Understanding Type One Diabetes

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Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 8 (February 2010).

Understanding Type One Diabetes
By Jessi (Spazola)

The Big Q: What Is Diabetes?

Diabetes (medically known as diabetes mellitus) is the name given to disorders in which the body has trouble regulating its blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels. There are two major types of diabetes: Type One Diabetes, also known as Juvenile or Insulin Dependent Diabetes (treated by manually injecting insulin), and Type Two, which involves insulin resistance, and can often be treated effectively through oral medication. Though both diseases concern the regulation of glucose levels, causes and treatment of Type One and Type Two are very different. Neither disease is contagious or infectious.

Type One diabetes occurs when the body's immune system attacks and destroys certain cells in the pancreas, an organ about the size of a hand that is located behind the lower part of the stomach. These cells (called beta cells) are contained within small islands of endocrine cells (called the pancreatic islets.) Beta cells normally produce insulin, a hormone that helps the body move the glucose contained in food into cells throughout the body, which use it for energy. But when the beta cells are destroyed, no insulin can be produced, and the glucose stays in the blood instead, where it can cause serious damage to all organ systems in the body.

For this reason, people with Type One diabetes must take insulin in order to stay alive. This means undergoing multiple injections daily, or having insulin delivered through an insulin pump. To determine the amount of insulin needed, they test their blood sugar by pricking their fingers for blood six or more times a day. People with diabetes must also carefully balance their food intake and their exercise to regulate their blood sugar levels, in an attempt to avoid hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) and hyperglycemic (high blood sugar) reactions, which can be life threatening.

Type One Diabetes is a self-managed disease, one that takes years of trial-and-error to control. While there are many treatment options available at this time (such as insulin pump therapy, Multiple Daily Injections, and Constant Glucose Monitoring systems), the disease cannot currently be cured or reversed.

Common Misconceptions

Myth: Taking insulin cures diabetes.

Fact: Taking insulin keeps people with type 1 diabetes alive, but does not cure the disease. While progress toward finding a cure has been substantial, there is still no cure for diabetes. Insulin is LIFE SUPPORT, not a cure.

Myth: Diabetes is caused by obesity, or eating too much sugar.

Fact: While obesity has been identified as one of the "triggers" for type 2 diabetes, it has no relation to the cause of type 1 diabetes. Scientists do not yet know exactly what causes type 1 diabetes, but they believe that both genetic and environmental factors are involved. Eating too much sugar, or being overweight, is not a factor. People with Type One Diabetes can eat just like anyone else--they just need to cover it with insulin.

Myth: People with diabetes should never eat sweets.

Fact: Limiting sweets can help people with type 1 diabetes keep their blood sugar under control, but, with advice from their doctor or nutritionist, sweets can fit into their meal plan, just as they would for people without diabetes. And there are times when sweets are a must: if the blood sugar level drops too low, sweets (or juice, or soda) can be the surest to raise it, and prevent the onset of hypoglycemia (dangerously low blood sugar). Sugar can sometimes save lives.

Myth: Juvenile Diabetes can eventually be outgrown.

Fact: While Juvenile Diabetes is most commonly diagnosed in children, teenagers and young adults, it may be contracted at any age, and is a life-long disease. You cannot outgrow diabetes. It lasts a lifetime.

JDRF Research

JDRF was founded in 1970 by the parents of children with type 1 diabetes. As a result, JDRF volunteers have a personal connection to type 1 diabetes, which translates into an unrelenting commitment to finding a cure. These volunteers are the driving force behind more than 100 locations worldwide that raise money and advocate for government spending for type 1 diabetes research.

JDRF funding and leadership is associated with most major scientific breakthroughs in type 1 diabetes research to date. In fact, JDRF funds a major portion of all type 1 diabetes research worldwide, more than any other charity. JDRF provided more than $137 million to diabetes research in FY 2007, and is responsible for more than $1.16 billion in direct funding since it was founded. Our research review process not only includes leading research scientists from around the world, but lay reviewers who either have type 1 diabetes or have family members with type 1 diabetes, ensuring that JDRF funds research with the greatest impact throughout the world, leading to results as soon as possible.

JDRF is driven to be a leading catalyst for development science that delivers therapeutics to improve the lives of people with diabetes in the near term, ultimately leading to a cure. Working toward this goal, JDRF has taken the lead in translating basic research breakthroughs into cure therapies in such areas as restoring autoimmunity, preventing and reversing complications, islet replacement, beta cell regeneration, and achieving metabolic control. The Foundation creates multidisciplinary programs that bring together diabetes researchers from both academic institutions and industry to find a cure for diabetes and its complications.

What It’s Like…

Ask people who have juvenile diabetes. It's difficult. It's upsetting. It's life threatening. It doesn't go away.

"Both children and adults like me who live with type 1 diabetes need to be mathematicians, physicians, personal trainers and dieticians all rolled into one. We need to be constantly factoring and adjusting, making frequent finger sticks to check blood sugars, and giving ourselves multiple daily insulin injections just to stay alive."
- JDRF International Chairman, Mary Tyler Moore

"This disease controls our lives with all the pricking of the fingers, shots, high and low blood sugars; it's like being on a seesaw. Without a cure, we will be stuck on this seesaw till the day we die."
- Tre Kawkins, 12, Michigan

"I want to live someday without thinking about my diabetes. It's a lot for a little kid to keep up with."
- Luke Varadi, 11, South Carolina

"Diabetes has made me different than all my friends. I have an extra burden to carry."
- Caroline McEnery, 17, Connecticut

“I often think that some of the lack of public attention towards type 1 has at least a little to do with the fact that most of us do control it pretty well. And it seems wrong that our successful management of an illness should ever lessen (even in a small way) the need for a cure. “
-Anonymous

Information and quotes were gathered from:
www.jdrf.org
www.childrenwithdiabetes.com