2023-12-22 10:25:56
While type 1 diabetes usually occurs in childhood, type 2 diabetes usually occurs later in life. But how do you actually get diabetes?
Diabetes – medically correct: diabetes mellitus – is something of a widespread disease in Germany. According to the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG), around 7.2 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 79 are known to have diabetes mellitus. Around 90 to 95 percent of those affected suffer from type 2 diabetes. But how does diabetes actually develop and how do you get diabetes?
Briefly explained: What is diabetes?
According to the BMG, diabetes or diabetes is an umbrella term for various metabolic diseases. What all forms have in common is that they lead to increased blood sugar levels. The reason for this is that those affected have a deficiency in the hormone insulin and/or the insulin effect in their body is reduced.
Basically, according to German Diabetes Help, the hormone that is produced in the pancreas is released in the body to lower blood sugar. In people who suffer from one of the two main forms of diabetes – type 1 and type 2 – insulin production is disrupted. For this reason, according to Deutsche Diabetes Hilfe, all those affected with type 1 diabetes and many with type 2 diabetes must supply their bodies with insulin via an injection.
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Risk factors: How do you get diabetes?
When it comes to the causes of diabetes, a distinction must be made between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. According to the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), insulin production decreases in both forms of diabetes, but much faster in type 1.
How do you get type 1 diabetes?
According to the DZD, the causes of type 1 diabetes are only partially known. What is certain, however, is that the disease is polygenic, meaning that many different genes are involved in its development. People with a family history of diabetes have the highest risk. In addition, several studies have recently suggested that there might be a connection between Corona and type 1 diabetes.
According to the BMG, the disease usually begins in childhood and adolescence and is currently not curable, so those affected are dependent on insulin their entire lives and have to inject the hormone.
By the way: Whether insulin needs to be injected or not depends on the blood sugar level. Diabetics can measure and determine this with a self-test. Particular attention should be paid to dangerous blood sugar levels.
How do you get type 2 diabetes?
In contrast to type 1 diabetes, which usually occurs very suddenly, type 2 diabetes develops over a long period of time and rather gradually, according to the diabetes information portal diabinfo. Those affected usually do not feel any signs of the disease for a long time.
According to the DZD, the known causes and triggers for the development of type 2 diabetes include heredity, obesity and lack of exercise, insensitivity to insulin, impaired insulin secretion and impaired production of certain intestinal hormones that stimulate insulin secretion. According to diabinfo, older age, an unhealthy lifestyle, but also medications that impair sugar metabolism – for example cortisone – and other hormonal diseases also play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes.
By the way, diabetes can also develop in women during pregnancy. We are then talking regarding gestational diabetes.
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