5. How is diabetes diagnosed?
A blood test and a simple 'dipstick' test can detect glucose in a sample of urine.
6. Why does the pancreas stop making insulin?
This is due to ‘auto-immune disease (read more inside).
FAQ—Frequently asked questions
Type 1 Diabetes
By Sonia Kaur
In this leaflet you’ll find basic information:
On what type 1 diabetes is,
What causes diabetes
The symptoms of diabetes
The treatment of diabetes
Diabetes happens when the level of glucose (sugar) in the blood becomes too high. Nor-mally, after we eat, various foods are broken down in the gut into sugars which are then ab-sorbed into the body. The main sugar is called glucose. To remain healthy, your blood glucose level should not go too high or too low. A hor-mone called insulin helps to take glucose from the bloodstream into various cells of the body. This helps to keep the blood sugar normal.
Insulin is made by special cells in the pancreas. In Type 1 diabetes the pancreas stops making insulin, and so the blood glucose remains high. This occurs because the immune system makes antibodies which destroy the insulin-making cells in the pancreas. It is not known why the immune system does this. Type 1 dia-betes usually first develops in children or young adults.
In most cases, Type 1 diabetes is thought to be an 'auto-immune' disease. The im-mune system normally makes antibodies to attack bacteria, viruses, and other 'germs'. In auto-immune diseases the immune sys-tem makes antibodies against part or parts of the body. If you have Type 1 diabetes you make antibodies that attach to the beta cells in the pancreas. These are thought to destroy the cells that make insu-lin. It is thought that something triggers the immune system to make these antibodies.
The 'trigger' is not known but a popular theory is that a virus triggers the immune system to make these antibodies.
The symptoms
The symptoms that usually occur when you first de-velop Type 1 diabetes. They tend to develop quite quickly, over a few days or weeks. After treatment is started the symptoms soon settle and go. How-ever, without treatment, the blood glucose level be-comes very high and acids form in the bloodstream ('ketosis'). If untreated, you will slip into a coma or even die!
The treatment of Diabetes.
There are different treatment for diabetes. There is:
Insulin — a hormone, taken as an injection.
A healthy diet — the same that is recom-mended for everyone. Aim to eat a low fat, high fibre diet with plenty of starchy foods, fruit and vegetables. However, you will need to know how to balance the right amount of insulin for the amount of food that you eat.
Reduce other risk factors — keeping blood pressure down, don’t smoke, doing physi-cal activity regularly, lose excess weight.
Type 1 Diabetes
By Sonia Kaur
These are the main symptoms of diabetes
