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Diabetes Overview

What is Diabetes?

Friday, 17 July 2009 12:15

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Diabetes is a metabolism disorder where the body’s use of glucose doesn’t work as well as it should because of problems producing and supplying the hormone insulin in the body.
Insulin regulates the levels of glucose in blood so there’s not too much and not too little.

When a person has diabetes, not enough insulin is produced by the pancreas or it’s unable to make the right amounts. So when the body produces too much glucose it stays in the blood and causes health problems.

Known as a group of conditions, diabetes is divided into three categories - type 1, type 2 and gestational diabetes.

Diabetes is now the world's fastest growing chronic disease with 1050 people diagnosed every week in Australia .It affects both children and adults and more than a million Australians are believed to have diabetes already. The main problem is about half of those people don’t realise they even have it.

Glucose is the body’s essential natural fuel used to power the biological functions in the cells of every organ and tissue of the body. We get glucose in our diet from carbohydrates such as vegetables and grains when they are broken down in our intestine and absorbed into the blood and stored in the liver.

The whole process is controlled by hormones, especially a hormone called insulin.

Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas and used by muscles and tissues to absorb glucose from the blood. It stops the liver producing glucose when there is enough in the body.

After eating, blood glucose rises, alerting the pancreas to make insulin to help transport glucose around the body to feed energy to cells.

Excess glucose is stored in muscles and fat and used when we’re running low on energy (when exercising or when we haven’t eaten).Without insulin, glucose can’t feed the body’s cells, accumulating instead to high levels in the blood and is excreted through urine via the kidneys. These high glucose levels are called hyperglycaemia.

The pancreas is a gland in the abdomen which produces enzymes to digest food and break down starches. And it also produces two hormones (insulin and glucagon) which regulate glucose in blood.

Last Updated on Monday, 20 July 2009 10:10