Diabetes is a combination of excessive blood glucose, insulin insensitivity, and metabolic disturbance. There are two types of Diabetes Mellitus, which is the clinical term for diabetes. Predictive Statistics have shown that by 2025 approximately 5 million people could be affected by diabetes within the UK.

What is Diabetes?

Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes is a genetic disorder. Around 8% of diagnosed diabetes cases are the Type 1 form. This kind of diabetes is a chronic and serious illness. It is caused by an abnormality of the cells of the pancreas. These are called beta cells and can be found in the Islets of Langerhans. The beta cells role in the body is to make the hormone Insulin. Insulin is used to manage blood glucose. In the body of a type 1 diabetic, these beta cells are attacked by its own immune system. This means that the beta cells are no longer able to produce insulin. Without insulin, the body is unable to reduce blood glucose by moving it into the cells. This can cause metabolic disruption. Therefore, people with type 1 diabetes are insulin-dependent diabetics. The age of diagnosis for this form of diabetes is below 40 years. The average age of diagnosis being 14 years of age.

Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is a disease of the environment. Approximately, 90% of diabetes diagnosed is Type 2 diabetes and this percentage is ever increasing. The average age of diagnosis is over 40 years of age. Unfortunately, there is a rising number of young adults and even children developing type 2 diabetes.

Typically this is caused by obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, which leads to metabolic disruption. To a certain point, Type 2 diabetes is a reversible disease. Once the onset of insulin resistance has begun the disease is no longer reversible.

Unlike type 1 diabetics, type 2 diabetics are able to produce insulin from their pancreas. This makes them non-insulin dependent. However, their muscles and cells no longer respond in the correct way. This means their blood glucose remains high for extended periods of time.The likely cause of this is diet. A diet is rich in simple sugars and excessive carbohydrates is thought to be linked to diabetes. The body stores carbohydrates in the muscles and liver. When these stores are full there is nowhere else to store the excess carbohydrate and so it remains in the blood as glucose. Because our bodies are programmed for survival the body doesn’t want to waste the energy it sought so hard to find and so the excess carbohydrate is stored in fat cells (adipocytes). Chronic high blood glucose and full glycogen stores will cause more insulin to be released. A saturation of insulin begins to reduce the insulin sensitivity of the cells. They become less absorbent of glucose from the blood and insensitive to insulin. Instead, the fat stores start to engorge with excessive visceral fat. This leads the blood to be highly saturated in glucose and insulin - This causes a metabolic disruption.

Symptoms of Diabetes

Common symptoms of Diabetes are:

●  Increased Urination

●  Increased Thirst

●  Frequent infections

●  Exhaustion

●  Fluctuations in appetite and hunger

●  Slow wound healing

●  Muscle Wastage

If you are concerned if you have any of these symptoms please contact your GP.

What puts you at risk?

●  Ethnicity - South East Asians are at higher risk of diabetes.

●  Genetics- If you have a primary family member with diabetes you are more likely to develop both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. Children with diabetic family members that carry the genetic profile have a 1⁄5 chance of developing the disease.

●  Being Overweight or Obese- This increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and can reduce metabolic health. An overweight BMI is anything between 25-29.9. An obese BMI is anything over 30.