Diabetes Causes

Diabetes occurs when the pancreas does not make enough or any of the hormone insulin, or when the insulin produced does not work efficiently. In diabetes, this causes the level of glucose in the blood to be too high. In Type 1 diabetes the cells in the pancreas that make insulin are shattered, causing a severe lack of insulin. This is thought to be the result of the body attacking and destroying its own cells in the pancreas - known as an autoimmune reaction.

Type 2 diabetes is believed to develop when the receptors on cells in the body that normally respond to the action of insulin fail to be stimulated by it - this is known as insulin resistance. In response to this more insulin may be produced, and this over-production exhausts the insulin-manufacturing cells in the pancreas; there is simply insufficient insulin available; and the insulin that is available may be abnormal and therefore doesn't work properly. The risk related with Type 2 diabetes are increasing age; obesity; and physical inactivity.

Often diabetes can be caused due to certain medicines or pregnancy (gestational diabetes) or even due to any illness or disease that damages the pancreas and affects its ability to produce insulin e.g. pancreatitis.

Drugs such as steroids, Dilantin, and others may lift up the blood sugar through a variety of mechanisms. Certain other drugs, such as alloxan, streptozocin, and thiazide diuretics, are toxic to the beta cells of the pancreas and can cause diabetes. Certain syndromes also may result in a hyperglycemic state; if this state is prolonged, the result can be permanent diabetes.

As affirmed before, diabetes is a syndrome or group of diseases (rather than one disease), leading to the prolonged hyperglycemic state. Type 1 is most related with the killing of the beta cells, most likely by the body's own immune system. Either the immune system cannot kill an infecting agent, which then kills the beta cells, or the immune system itself goes "wild," attacking the body's own tissue and destroying the beta cells. The cells of the islets of Langerhans are inflamed, resulting from an infectious-disease process or, more commonly, from an autoimmune (allergic to self) response.

Heredity is a major cause of diabetes. If both parents have Type 2 diabetes, there is a chance that nearly all of their children will have diabetes. If both parents have Type 1 diabetes, fewer than 20 percent of their children will develop Type 1 diabetes. In identical twins, if one twin develops Type 2 diabetes, the chance is nearly 100 percent that the other twin will also develop it. In Type 1 diabetes, however, only 40 to 50 percent of the second twins will develop the disease, indicating that while inheritance is important, environmental factors (for example, too much food, too much stress, viral infection, and so forth) are also involved in the development of Type 1 diabetes.

Common myths that should be kept in mind are that by eating sweets and wrong foods often does not result in diabetes. Over indulgence is always harmful but a handful of sweets once in a while is always welcoming.

• Juliana Breckinridge
• 17/04/2009, 2:59 AM
• 0 Comments