Type 1 Diabetes Research Paper

Words: 1618
Pages: 7

Diabetes Mellitus is a condition in which the body is unable to properly process blood glucose and utilize it as energy. Carbohydrates that come from food are made up of simple sugars that combine to make complex sugars.1 These complex sugars are broken down by enzymes in the digestive tract and into simple sugars.1 These simple sugars are then all converted into glucose, where it is then absorbed by the body and used for energy. Insulin is a hormone which is essential for controlling glucose levels by transporting glucose from the blood to the cells. Once in the cells, the glucose has the potential to be used in multiple mechanisms to be converted into energy through various mechanisms such as glycolysis or stored as glycogen through glycogenesis (not limited to these two mechanisms).1 It is estimated that about 9.4% of people living in the United States have diabetes.2 While this may not seem like a large quantity, that means that over 30 million people in the United States are struggling with this disease.2 …show more content…
Type 1 diabetes is when the body is unable to produce the necessary amount of insulin needed. Very little and even sometimes no insulin is produced. The reason that the pancreas no longer produces insulin comes from the immune system; the body’s immune system attacks the beta cells, the cells that produce insulin.1 Because of this, most, if not all, of the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are destroyed.1 In Type 2 diabetes, the body’s cells become resistant to insulin. When the body’s cells become desensitized to insulin, then more insulin is needed to help transport the glucose from the blood and into the sugar. The pancreas is then forced to produce more insulin to keep up with the rising glucose levels.1 Over time, the stress of the pancreas over-producing insulin causes it to begin to fail, leading to lower insulin levels and high glucose concentrations in the