Diabetes

Diabetes

Diabetes is a disorder of metabolism-the way in which your body converts the food you eat into energy. Most of the food you eat is broken down by digestive juices into chemicals, including a simple sugar called glucose.

Glucose is your body's main source of energy. After digestion, glucose passes into your bloodstream, where it is available for cells to take in and use or store for later use.

In order for your cells to take in glucose, a hormone called insulin must be present in your blood. Insulin acts as a "key" that unlocks "doors" on cell surfaces to allow glucose to enter the cells. Insulin is produced by special cells (called islet cells) in an organ called the pancreas, which is about 6 inches long and lies behind your stomach.

In healthy people, the pancreas automatically produces the right amount of insulin to enable glucose to enter cells. In people who have diabetes, cells do not respond to the effects of the insulin that the pancreas produces. If glucose cannot get inside cells, it builds up in the bloodstream. The buildup of glucose in the blood-sometimes referred to as high blood sugar or hyperglycemia (which means "too much glucose in the blood")-is the hallmark of diabetes.

When the glucose level in your blood goes above a certain level, the excess glucose flows out from the kidneys (two organs that filter wastes from the bloodstream) into the urine. The glucose takes water with it, which causes you to urinate frequently and to become extremely thirsty. These two conditions-frequent urination and unusual thirst-are usually the first noticeable signs of diabetes. Another symptom you may notice is weight loss, which results from the loss of calories and water in your urine.

The path toward type 2 diabetes http://www.ama-assn.org/insight/spec_con/diabetes/diabete2.htm#What As you gain weight, the extra weight causes your cells to become resistant to the effects of insulin. The pancreas responds by producing more and more insulin, which eventually begins to build up in your blood. High levels of insulin in the blood-a condition called insulin resistance-may cause problems such as high blood pressure and harmful changes in the levels of different fats (cholesterol) in your blood. Insulin resistance, the hallmark of what doctors sometimes refer to as "syndrome X,"...

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...betes, up to 21 percent show some degree of blindness. The most common type of eye disease that diabetics get is retinopathy. Retinopathy is caused by damage to the blood vessels that nourish the retinal nerves. Just as poorly controlled diabetes harms the major arteries, causing heart disease and stroke, the disease also takes a major toll on the tiny blood vessels in the retina. Diabetes also increase risk of cataracts, caused by clouding of the lens of the eye, and glaucoma, caused by an increase in fluid pressure within the eye that damages the optic nerve. In non-diabetic adults, less than 1 percent have glaucoma and 3 percent have cataracts. Among people with diabetes, the figures are 7 percent that have glaucoma and 22 percent have cataracts. These conditions cause much of the vision impairment in people diagnosed with diabetes over age 30 (type 2). Risk of both cataracts and glaucoma increases with age. These conditions are another reason diabetics should have annual eye exams. If cataracts become severe, the eye lens can be replaced with an artificial lens. If glaucoma develops, it can be treated with medications that reduce the fluid pressure in the eye.