Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is less common between the two types of diabetes mellitus.
Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus
The symptoms of type 1 diabetes develop quite suddenly and quickly in childhood or adolescence. In some rare cases, diabetes mellitus appears even in infancy. Because of this, type 1 diabetes is known as juvenile onset diabetes because its symptoms often become apparent when the patients are still at a tender age. More frequently, type 1 diabetes appears in young people at around age 12, when their bodies are going through a period of hormonal changes. Type 1 diabetes is also called insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) because people with type 1 diabetes will need to take daily injections of insulin to stay alive as this form of diabetes occurs when the pancreas produces too little insulin or none at all. However, type 1 diabetes is not the most common, with only about 10 percent of all diabetics suffer from this disorder.
Pancreas is the organ that produces insulin a little bit all day long, and then in two bursts after a meal when the blood glucose level increases. The beta cells in the Isles of Langerhans in a pancreas are responsible for the production of insulin. Type 1 diabetes is possibly caused by an abnormal reaction when our immune system destroys these insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas. This attack of the immune system makes the damaged or destroyed beta cells no longer produce adequate insulin to control the blood sugar. The cause of this attack may be triggered by a viral infection. Diseases like flu, mumps, chickenpox and measles have all been associated with the development of type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is not an absolutely inherited disease. However, there is some genetic predisposition that increases a person's risk to the disease. There are even cases where people with no family history of any form of diabetes develop type 1 diabetes.
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