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Honey Syphon: Here's a brief explanation of what diabetes actually is. This is a very basic description; for more information check out the two web sites I link to on the main Honey Siphon page. When we eat, enzymes in the stomach and intestines convert the food into various things, but mostly into glucose (which is another word for sugar). This is absorbed into the blood stream and carried to the places where it is needed - the cells, where it is used to build up muscles and so on. In order for the glucose to be absorbed by the cells, something else is needed - insulin. This is produced by the pancreas. To be specific, by the romantically-named Islets of Langerhans, which sounds like a great place to take a cruise. When it is needed, insulin is released into the blood stream and that helps the cells to take up the glucose. When the the blood sugar level drops again, the insulin tap is turned off. This is a very efficient system of regulation. That's what is supposed to happen. But with diabetes, the regulated system breaks down and either the pancreas stops producing insulin, or it produces some but not enough to do the job, or for some reason what it is producing stops being effective. This results in a build-up of glucose in the blood, and the body not actually getting the nutrients it needs to keep going, with all kinds of consequences. No-one knows what causes diabetes. There are a number of things that can make it more likely that you will get it, including your genes, being obese (kerching!), stress, steroids and having lots of operations. Contrary to popular belief (hello Granny!), eating too many sweets does not cause diabetes, although if the sweets make you obese that may be a factor! For those who aren't producing any insulin at all, the treatment is usually regular injections of insulin, to replace what the pancreas should be churning out, but isn't. Thankfully, for me and many others like me, the diabetes can be managed by a combination of tablets, which boost the production of insulin or make what small amount our body is producing more efficient, and changing our diet so we don't overload the system with too much glucose at once. |
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