Why isn’t it possible to suddenly get diabetes after a single large sugar binge?
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even though they are all called diabetes, the different types are different diseases. the thing they have in common is: high blood sugar. (and in the urine, which is where the name comes from!)
diabetes type 1 is an autoimmune disease that destroys the insulin-producing cells. the body needs insulin to get the glucose inside our cells. so if there’s no insulin, the glucose stays in the bloodstream, thus you have higher levels of blood sugar. in the late stages of the disease, the patients need insulin from the outside.
now diabetes type 2 is characterized by a few different mechanics, one of which is insulin-resistance. if you have a persistently high blood sugar, the body will also produce a lot of insulin to deal with the glucose and get it inside the cells. so at first, the blood sugar, despite a higher sugar intake, will remain about the same. at some point though, the cells have more than enough glucose and will react less to insulin. in return, this means that the cells let less sugar inside = more glucose in the bloodstream = higher blood sugar! so you see, it’s almost the opposite of type 1. despite high insulin levels, you also have high blood sugar levels.
diabetes in pregnancy is also quite different. in pregnancy, the body reacts less to insulin so that the blood sugar levels remain high enough to ensure that the growing baby gets enough glucose. this mechanism can get out of hand though and the pregnant person ends up with way too high levels of blood sugar.
there are also other types of diabetes, like genetic types. all different diseases with one common thing: high glucose levels in the blood.
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