Diabetes Advice: What is Diabetes?

There are currently over 2 million diabetic people in the UK, and up to another 750,000 who have diabetes and don’t know it yet – it causes 1 in 7 of all deaths in the country, about 33,000 deaths every year.

Diabetes is a disease where your blood sugar level, produced when the body uses carbohydrates, is too high for the body to cope with. Glucose levels are kept under control by the hormone insulin, but people with Type 1 diabetes do not produce any insulin, and people with the more common Type 2 diabetes do not produce enough.

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Diabetes Advice: What is Diabetes?

Type 1 Diabetes usually appears during childhood or as a teenager – it can’t be prevented and people with type 1 diabetes have to inject insulin to regulate blood glucose and check their blood sugar levels several times daily in order to function properly and stay alive. Type 2 Diabetes usually develops later in life, and can be prevented with a healthy diet and exercise – once you have it, you’ll need to eat and exercise carefully, and possibly take insulin tablets and injections.

If you have diabetes and don’t manage it well, the health complications can be extremely dangerous –organ damage, blindness, arm and leg amputation, heart disease, kidney failure and possibly even death.

Diabetes Advice: Diabetes Advice & Tips from Sufferers

But what is it really like to have diabetes or know someone who has diabetes? Read about other people’s experience or tell us your own story below.

Diabetes Advice – You Can Help: Share your tips, experiences and stories about living with diabetes with other readers by posting a reply in the Comment on This Article box. Read some of the most recent tips below!

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