What is Diabetes

Diabetes is a chronic, debilitating disease affecting every organ system. There are two major types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone that enables people to get energy from food. Type 1 diabetes usually strikes in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood, but lasts a lifetime. People with type 1 diabetes must take multiple injections of insulin daily or continuous infusion of insulin through a pump just to survive. Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder in which a person’s body still produces insulin but is unable to use it effectively. Type 2 is usually diagnosed in adulthood and does not always require insulin injections. However, increased obesity has led to a recent “epidemic” in cases of type 2 diabetes in young adults. Taking insulin does not cure any type of diabetes nor prevent the possibility of its eventual and devastating effects: kidney failure, blindness, nerve damage, amputation, heart attack, and stroke.

The Cost of Diabetes
 
  - Diabetes is the single most costly chronic disease
  - In 2002, diabetes accounted for $132 billion in health-care costs in the U.S.
  - Diabetes accounts for 32 percent of all Medicare expenditures.
  - People with diabetes in the U.S. incur medical expenses that are approximately 2.4 times higher than people without diabetes.

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