What is diabetes?

Diabetes means you have too much sugar in your blood. High blood sugar problems start when your body no longer makes enough of a chemical, or hormone called insulin. Your body changes much of the food you eat into a type of sugar. This sugar travels in your blood to all the cells in your body. Your body cells need the sugar to give you energy.

Insulin helps move sugar from your blood into your cells. Without insulin, your cells can’t get the sugar they need to keep you healthy.

By moving sugar from your blood to your body’s cells, insulin helps keep your blood sugar level normal (not too high; not too low). When you don’t have enough insulin to lower high blood sugar levels, you have diabetes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From http://www.learningaboutdiabetes.org/downloads/WhatIsDiabetesEN.pdf