Why does someone get diabetes?

Diabetes is a problem with blood sugar control. The hormone that controls blood sugar is insulin. Therefore, diabetes is a problem with insulin production. We know there are different types of diabetes. In young people with diabetes, the cells that make insulin are destroyed. In many adults, there are two problems. Insulin does not work properly and not enough insulin is produced. In both types of diabetes there is not enough insulin produced to maintain normal blood sugar levels.

What happens to the cells that make insulin? The immune system in our body fights off infection by attacking bacteria and viruses - which the immune system recognizes as foreign. In the young person with diabetes, the insulin-producing cells are mistakenly destroyed by the immune system. Exactly why the immune system attacks the insulin-producing cell is not known. When the immune system attacks a normal body part or cell it is called an autoimmune disease. Diabetes in young people is called Type 1 diabetes. Thus, our current understanding is that Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the insulin producing cells are destroyed.

Adult diabetes is now called Type 2 diabetes. It is not known why the insulin producing cell fails in adult diabtes. It seems that some of the stresses of aging - weight gain, decreasing physical activity and decreasing muscle mass, other medical problems contribute to the onset of diabetes. In addition there is clearly a genetic component to Type 2 diabetes. One prominent idea is that the insulin-producing cell is "programmed" to quit working at an early age and this "programming" is the genetic component of Type 2 diabetes.

The cells that make insulin are located in the pancreas and are called beta (ß) cells. Within the pancreas, the ß cells are located in the Islet of Langerhans.

Next - Islet of Langerhans