What is Type I Diabetes?

Video Transcript

About 10% of the population develops Type I diabetes. And when a person develops Type I diabetes, what that means is that they're pancreas has stopped producing insulin. Some of the causes of Type I diabetes are an attack from the immune system on the cells of the pancreas. It could be caused by some sort of viral infection. It could also be caused by medications or drugs. And in many cases they really don't know what has caused the Type I diabetes, but the end result is the pancreas no longer produces insulin. Now what that means is the cells no longer have the ability to absorb sugar from the blood stream. One of the things that insulin does is it helps the cell open up and allows it to receive sugar. The best way to think of insulin and how it works is to think of insulin as a key. And on the surface of every cell you have receptors. And the receptors are like a lock. And so as long as the key of the insulin goes into the receptor, which is the lock, the cell will open up to sugar. If that doesn't take place then the sugar just stays in the bloodstream and cannot get to the cell where it gets turned into energy. Now, when a person has Type I diabetes, some of the major symptoms are excessive thirst. Well the reason for that is because the sugar level is going up very high in the bloodstream. That concentration signals the brain and the kidneys that there's way too much blood sugar in the bloodstream and that we need to dilute that. So, that forces the body to think, "Okay, I need to drink more water. You know, I need to flush this out." And so, that's why someone is often very, very thirsty when they have Type I diabetes. Another very common symptom is rapid weight loss. Rapid weight loss occurs because the body cannot get the energy from sugar or carbohydrates, so instead it turns to the fat and it starts breaking down fat as well as muscle. So, if a person is very, very thirsty, they're losing weight rapidly, they're feeling very tired and fatigue because they're not getting energy from the sugar, then that's often a very good sign that there's something going wrong there and they're not producing enough insulin.