What Causes Diabetes?
Chances are, you
know someone with diabetes, or someone in your family has it. But what causes
it? How does a person develop the symptoms of diabetes?
There are basically two types of diabetes, Type I and Type II. These differ as
to their cause and treatment. Here are some ideas about what causes diabetes.
Type I
Type I diabetes is caused by a malfunctioning pancreas. What causes the
pancreas to malfunction differs from case to case. It tends to run in families,
but some individuals have developed diabetes in childhood when no one in their
family has any history of the disease.
In some individuals, their own immune system attacks the pancreas and destroys
its cells, thereby rendering it useless. In others with Type I diabetes, an
injury or pancreatic surgery destroys the pancreas to the point that it can no
longer produce insulin.
Type I diabetes has a different demographic than Type II. Children as young as
2 or as old as 22 can be diagnosed with Type I diabetes – hence the alternate
name for Type I diabetes: juvenile diabetes. However, older people can
certainly develop Type I diabetes, especially if there is injury to the
pancreas.
Type II
Type II diabetes may have some hereditary factors, too, but not to the clear-cut
degree that Type I does. In Type II, the body becomes resistant to the insulin
that the pancreas is still producing. Or, Type II diabetics have a functioning
pancreas but the organ does not produce enough insulin. Older individuals and
those who are overweight are considered more at risk for developing Type II
diabetes than those with a healthy body weight and lifestyle.
What Triggers It?
An auto-immune disorder might trigger Type I diabetes, as the body’s immune
system can inexplicably attack the pancreas and destroy its cells. There might
also be some other way that the pancreas gets damaged, which is not age
specific.
Type II diabetes may be triggered by unhealthy, sugar-rich diets and a
sedentary lifestyle. The pancreas may simply become exhausted trying to keep
the blood sugar down in response to the constant influx of sugar from the diet.
Other possibilities for triggers include high blood pressure and stress. While
it’s not directly proven as a causal factor, individuals with high blood pressure
are statistically more likely to develop diabetes than those with normal blood
pressure.
Stress as a causal factor has a similarly unproven status, but it is often
thought by medical professionals that prolonged, unrelieved stress increases
the risk of diabetes. Sometimes the stress is caused by trauma or emotional
disturbance, somehow making the individual susceptible to developing diabetes
