Diabetes – Mellitus & Insipidus

Summary:

Diabetes is a lifelong condition caused by a lack, or insufficiency of insulin. Insulin is a hormone – a substance of vital importance that is made by your pancreas. Insulin acts like a key to open the doors into your cells, letting sugar (glucose) in.

In diabetes, the pancreas makes too little insulin to enable all the sugar in your blood to get into your muscle and other cells to produce energy. If sugar can’t get into the cells to be used, it builds up in the bloodstream. Therefore, diabetes is characterized by high blood sugar (glucose) levels.

Statistics:

Charities:

Charitable Organizations Location Est.

Services

Diabetes Ireland

Dublin & Cork 1967

Advocacy, Care Centres in Dublin & Cork

Not-Profit Groups:

Information:

What Is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a lifelong condition caused by a lack, or insufficiency of insulin. Insulin is a hormone – a substance of vital importance that is made by your pancreas. Insulin acts like a key to open the doors into your cells, letting sugar (glucose) in. In diabetes, the pancreas makes too little insulin to enable all the sugar in your blood to get into your muscle and other cells to produce energy. If sugar can’t get into the cells to be used, it builds up in the bloodstream. Therefore, diabetes is characterized by high blood sugar (glucose) levels.

What Happens Before You Get Diabetes?

Before you got diabetes, your body automatically kept your blood sugar exactly at the right level. Here is how that worked. After a meal containing carbohydrates, sugar is absorbed into the blood stream very quickly. The amount of sugar in your blood must not get too high or too low. Two hormones – insulin and glucagon – were produced in the pancreas – to ensure that the blood sugar was always well controlled no matter how much you had to eat and how much you exercised.

https://www.diabetes.ie/about-us/what-is-diabetes/ [1]