Today, there are more than nine million Canadians living with diabetes or prediabetes. With more than 20 people being newly diagnosed with the disease every hour of every day, chances are that diabetes affects you or someone you know.
Diabetes is a chronic, often debilitating and sometimes fatal disease, in which the body either cannot produce insulin or cannot properly use the insulin it produces. This leads to high levels of glucose in the blood, which can damage organs, blood vessels and nerves. The body needs insulin to use glucose as an energy source.
Types of diabetes
There are three main types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes, usually diagnosed in children and adolescents, occurs when the pancreas is unable to produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that controls the amount of glucose in the blood. Approximately 10 per cent of people with diabetes have type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes also includes latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), the term used to describe the small number of people with apparent Type 2 diabetes who appear to have immune-mediated loss of pancreatic beta cells.
The remaining 90 per cent of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes, which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body does not effectively use the insulin that is produced. Type 2 diabetes usually develops in adulthood, although increasing numbers of children in high-risk populations are being diagnosed.
A third type of diabetes, gestational diabetes, is a temporary condition that occurs during pregnancy. It affects approximately 2 to 4 per cent of all pregnancies (in the non-Aboriginal population) and involves an increased risk of developing diabetes for both mother and child.
Is diabetes serious?
Diabetes is a serious disease that has reached epidemic proportions in Canada. If left untreated or improperly managed, diabetes can result in a variety of complications, including:
- Heart disease
- Kidney disease
- Eye disease
- Problems with erection (impotence)
- Nerve damage
The first step in preventing or delaying the onset of these complications is recognizing the risk factors, as well as the signs and symptoms of diabetes.
Reference Site Location: http://www.diabetes.ca/about-diabetes/what-is-diabetes
