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What Is Diabetes?
by
Paula Ford-Martin (with Ian Blumer, MD)
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- Diabetes comes in many variations
- All diabetes concern blood glucose regulation
- Insulin is critical to diabetes control
Diabetes mellitus comes in many flavors—type 1, type 2, gestational, and variations such as maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) and latent autoimmune diabetes of adulthood (LADA). What all of these disorders have in common is an inherent inability to self-regulate the levels of blood glucose—or cellular fuel—in the body.
Cells metabolize, or convert, blood glucose for energy. And insulin is the hormone that makes it all happen. To visualize the role of insulin in the body and in diabetes, think of a flattened basketball. The ball needs air (or glucose) to supply the necessary energy to bounce. To fill a basketball, you insert an inflating needle into the ball valve to open it, then pump air through it into the ball. Likewise, when a cell needs energy, insulin binds to an insulin receptor, or cell gateway, to “open” the cell and let glucose in for processing.
You can blow pounds and pounds of compressed air at the ball valve, but without a needle to open it, the air will not enter. The same applies to your cells. Without insulin to bind to the receptors and open the cell for glucose, the glucose cannot enter. Instead, it builds up to damaging and toxic levels in the bloodstream.
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