How we get Diabetes:

In a healthy person, the pancreas works like a computer, sending out just enough of the right hormones to keep the blood glucose level within the narrow range of just enough. But in a diabetic, something has gone wrong with the finely tuned system. The blood sugar rises far above the normal limit- perhaps up to 200, 300, or even 400 mg% or more. That is the case for some diabetics. But as medical researchers have studied diabetes, they have discovered that damage to the beta cells and too little insulin are only part of the puzzle. Some people with very serious cases of diabetes have beta cells that look perfectly normal. Tests of their blood show that there is plenty of insulin there-more than enough, it would seem, to keep their sugar metabolism running smoothly. Yet they too suffer from hyperglycemia too much sugar in the blood.

Diabetes specialists now believe that a diabetic condition may arise in a number of ways. Damage to the beta cells, so that the pancreas cannot produce enough insulin, is one of them. High blood sugar could also result if the pancreas is producing normal amounts of insulin, but the body’s needs for the hormone become far higher than normal and the gland cannot keep up. This can often happen to people that over eat to an extreme degree, flooding their bodies with more carbohydrates than their system can handle. Or, if the thyroid gland goes out of order and becomes too active, it can increase the rate at which insulin is used up so that a relative insulin shortage results.