Diabetes is a disease in which the body is unable to use and store glucose properly, leading to its retention in blood in amounts above normal. This circumstance changes, taken together, the metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins.
Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a disease which is usually in people under 30 years, although it can occur at any age. Its main feature is the inability of the body to produce insulin, the hormone that enables the use of glucose by the body’s cells.
Why is type 1 diabetes?
The process of developing Type 1 diabetes is gradual and may be required several years before they manifest clinically. The disease develops by the immune system attack against pancreatic beta cells themselves responsible for producing insulin. This process seems to take several steps:
* There are, first, a genetic predisposition or susceptibility, which appears to have implicated several genes.
* Moreover, it seems there is a need to trigger environmental (viral infection, stress, toxins, etc.). After which, it appears the immunological process against the beta cells themselves, which are destroyed.
The immune response is mediated by antibodies (humoral response) and cell (reaction cell) have been detected autoantibodies against proteins present on the surface of beta cells, such as glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), which is similar to a protein Coxsackie B virus, potentially involved in the development of diabetes.
Other antibodies include: IA2, directed against a phosphatase present in the interior of the beta cells, and antibodies against its own insulin. These antibodies can be detected in the serum of patients months and years before the development of the disease, and have become markers of a condition known as prediabetes.
What are the symptoms of diabetes, and why they occur?
Food digested in the stomach and intestine are converted to glucose, amino acids and lipids. Once the glucose passes into the blood, becomes the main source of energy for most cells in the body. To be introduced and used effectively by the cells, glucose needs the help of insulin produced by beta cells of the pancreas. The entry of glucose into the cells causes fall in blood levels (glucose).
When there is a deficiency of insulin, glucose is unable to enter the body’s cells and remains in the blood, raising their level above the normal limits. At the same time, the cells in which glucose has not entered, they suffer the lack of its primary energy source.
Lacking the cells of their main source of energy, the patient is too tired, with disproportionate feeling of hunger (polyphagia), and progressive weight loss. Moreover, the glucose remains in excess in the blood exceeds the capacity of the kidney to retain and begin to lose the urine, accompanied by an excessive amount of water, causing the patient to urinate more than normal (polyuria ) and an excess fluid loss, which leads to having to drink excess water (polydipsia).
When this situation continues over time, not corrected by the supply of insulin, you may see a picture of ketosis and coma, in which the patient has a serious life-threatening.
What is the treatment?
Treatment consists of daily supply of insulin through injections, as orally administered insulin is not effective to be degraded in the stomach and duodenum. Once you start treatment with insulin, newly diagnosed patients may have a period of partial remission, called “honeymoon”, during which a remaining beta cells maintains a certain capacity to produce insulin.
As the external supply of the hormone, the period of “honeymoon” is maintained for several months. Ended this brief period, the appropriate external input of insulin, becomes the sole source of this hormone to the patient must be kept throughout his life, following strict guidelines that the administration provides diabetologist basis.
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