A healthy pancreas produces insulin, a hormone that the body uses to change glucose in the blood into energy. Glucose in the blood comes from the food and drink a person consumes.
In people without diabetes, the pancreas maintains a "perfect balance" between food intake and insulin. When a person eats, the pancreas puts out the exact amount of insulin needed to turn the glucose into energy. If the person eats a lot, the pancreas puts out a lot of insulin. If the person eats just a little, the pancreas puts out just a little insulin.
A person with type 1 diabetes doesn't produce any insulin. Without insulin, the glucose builds up in the blood, causing high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia. Very high blood sugars for an extended period of time can eventually lead to coma and death. We found this out with Shanie to be just about 6 hours! :-( She went into a coma after going about 8 hours with no insulin!
Since people with type 1 diabetes can't produce their own insulin, they must put insulin into the bloodstream through injections or an insulin pump. To know how much insulin they need, they have to check their blood sugar level throughout the day and keep track of what they eat.
For people with type 1 diabetes, balancing insulin and food intake can be a difficult formula. Too much insulin in the bloodstream can lead to a hypoglycemic reaction. Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) is a common problem in people with diabetes. It can be very serious and people with type 1 diabetes often struggle to determine how much insulin to give themselves.
In a simple and perfect world, this question would have an easy answer (e.g., always eat a certain amount of food and inject a certain amount of insulin). However, in reality there is no way to know how much insulin to administer with 100% accuracy.
Many factors influence how much insulin people need to get to the desired "perfect balance" of glucose and insulin. These factors include foods with different absorption rates as well as the effects of stress, illness, and exercise. Since determining how much insulin the body needs to "balance" the amount of glucose is really a best guess, sometimes the guess is inaccurate and high or low blood sugar results.
High blood sugar levels over a number of years can cause serious damage to the body's organ systems. This damage may cause complications affecting the heart, nerves, kidneys, eyes, and other parts of the body. However, careful monitoring could greatly reduce the threat of these complications.
Researchers are also making progress at developing new treatments and technologies to help people with diabetes stay healthy. It's important to remember that people with diabetes can lead active and productive lives, just like anyone else.
It's also important to know that diabetes is not contagious. You cannot catch diabetes from someone who has it. We don't know how type 1 diabetes happens. Researchers continue to study how and why type 1 diabetes occurs in certain children and families. Because at this time, no one knows!
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