Learning About What Causes Diabetes
Diabetes is one of the most serious and common diseases in the world, and whether it is you or a loved one that is suffering from the disease, in order to be able to properly manage and treat it, you need to learn about what causes diabetes. Many people mistakenly think that by eating too many sweet or sugary foods you can develop the disease, but this is actually nothing more than a myth.
The Truth
When it comes to what really causes diabetes, what happens is that when the pancreas is not able to make enough or any of the hormone known as insulin, or when the insulin that is being produced is not working effectively, this as a result causes the level of glucose in the blood to be too high and thereby the person develops diabetes.
There are two different types of diabetes: type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. There are both similarities and differences between the two types, and in type 1, the cells in the pancreas that usually work to make the insulin are destroyed, which results in causing a severe lack of insulin in the body, and this is thought to be the result of the body attacking and destroying its own cells, which in turn makes it an autoimmune reaction.
In searching for what causes diabetes, you'll learn that although there is no single cause of type 1 diabetes, there are a few triggers that are considered to be responsible, including an infection with a specific virus or bacteria, exposure to food-borne chemical toxins, and exposure as a young infant to cow's milk.
What causes type 2 diabetes? It develops when the receptors on the cells in the body that normally respond to the action of insulin fail to be stimulated by it, otherwise known as insulin resistance, or when the insulin that is available in the body is abnormal and therefore does not work properly.
Again there are a few different triggers of this reaction that are considered as being risk factors that increase someone's chances of developing the disease, including increasing age, obesity, and physical inactivity.
Therefore when it comes to the matter of what really causes diabetes, there is no one single answer but rather quite a few, and the only real way you can attempt to avoid developing the disease then is by keeping yourself as healthy as possible. By maintaining as generally healthy a lifestyle as possible you will not be able to avoid it for sure but you will be protecting yourself against it as much as you can.