Eli5: How diabetes work and how insulin helps diabetics?
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Glucose is a sugar molecule and is the main fuel source for most of your cells. The problem is that it’s a rather large molecule, so it has to go through a specific gate to get into the cell. Insulin is the key to that gate.
There’s multiple types of diabetes:
1. Used to be called “Juvenile Diabetes” because it mostly starts early in life, but adults can develop it. We don’t know why, but for some reason the cells in the pancreas that create insulin stop/die off. So a Type 1 diabetic *has* to introduce insulin from an outside source, they have none of their own. This can be done with injection or a pump.
2. Used to be “Adult onset”, but unfortunately we’re seeing it in children now as well. This is a more gradual onset, where the body slowly becomes resistant to it’s own insulin. Back to the lock and key metaphor, imagine that the lock is slowly becoming rusty….you can still make the key work, but it takes more tries and more force, until eventually you break the key in the lock. That’s basically what happens. This is because the body doesn’t understand why the insulin isn’t working right, it just assumes that it must not have produced enough to start with. So it signals for more insulin, not realizing the issue is the lock, not the key. A Type 2 diabetic doesn’t need insulin initially, and often takes medications that helps make their body respond better to their own insulin. But eventually the cells that produce insulin in the pancreas can get burnt out and die. They may need to take insulin then, usually by injection.
3. Gestational diabetes happens when pregnant women start developing insulin resistance. We have no idea why, and it often resolves after delivery, although the mother remains at higher risk with subsequent pregnancies. Additionally the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes later in life is higher.
4. Diabetes Insipidus is a whole ‘nother thing that we don’t need to go into unless you wanted to.
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