Types of Diabetes

Type I Diabetes

This is a severe form disease. It is an auto immune disease, which mostly developed in childhood or in adult under 30 years of age.
Auto-immune is when the body’s immune system starts destroying itself. ‘Juvenile diabetes ‘develops in childhood and must be treated with insulin. It accounts for 5-10% of diabetes in the world.

Inside the pancreas are the cell clusters known as the islets of langerhans. There are several type of islet cells including alpha cells and beta cells. Insulin is produced by beta cells. On increase of sugar in the blood, these cells manufacture insulin and then release it into the blood stream. The role of these cells is to monitor levels of blood sugar . In people with type I diabetes , beta cells are attacked by the immune system and are destroyed slowly. What exactly causes the immune system to get effected is still based on a number of theories. The unfortunate part is that, though this slow destruction takes place over a number of years (5-7), the symptoms of diabetes mellitus do not surface until about 80% of these beta cells are destroyed. Eventually, insulin production comes to halt as no beta cells remain.