Let’s Not Sugarcoat This American Diabetes Month Shines Light on Disease’s Impact
Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects how your body turns food into energy. Most of the food you eat is broken down into sugar (also called glucose) and released into your bloodstream. Your pancreas makes a hormone called insulin, which acts like a key to let the blood sugar into your body’s cells for use as energy.
If you have diabetes, your body either doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use the insulin it makes as well as it should. When there isn’t enough insulin or cells stop responding to insulin, too much blood sugar stays in your bloodstream, which over time can cause serious health problems, such as heart disease, vision loss, and kidney disease.
There isn’t a cure yet for diabetes, but healthy lifestyle habits, taking medicine as needed, getting diabetes self-management education, and keeping appointments with your healthcare team can greatly reduce its impact on your life.
In the U.S. alone, 30.3 million adults have diabetes, and one-quarter of them don’t know they have it. Diabetes is the seventh-leading cause of death in the U.S. and the top cause of kidney failure, lower-limb amputations, and adult-onset blindness. In the last 20 years, the number of adults diagnosed with diabetes has more than tripled as the American population has aged and become more overweight or obese.
There are three main types of diabetes: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes (which is diabetes while pregnant).
Type 1 diabetes is caused by an autoimmune reaction (the body attacks itself by mistake) that stops your body from making insulin. About 5{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of the people who have diabetes have type 1. Symptoms of type 1 diabetes often develop quickly. It’s usually diagnosed in children, teens, and young adults. If you have type 1 diabetes, you’ll need to take insulin every day to survive. Currently, no one knows how to prevent type 1 diabetes.
With type 2 diabetes, your body doesn’t use insulin well and is unable to keep blood sugar at normal levels. About 90{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} people with diabetes have this type. It develops over many years and is usually diagnosed in adults (though increasingly in children, teens, and young adults). You may not notice any symptoms, so it’s important to get your blood sugar tested if you’re at risk. Type 2 diabetes can be prevented or delayed with healthy lifestyle changes, such as losing weight if you’re overweight, healthy eating, and getting regular physical activity.
Gestational diabetes develops in pregnant women who have never had diabetes. If you have gestational diabetes, your baby could be at higher risk for health complications. Gestational diabetes usually goes away after your baby is born, but increases your risk for type 2 diabetes later in life. Your baby is more likely to become obese as a child or teen, and more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life too.
In the U.S., 84.1 million adults — more than 1 in 3 — have prediabetes, and 90{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of them don’t know they have it. Prediabetes is a serious health condition where blood-sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough yet to be diagnosed as diabetes. Prediabetes increases your risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
