Diabetes mellitus, colloquially also called ``the sugar illness'', is a disorder of the body's metabolism . Nearly all our food gets broken up into small chemicals by the digestive juices. One of those is the sugar molecule glucose which diffuses into the body's bloodstream. There it is available for the cells which are able to gain energy from it. The glucose molecules themselves are not able to pass a cell membrane. They need the help of the hormone insulin which is produced in the pancreas .
Normally, the pancreas produces just the right amount of insulin to supply enough energy for the needs of the cells. Someone has diabetes mellitus if the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or if the cells do not react to the presence of it. As a result of this, the concentration of glucose in the blood increases which causes the liver to eliminate some of it over the urine . Thus the body loses a lot of its energy, and the cells are not supplied with glucose even though there is plenty of it in the blood .
There are three different types of diabetes mellitus. Type I , also called ``insulin dependent diabetes mellitus'' (IDDM) , normally affects children or adolescents only, although it can appear at any age. The body's own immune system is responsible for IDDM, because it starts to destroy the beta cells which are part of the pancreas and produce the insulin. Today it is unknown why the immune system kills the beta cells, but it is believed that both genetic factors and virus infections are responsible for it. Up to ten per cent of all diabetes diseases are of type I. Some of the first symptoms are increased needs of sleep, constant hunger and thirst, a bleary vision and a loss of weight.
Type II , also called ``noninsulin dependent diabetes mellitus'' (NIDDM) , normally affects adults at an age of above 40. The body loses its ability to use its own insulin even though the pancreas still produces it. Over ninety per cent of all diabetes patients have NIDDM. The symptoms are similar to type I, but about 85 per cent are overweight.
Finally, there is type III , also called gestational diabetes , which is only found during pregnancy . It normally vanishes after the pregnancy is over, but those women will have a higher chance to get NIDDM.