Over time, the various types of diabetes have been differentiated from each other and are now called by different names. Each has certain characteristics which makes it distinctly different from other types of diabetes. There are three main types of diabetes – type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes.
When the pancreas is unable to manufacture any more insulin, type 1 diabetes occurs. Known as juvenile onset diabetes, it is seen to usually develop in childhood or early adulthood. To treat type 1 diabetes, patients need to be injected with insulin on a regular basis, so that their bodies can continue to carry out the vital function of using and storing glucose.
Type 1 diabetes patients cannot just treat their condition with modifications in diet or lifestyle, but have to supplement these measures with insulin given to them by means of injections, oral medications and pumps. Type 1 diabetes is also known as insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, or IDDM.
Although the causal factor(s) of type 1 diabetes are still being researched, they are mostly attributed to a condition known as autoimmunity, in which the body fails to recognize the cells it manufactures itself. Therefore, it attacks and eliminates its own beta cells produced in the pancreas, so that insulin is not created and type 1 diabetes occurs. Other causal factors include environmental factors and genetics.
The second major type of all the types of diabetes is type 2 diabetes, which differs from type 1 diabetes in that it occurs during adulthood also, as opposed to occurring exclusively childhood and is known as non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body ceases to recognize the insulin that is manufactured by the pancreas.
Type 2 diabetes occurs in mammoth proportions and is the most common type in all the three major types of diabetes, all over the world. The main problem with type 2 diabetes is that people don’t always know that they have it, owing to a lack of or a very negligible amount of symptoms or signs that anything at all is amiss. People of any age can have type 2 diabetes, not excluding children.
The root of type 2 diabetes lies in insulin resistance in the body, which leads to a state in which the pancreas is unable to make any more insulin. Because the cells of the body cannot use the insulin being produced, gradually the body will just stop making it.
Type 2 diabetes has its roots in a lack of exercise, a diet very high in sugar – mostly lifestyle factors, although several diet and environmental elements also play a part in the causing and development of type 2 diabetes.
Persistent organic pollutants and trans fats also lead to the development of type 2 diabetes. If your diet is very high in refined carbohydrates, your blood has a consistent high level of insulin in it, which is why the cells eventually become unable to use it, and the essential glucose being produced is prevented from getting inside the cells of your body in type 2 diabetes.
Similar to type 2 diabetes, gestational diabetes is a kind of resistance to insulin. Of all the types of diabetes, this diabetes is categorized differently because of its onset – in the later stages of pregnancy.
The hormones secreted by the pregnant woman’s body may prevent her from using her own insulin, generating insulin resistance among the body cells of the pregnant woman. It is important to detect and treat this problem early on, because it affects the baby.
The baby will be born very fat, and might suffer from obesity and type 2 diabetes in its adulthood. The obesity of the baby when it is born will be due to the excessive glucose stored in the mother’s body, which turns into fat. Gestational diabetes normally goes away after the delivery of the child.
This, among the types of diabetes, makes it a tendency in women who have had it to have it again in later pregnancies and also increases the affected woman’s chance of having type 2 diabetes later on.
There are the three major types of diabetes, and can be detected by symptoms like a lot of hunger and thirst, extreme tiredness, weight loss or gain, a lot of urination, cuts and sores that refuse to heal and a blurred vision.
