Diabetes: A Problem With Food

Diabetes is a disease that impairs your body's ability to use food efficiently. The hormone insulin, which is produced in the pancreas, helps your body change food into energy. Diabetes occurs when one of two conditions exists: either your pancreas fails to make insulin, or your body cannot properly use the insulin it does make.

To understand why insulin is important, it helps to know more about how food is used for energy. Your body is made up of millions of cells. To make energy, these cells need food in a very simple form. Much of the food you eat is broken down into a simple sugar called glucose. Glucose provides the energy you need for daily activities.

When you eat, your pancreas releases insulin into the bloodstream, which helps to break down and absorb glucose, fatty acid, and amino acid. If your pancreas does not produce insulin, or if your body can't properly employ it, the foods you eat can't be metabolized. When you produce insulin but do not react to it, the resulting condition is called insulin resistance. This is common in many obese individuals as their bodies begin to age. You need to produce more and more insulin to less effect. Eventually, excess glucose collects in the blood, instead of being used for energy or stored ass fat. That's why diabetes have high blood sugar. If there is too much glucose in your blood, it can't be processed by the kidneys and is excreted in your urine. The proper term for the disease, diabetes mellitus, means literally "flowing with honey," referring to the amount of sugar excreted in the urine. In days gone by, before glucose tests and urine strips, intrepid physicians would often taste the patient's urine for a characteristic sweetish taste as a way to diagnose diabetes.

Diabetes is actually two different disease. Type 1 diabetes is a failure to produce insulin. Type 2 diabetes is a failure to utilize insulin, Gestational diabetes is often referred to as a third form, but it is actually linked to type 2 diabetes. Gestational diabetes is a temporary condition of insulin resistance that usually occurs halfway through a pregnancy as a result of excessive hormone production, or the inability of the pancreas to make the additional insulin that is needed. Gestational diabetes usually goes away after pregnancy, but women who have had gestational diabetes are at an increased risk for later developing type diabetes.

Most of the preventative focus is on type 2 diabetes, which accounts for the majority of cases and which can be avoided with the right diet. It is not so clear how type 1 diabetes can be prevented. However, both forms of diabetes can be more easily managed if you adhere to the diet that is right for your blood type.