Most of the food we eat is turned into glucose, or sugar, for our bodies to use for energy. The pancreas, an organ that lies near the stomach, makes a hormone called insulin to help glucose get into the cells of our bodies. When you have diabetes, your body either doesn't make enough insulin or can't use its own insulin as well as it should. This causes sugars to build up in your blood.

Diabetes can cause serious health complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-extremity amputations. It's the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States.

Symptoms

People who think they might have diabetes must visit a physician for diagnosis. They might have SOME or NONE of the following symptoms:

Frequent urination
Excessive thirst
Unexplained weight loss
Extreme hunger
Sudden vision changes
Tingling or numbness in hands or feet
Feeling very tired much of the time
Very dry skin
Sores that are slow to heal
More infections than usual

Nausea, vomiting or stomach pains may accompany some of these symptoms in the abrupt onset of insulin-dependent diabetes, now called type 1 diabetes.

Types Of Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes was previously called insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus or juvenile-onset diabetes. Type 1 diabetes may account for 5 to 10 percent of all diagnosed cases of the disease. Risk factors are less defined for type 1 diabetes than for type 2 diabetes, but autoimmune, genetic, and environmental factors are involved in the development of this type of diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes was previously called noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus or adult-onset diabetes. Type 2 diabetes may account for about 90 to 95 percent of all diagnosed cases of the disease. Risk factors for type 2 diabetes include older age, obesity, family history of diabetes, prior history of gestational diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance, physical inactivity and race/ethnicity. African-Americans, Hispanic/Latino-Americans, American Indians, and some Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are at particularly high risk for type 2 diabetes.

Gestational diabetes develops in 2 to 5 percent of all pregnancies but usually disappears when a pregnancy is over. Gestational diabetes occurs more frequently in African-Americans, Hispanic/Latino-Americans, American Indians and people with a family history of diabetes than in other groups. Obesity is also associated with higher risk. Women who have had gestational diabetes are at increased risk for later developing type 2 diabetes. In some studies, nearly 40 percent of women with a history of gestational diabetes developed diabetes in the future.

Other specific types of diabetes result from specific genetic syndromes, surgery, drugs, malnutrition, infections and other illnesses. Such types of diabetes may account for 1 to 2 percent of all diagnosed cases of diabetes.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention