What is diabetes
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when your blood glucose is too high. Over time, diabetes can cause serious complications including heart attacks and strokes, kidney disease, limb amputations and blindness.
Blood glucose is our main source of energy and comes from food. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, plays a key role in helping glucose pass from the bloodstream into the cells, to produce energy. When you have diabetes, the pancreas is no longer able to make insulin, or the body cannot make good use of the insulin it produces, causing too much glucose in your blood.
There are two main types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. They are different conditions, but they are both serious. If you have type 2, the insulin you make either doesn’t work effectively, or you can’t produce enough. Type 1 is an auto-immune disease where you don’t make insulin. Some women develop gestational diabetes during pregnancy. Over 26% of New Zealanders have pre-diabetes, also known as Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT).
