Type 1 diabetes is a condition where the immune system destroys its own insulin which results in high blood glucose levels. The symptoms include a frequent need to urinate, increased hunger and increased thirst which results in weight loss. The condition is fatal unless it is treated with insulin, which can be injected via an insulin pump or inhaled. So far, no cure has been found with the exception of a pancreas transplant or islet cell transplant. This means that the treatment has to continue indefinitely. A pancreas transplant is the most common other way of treating type 1 diabetes, but there is also the islet cells transplant which is considered less invasive than the transplant, this is where the islet cells are injected into the patients liver (which is more accessible than the pancreas), and start to produce their own insulin. Unfortunately, the body reacts to this as an attack on the immune system, so it attacks the cells, which means that the immune system has to be suppressed.
Type one diabetes is more commonly found in younger people hence it is also know as juvenile diabetes although there is a new strain of type 1 diabetes which is now found in adults. It is thought that it is commonly passed down in the genes, but a study including a pair of twins has shown that environmental factors also have an input, an infection is thought to be a cause.
Type 2 diabetes is much more common than type 1, this is where a patient can have one of two problems and sometimes both, the first is insufficient insulin production, the second is where the insulin has little or no effect on the target cells. The cause of it is generally due to an unhealthy lifestyle, therefore it is more common in adult patients but there is also a genetic factor in there, as it has been shown that there are numerous relatives who have all had the condition. The standard symptoms include a frequent need to urinate, increased hunger and increased thirst and fatigue which results in weight loss.
The body builds its own resistance to insulin anyway but when a person is unhealthy and eats too much, more insulin is produced which means that the body builds up a resistance faster, which tends to make the patient even more overweight. Too much insulin is also toxic for the cells and can damage them, so the cells react and down-regulate their receptor capacity.
This kind of diabetes can often lead to heart or cardiovascular diseases. The effects can be delayed by proper nutrition and exercise, but it is a progressive chronic disease.
Both types of diabetes can be detected via a glucose tolerance test.
