What is diabetes?

Simply put, diabetes (or its full name, diabetes mellitus) is a disorder that prevents your body from properly obtaining or using the energy from the food you eat. To understand diabetes, you first need to learn a little about how your body uses food for energy. Here's how it works:

Step 1: You chew and swallow your food, sending it down your esophagus (food pipe) to your stomach where it is broken down into sugar or glucose (another name for sugar).

Step 2: The glucose is transferred from your stomach into your bloodstream where it is carried to all the cells in your body. This is how your body is able to use food for energy.

Step 3: Insulin, a chemical produced by your pancreas (an organ in your body), works like a key to take the glucose from your blood and bring it into your cells so they can use it for energy.

When you have diabetes, the glucose in your blood builds up because it cannot get into your cells to produce energy. This may happen for several reasons:

1. The pancreas cannot make any insulin - Type 1 Diabetes
2. The pancreas cannot not make enough insulin - Type 2 Diabetes
3. Your body cannot properly use the insulin the pancreas does make - also Type 2 Diabetes

There is always a certain amount of glucose in your blood that is considered "normal." Keeping blood glucose levels as close to the normal range as possible may help prevent some of the health problems that are associated with diabetes. This is why it's so important to manage diabetes through proper nutrition and taking medications if necessary.

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