The role of glucose – Glucose — a sugar — is a source of energy for the cells that make up muscles and other tissues.
Glucose comes from two major sources: food and the liver. Sugar is absorbed into the bloodstream, where it enters cells with the help of insulin. The liver stores and makes glucose. When glucose levels are low, such as when you haven’t eaten in a while, the liver breaks down stored glycogen into glucose. This keeps your glucose level within a typical range.
The exact cause of most types of diabetes is unknown. In all cases, sugar builds up in the bloodstream. This is because the pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes may be caused by a combination of genetic or environmental factors. It is unclear what those factors may be.
Can you develop diabetes?
About Prediabetes & Type 2 Diabetes There are 96 million American adults who have prediabetes – that’s 1 in 3 adults! Of those 96 million, more than 8 in 10 of them don’t even know they have it. Without taking action, many people with prediabetes could develop type 2 diabetes within 5 years.
With numbers like that, it’s important to learn about prediabetes and take action. Take our to find out if you are at risk for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. A print version of the is also available. Having prediabetes means your blood glucose (sugar) levels are higher than normal—but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.
Prediabetes can lead to heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes. Prediabetes can often be reversed. 
With type 2 diabetes, your body cannot properly use insulin (a hormone that helps glucose get into the cells of the body). You can get type 2 diabetes at any age, but you are at higher risk if you are older, overweight, have a family history of diabetes, are not physically active, or are a woman who had gestational diabetes.
Gestational diabetes is a kind of diabetes that some women get when they are pregnant. Even if a woman’s blood sugar levels go down after her baby is born, she is at higher risk of getting type 2 diabetes later in life. With type 1 diabetes, your body cannot make insulin, so you need to take insulin every day.
Type 1 diabetes is less common than type 2; approximately 5-10% of the people who have diabetes have type 1. Currently, no one knows how to prevent type 1 diabetes. If you want to learn more about the basics of diabetes and prediabetes, you can visit,
You are overweight. You are 45 years of age or older. Your parent or sibling has type 2 diabetes. You are physically active fewer than 3 times per week. You ever gave birth to a baby that weighed more than 9 pounds. You ever had diabetes while pregnant (gestational diabetes).
Race and ethnicity also affect your risk. African Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, American Indians, Pacific Islanders, and some Asian Americans are at particularly high risk for type 2 diabetes. Following are the percentage of people in the United States with diagnosed diabetes from 2018 to 2019:
Non-Hispanic Blacks – 12.1% Hispanics – 11.8% Non-Hispanic Asians – 9.5% Non-Hispanic Whites – 7.4%
If you are at risk, talk to a health care professional about getting a blood sugar test. Diabetes Is Serious and Common Diabetes is currently the seventh leading cause of death in the United States—and studies show that deaths related to diabetes may be under-reported! Today, 1 in 10 U.S. adults has diabetes, and if trends continue, 1 in 5 will have it by 2025. An additional 96 million U.S.
Heart attack Stroke Blindness Kidney failure Loss of toes, feet, or legs
Diabetes Is Costly Type 2 diabetes affects millions of individuals and their families, workplaces, and the U.S. health care system. In 2017, the total cost of care for people with diagnosed diabetes was $327 billion, up 33% over a 5-year period. About 1 in 4 health care dollars is spent on people with diagnosed diabetes. The majority of expenses are related to hospitalizations and medications used to treat complications of diabetes. People diagnosed with diabetes incur on average $16,750 annually in medical expenses. That’s about 2.3 times the medical expenses of a person without diabetes. The need to prevent type 2 diabetes has never been greater. If you have prediabetes, a CDC-recognized lifestyle change program is one of the most effective ways to prevent getting type 2 diabetes. It can help you lose weight, become more active, and prevent or delay type 2 diabetes. To learn more, visit ? If you’re not sure if you’re at risk, take this or ask your health care professional about getting a blood sugar test. A print version of the is also available. Albright A, Gregg EW. Preventing type 2 diabetes in communities across the US: the National Diabetes Prevention Program. Am J Prev Med 2013;44(4):S346-S351. Available from Boyle JP, Thompson TJ, Gregg EW, Barker LE, Williamson DF. (2010). Projection of the year 2050 burden of diabetes in the US adult population: dynamic modeling of incidence, mortality, and prediabetes prevalence. Population Health Metrics. Available from, Knowler WC, Barrett-Conner E, Fowler SE, et al.; Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. Reduction in the incidence of type 2 diabetes with lifestyle intervention or metformin. N Engl J Med 2002;346:393–403. Available from, American Diabetes Association. Economic Costs of Diabetes in the U.S. in 2017. Diabetes Care 2018;41(5):917-928. Available from : About Prediabetes & Type 2 Diabetes
Can a healthy person get diabetes?
Obesity is one risk factor for diabetes, but some thin people can also develop the disease – A 21-year-old football player ended up in the office of Chloe Paddison, RDN, LD, a registered dietitian and education specialist at St. Joseph’s/Candler, after suffering from excessive thirst. “He was fit, but drinking a gallon of sweet tea a day,” Paddison recalls. The culprit was type 1 diabetes, in which the body can’t make the insulin needed to keep a person’s blood sugar at a healthy level. “Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune disorder and is independent of weight,” Paddison says.
“But recent studies have shown that 1 in 5 normal-weight adults can be at risk for prediabetes, which if not managed can develop into type 2 diabetes within five years.” The popular perception of a person with diabetes is that they are overweight or obese, or that they were when the disease developed.
Though obesity is a major risk factor for type 2, that fact doesn’t tell the whole story. “Rather than take the perspective of the condition our body is in, I want patients to look at the conditions we subject our bodies to,” Paddison explains. “Genetics are one of the biggest players in weight, so someone with great weight-related genetics could be living a very unhealthy lifestyle.”
Why does diabetes happen?
The role of glucose – Glucose — a sugar — is a source of energy for the cells that make up muscles and other tissues.
Glucose comes from two major sources: food and the liver. Sugar is absorbed into the bloodstream, where it enters cells with the help of insulin. The liver stores and makes glucose. When glucose levels are low, such as when you haven’t eaten in a while, the liver breaks down stored glycogen into glucose. This keeps your glucose level within a typical range.
The exact cause of most types of diabetes is unknown. In all cases, sugar builds up in the bloodstream. This is because the pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes may be caused by a combination of genetic or environmental factors. It is unclear what those factors may be.
How do I know if I’m diabetic?
What are the most common symptoms? – No individual is the same. The symptoms you experience won’t exactly match those of another person. However, the most common diabetes symptoms experienced by many people with diabetes are increased thirst, increased urination, feeling tired and losing weight. To find out more about common diabetes symptoms and what causes them, watch our video.
How long can I live with diabetes?
Life expectancy can be increased by 3 years or in some cases as much as 10 years. At age 50, life expectancy- the number of years a person is expected to live- is 6 years shorter for people with type 2 diabetes than for people without it. People with type 2 diabetes can reduce their risk of complications and live longer by achieving their treatment goals.
Is having diabetes serious?
Diabetes can lead to serious complications which can affect many different parts of your body. In the worst cases, diabetes can kill you. Each week diabetes causes thousands of complications like stroke, amputation, kidney failure, heart attack and heart failure.
How does eating too much sugar affect you?
Heart disease and heart attacks – Eating too much sugar on a regular basis has been shown to increase rates of obesity, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, inflammation, and atherosclerosis. All of these issues are risk factors for heart disease and other heart issues such as heart attacks.
What are the effects of eating too much sugar?
Impact on your heart – In a study published in 2014 in JAMA Internal Medicine, Dr. Hu and his colleagues found an association between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of dying from heart disease. Over the course of the 15-year study, people who got 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared with those who consumed 8% of their calories as added sugar.
- Basically, the higher the intake of added sugar, the higher the risk for heart disease,” says Dr. Hu.
- How sugar actually affects heart health is not completely understood, but it appears to have several indirect connections.
- For instance, high amounts of sugar overload the liver.
- Your liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol, and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat,” says Dr.
Hu. Over time, this can lead to a greater accumulation of fat, which may turn into fatty liver disease, a contributor to diabetes, which raises your risk for heart disease. Consuming too much added sugar can raise blood pressure and increase chronic inflammation, both of which are pathological pathways to heart disease.
Excess consumption of sugar, especially in sugary beverages, also contributes to weight gain by tricking your body into turning off its appetite-control system because liquid calories are not as satisfying as calories from solid foods. This is why it is easier for people to add more calories to their regular diet when consuming sugary beverages.
“The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke,” says Dr. Hu.