While there are many different kinds of diabetes, they all have the same thing in common: If untreated, they result in blood sugar or insulin levels that are dangerously high. These high levels can lead to many serious health problems, ranging from heart disease to the loss of a limb and even Alzheimer’s, and while what it takes to reach this point varies widely from person to person, there are a few key players that have a role—mainly, insulin and glucagon.
Insulin and glucagon are two hormones produced by the pancreas (and brain) primarily involved in the regulation of blood sugar levels. Like Kirk and Spock or Abbott and Costello, they’re opposites that play off each other: After a meal, insulin takes the sugar that is now circulating in your blood and stores it away as fat, while glucagon releases stored sugar when blood glucose levels get too low. (Or, insulin puts sugar in body cells, glucagon gets sugar gone from them.)
The goal of each hormone is to keep your blood sugar levels between 70 mg/dl and 110 mg/dl, and so each are released as needed to help maintain them. When this system malfunctions, diabetes occurs. Here are the four more prominent types of diabetes and their causes:
Type I
When most people think of diabetes, they think of older people who develop it after years of bad eating and exercise habits—which is actually type II diabetes. Type I is a very different matter, because for starters, it’s usually developed in childhood.
And generally, it’s less the result of behavior and more the result of genetics and environment. A genetic predisposition, allergies, or an invasion of a virus can trigger the body to attack the pancreas cells that produce insulin. Eventually, these cells are mostly or totally destroyed, leaving the body unable to produce its own insulin. When this happens, the body cannot decrease its blood sugar levels without an external input of insulin, leading to high blood glucose levels.
Type II
Type II is the most common type of diabetes, accounting for around 90-95% of diabetics. Type II occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin because of overexposure to it—meaning when given the same amount of insulin, it’s not as effective at removing glucose from the blood. To compensate, the body starts producing more and more insulin—which, like high blood glucose, is damaging to the body.
Gestational
While the exact cause of gestational diabetes is unknown, around 2-10% of pregnant women will develop it over the course of a pregnancy. The profile is similar to that of type II: The mothers become insulin resistant, usually in the later months of the pregnancy. However, most often this diabetes ends with the birth of the child.
Type III
Surprise! Unbeknownst to many, a type III diabetes has been recognized by researchers. Besides being produced by the pancreas, the brain also produces insulin. If the brain becomes insulin resistant, Alzheimer’s disease can be the result—with or without the presence of high blood glucose.
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