What is diabetes mellitus and how does it happen?
Sugar diabetes is a disease in which glucose does not enter cells. Its concentration in the blood increases, which leads to damage to blood vessels and nerve endings and the development of severe complications.
Depending on the mechanism of formation of the pathology, several types of diabetes are distinguished:
- Type I, insulin deficient. In this condition, a person’s pancreas produces little of the hormone insulin, which is necessary to transport glucose into cells.
- Type II, insulin resistant. In this case, the pancreas synthesizes enough insulin, but the cells have lost sensitivity to it, so they cannot pass glucose into themselves.
- Gestational diabetes. It first appears during pregnancy and is characterized by decreased glucose tolerance. After childbirth, the condition returns to normal or becomes type II diabetes.
What are the causes of diabetes
The disease is caused by one cause or a combination of several. Scientists attribute the appearance of pathology to the following factors.
Heredity
If parents have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, their children’s risk of developing the disease increases. But it is not the pathology itself that is inherited.
In one case, these are altered genes that regulate tissue sensitivity to glucose. If a person with such heredity eats a lot of sweets and is overweight, then the cells do not use all the sugar from the blood and type II diabetes will develop.
In another case, genetic traits are inherited violationsdue to which pancreatic cells reduce or completely stop the synthesis of insulin, so type I diabetes forms over time.
Obesity
If a person is overweight, they develop type II diabetes. This is due to the structural features of adipose tissue, which consists of adipocyte cells. They synthesize interleukin-6, free fatty acids (FFA), leptin and other substances that affect tissue sensitivity to insulin. Visceral fat is most active, which is located in the waist area, since there are more capillaries and nerve endings there than on the hips or other places.
In obese people from adipocytes stands out more fatty acids than the body needs. Some of them penetrate the liver and prevent its cells from binding to insulin. Another part of FFA affects the muscles, so glucose ceases to be absorbed by cells, and its concentration in the blood increases.
Pancreatic diseases
Type I diabetes mellitus sometimes develops in diseases of the pancreas, when the beta cells that synthesize insulin are damaged. This can occur with the following pathologies:
- pancreatitis;
- cysts and pseudocysts;
- cancer.
Diabetes mellitus can be caused by a hereditary disease cystic fibrosisin which the functioning of all glands in the body is disrupted, including the pancreas, so that pancreatitis develops.
Type I diabetes mellitus sometimes occurs due to hereditary hemochromatosis. This is a disease in which the body’s metabolism of iron is disrupted and it accumulates in excess in the pancreas and other organs.
Also, the mechanism of glucose use by cells can be affected by surgery to dissect the pancreas – pancreatotomy.
Hormonal changes during pregnancy
Even during normal pregnancy, tissue sensitivity to insulin decreases doubles, and the release of the hormone after eating increases significantly by the third trimester. This process is necessary to compensate for the decrease in glucose delivery into cells. Therefore, most pregnant women do not show signs of diabetes.
But, according to different estimatesfrom 1 to 20% of pregnant women worldwide are susceptible to this disease, which is associated with decrease functions of pancreatic cells.
If the increase in glucose was associated only with pregnancy, then over time its level will recover. But there is a possibility that this was the debut of type 1 or type 2 diabetes, which coincided with pregnancy, then after childbirth the doctor will remove the diagnosis of gestational diabetes mellitus and replace it with a new one.
Viruses
Scientists noticedthat type I diabetes is a consequence of infection with Coxsackie, rubella, Epstein-Barr viruses or retroviruses. They penetrate the cells of the pancreas and destroy them or affect the organ indirectly, stimulating the production of antibodies or activating certain groups of lymphocytes.
How to avoid getting diabetes
Not all factors that cause diabetes can be prevented. But everyone can influence some of them. For this need to:
- eat less fatty and sweet foods;
- increase the share of vegetables, fruits and grains in the diet;
- conduct aerobic training three to four times a week;
- maintain a normal body mass index;
- do not abuse alcohol.
And in order to notice the first signs of impaired glucose tolerance in time, doctors recommend Take a blood sugar test once a year.
Don’t miss important symptoms 🍰💊💉
