Types of Diabetes
There are two main types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2.
When you’ve got type 1 diabetes, you can’t make any insulin at all. If you’ve got type 2 diabetes, which is the most common, it’s a bit different. The insulin you make either can’t work effectively, or you can’t produce enough of it. They’re different conditions, but they’re both serious.
There are lots of other types of diabetes. They include gestational diabetes, which some women may go on to develop during pregnancy, type 3c, MODY and Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA).
In all types of diabetes, glucose can’t get into your cells properly, so it begins to build up in your blood. And too much glucose in your blood causes a lot of different problems. To begin with, it may lead to diabetes symptoms.
What Causes Diabetes?
The causes of diabetes depend on the type of diabetes you have.
What all types of diabetes have in common is that they cause people to have too much glucose (sugar) in their blood. But we all need some glucose. It’s what gives us energy. We get glucose when our bodies break down the carbohydrates that we eat or drink. And that glucose is released into our blood.
We also need a hormone called insulin. It’s made by our pancreas, and it’s insulin that allows the glucose in our blood to enter our cells and fuel our bodies.
If you don’t have diabetes, your pancreas senses when glucose has entered your bloodstream and releases the right amount of insulin, so the glucose can get into your cells. But if you have diabetes, this system doesn’t work.
