood Sugar Management: The most logical way to manage your blood sugar.

If you have gotten a diabetic diagnosis, or know someone who has, most likely the attending physician is going to direct you to the American Diabetes Association for more information. However, the ADA diet recommendations actually make diabetics sicker.

I strongly urge you to instead read Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars, or Diana Schwarzbein's The Schwarzbein Principle: The Truth About Losing Weight, Being Healthy, and Feeling Younger.

The authors of these books understand the metabolic ravages of a high carb diet and explain it well in layman's terms.

In addition, please go to The Quintessential Diabetic Links Resource and to Blood Sugar 101. You'll find lots of helpful information on these sites.