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Diabetes Types

Three major diabetes types exist: type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes. All three diabetes types exhibit similar signs and symptoms but they have different causes and complications and affect different individuals.

Diabetes Types – Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes is caused by the destruction of pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin. Ruin of these beta cells is caused by a t-celled mediated autoimmune attack and is largely unpreventable. Type 1 is the second most common diabetes type. In the past, type 1 diabetes was referred to as childhood-onset diabetes, juvenile diabetes and insulin-dependent diabetes. While type 1 diabetes generally emerges in childhood, adults are not immune to developing this diabetes type. With this diabetes type, the body cannot make insulin because the beta cells have been destroyed. The immune system mistakenly attaches these insulin-releasing pancreatic cells; as the cells die, sugar levels rise within the blood stream.

Individuals with this diabetes type are otherwise healthy and of a healthy weight at the onset of type 1 diabetes. Changes in diet and exercise cannot reverse or prevent this diabetes type. Treatment for type 1 diabetes is replacement of insulin and must continue indefinitely. For most patients, insulin replacement therapy for this diabetes type does not impair normal activities.

Diabetes Types – Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is characterized by the body’s inability to produce enough insulin or a tissue-wide insulin resistance, which can progress to beta cell function loss if not properly treated. It is the most common diabetes type affecting individuals later in life. The term type 2 diabetes replaced former terms for the disorder: adult-onset diabetes, obesity-related diabetes and non-insulin dependent diabetes. This diabetes type causes hyperglycemia or high blood sugar.

If caught in the early stages, hyperglycemia caused by type 2 diabetes can be reversed by a variety of measure and medications that help improve insulin sensitivity or reduce glucose production in the liver. Reversal measures include increasing physical activities, changing the diet by decreasing carbohydrate intake and losing weight. These measures must be continued indefinitely the prevent recurrence of type 2 diabetes. In later stages of the disorder, diabetes type requires insulin replacement therapy. Long-term complications can take the form of renal failure, vision damage and/or vascular disease, such as coronary artery failure.

Due to the discrete nature of type 2 diabetes symptoms, the condition may go unnoticed for several years. Individuals more prone to developing type 2 diabetes are those with a family history of the disorder, elderly individuals (20 percent of older North Americans are diabetic) and those with portly proportions in the torso. People with central obesity—fat around the waist and non-subcutaneous fat—are most-likely more apt to develop this diabetes type because the extraneous fat secretes adipokines, which impair glucose tolerance. Approximately 85 percent of patients that suffer from diabetes are overweight.

Diabetes Types – Gestational Diabetes

Gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy and is characterized by an inadequate secretion of or complete resistance to insulin, much like type 2 diabetes. Some two to five percent of pregnancies cause gestational diabetes. This diabetes type generally improves or disappears after delivery; however, 20 to 50 percent of individuals that develop gestational diabetes will develop type 2 diabetes at some point later in life.

Medical professionals are unsure of the exact cause of gestational diabetes, but pregnancy-unique hormones that reduce insulin receptivity are often awarded the blame. If gestational diabetes goes untreated it can cause detrimental side-effects to both baby and mommy—macrosomia requiring instrumental delivery, hypoglycemia and other chemical imbalances in child, disorders of the heart, kidneys, eyes and central nervous system, fetal malformation and increased miscarriage risk.