What is the Difference Between Diabetes Type 1 and Diabetes Type 2?

To begin, it is important to highlight what diabetes is in general and how it affects the human body. The basic layout of the energy production in the human body is based upon breaking food down into glucose, which is basically sugar. These sugars go to cells around the body which fuels them, allows them to operate, and grow. When this system breaks down, serious health risks occur. Diabetes type 1 and diabetes type 2 are both reasons for the breakdown of this system.

All forms of diabetes revolve around the pancreas and insulin production in the body. Insulin is a chemical hormone that is given off the in the body that enables cells to feed upon the sugars produced by digesting food. When the insulin is not produced or is produced in low amounts, individual cases of diabetes can form in the human body. Insulin is the key component in deciding whether or not a person becomes diabetic.

Type 1 diabetes is the condition that is explained when the body produces no insulin whatsoever. This type of diabetes is largely hereditary and is the most common form of this affliction that affects children from birth or is developed at a very young age. The beta cells found in the pancreas are either never formed correctly or destroyed, which causes this organ to become defunct. When the pancreas doesn’t work correctly, diabetic cases arise.

The other variety of this disease, type 2 diabetes, is brought on later in life and is caused by people’s insulin being denied to the cells of the body due to high levels Pigment Epithelium-Deprived Factors. This chemical, nicknamed PEDF, blocks the insulin from being effective in the blood stream. Type 2 diabetes is more of an insulin resistance built up in the body. This causes the pancreas to become overworked and eventually, it won’t work at all.

While type 2 diabetes is partially hereditary, unlike type 1, this condition is also brought on by people becoming obese due to poor diet and no exercise. Each type of this disease has the same effects that include muscle tiredness, shakiness, coma, loss of limbs due to gangrene, and even death. However, diabetes 1 is not the fault of the patient, while diabetes 2 can be directly linked to a person’s lifestyle habits.

The major difference between diabetes 1 and diabetes 2 are the age when people develop the disease. Though people are developing the disease at younger and younger ages due to child obesity, type 1 is truly hereditary and revolves around a lack of insulin being produced. Type 2 is a disease based in insulin resistance in the cells of the body brought on by excess fat cells.