Diabetes UK: symptoms, type 2 diabetes UK, test,
In this Article,
Understanding How Diabetes UK Impacts Energy Production in Your Body
Diabetes UK and the body we’re going to explain how your body processes the food you eat
to provide all your body cells with the energy they need,
what happens when you have Diabetes and the body this system doesn’t work properly?
When you eat food that contains carbohydrates it’s broken down in the stomach and digestive system into glucose,
which is a type of sugar.
We need glucose from food because that’s what gives us energy.
Carbohydrate-containing foods are things like starchy foods,
- sugary foods,
- milk,
- some dairy products
- fruit.
This glucose then moves into the bloodstream and the body detects that the blood glucose level is rising.
In response to that the pancreas,
which is a little gland that sits just underneath the stomach,
starts to release a hormone called insulin and it’s insulin that helps our body get the energy from the food we eat.
The bloodstream then takes the glucose and the insulin to every cell in our body that needs it.
To make this easier to understand let’s look at muscle cells.
At the muscle cells,
it’s insulin that allows the glucose to get into the cells where it can be used for energy.
It’s a bit like insulin is a key unlocking the door to the cells
so the glucose can get in.
Diabetes UK That way,
- the blood glucose levels start to drop but
- the blood glucose level can be topped up at any point by the liver
- releasing extra glucose that it has stored.
The blood glucose rises again, and again,
the pancreas produces more insulin to move with that glucose
through the bloodstream to the muscle cells,
open the doors and let the glucose in.
The body functions best with the blood glucose at an optimum level.
It doesn’t like it if the blood glucose rises too high.
Normally there’s a cycle within the body that balances out
the glucose and the insulin level and this is achieved by the food you eat,
- the pancreas,
- and the liver.
- in some people,
the system doesn’t work properly and they develop diabetes.
Exploring Diabetes UK: What Happens When Your Body’s Glucose Regulation System Falters
There are two main types of Diabetes UK –
- Type 1
- Type 2.
In Type 1 diabetes the body isn’t making any insulin at all.
This is because of an autoimmune response whereby the body has destroyed the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
We don’t entirely know why that happens in some people and not in others.
Type 1 diabetes accounts for about 10 percent of all cases.
It’s most often found in the under the 40s and it’s by far the most common type of diabetes found in childhood.
In Type 1 diabetes the carbohydrate-containing food is turned into glucose as normal.
That glucose then moves into the bloodstream.
Normally the body would produce insulin to let that glucose into the cells but because into the cells but in Type 1 diabetes there is no insulin being produced so the glucose can’t get into the body cells at all,
so the level of glucose in the blood rises and rises.
The body tries to lower the level of glucose,
it tries to get rid of the glucose through the kidneys.
That’s why people who have undiagnosed Type 1 diabetes tend to go to the toilet a lot to pass urine.
As the kidneys filter the glucose out of the blood,
they also take a lot of water with it so the person with diabetes will get very thirsty.
The urine contains a lot of glucose and that creates an environment where it’s quite easy for bacteria to thrive
so it’s also quite common to get thrush or genital itching.
In the same way,
the blood contains a high level of glucose as well so more bacteria than usual will tend to breed in flesh wounds and they might be slow to heal.
Glucose can also build up in the lens at the front of the eye causing the liquid in the lens to become cloudy.
That can mean that some people with undiagnosed Type 1 diabetes can have blurred vision.
Because the glucose can’t get into the cells to be used for energy,
somebody who’s got undiagnosed Type 1 diabetes
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