Diabetes Essay

Have you ever known anyone with diabetes? It is a very dangerous and life threatening disease. My baby cousin is now 16, but was diagnosed at age 3 with juvenile diabetes. To see her have to get her finger pricked daily was heart breaking to imagine that someone so innocent could have just gotten this disease. Diabetes is a disease when your body doesn’t produce enough insulin or can’t use the insulin produced efficiently.   Insulin is a hormone which is a key factor in helping the body use the digested food for growth and energy.
There are 2 types of diabetes, Type 1 and Type 2. If a person is diagnosed with Type 1 juvenile diabetes it is usually in their teenage years. For a teenager that is very hard to handle. For teenagers your eating habits present a serious problem. It is important to keep to a regular schedule because your blood sugar level, which is also called glucose, could drop. While at school one might be embarrassed to have to take an insulin shot, but it has to be done.   Ryan Dinkgrave, a 16 year old high school student states that a person with diabetes needs to “Control the diabetes, don’t let it control you.” Type 2 diabetes is generally diagnosed when a person is overweight, is over 30, and doesn’t exercise. It also can run in the family genes, but the same conditions apply to both.
Sometimes diabetes is very hard to diagnose. For example, I read an article about a lady whose son was 11 months old and what they thought was the flu turned out to be Type 1 diabetes. The doctors at first thought it was asthma, but when the asthma medicine wasn’t working they eventually found out. The child almost died waiting on the diagnosis, which can be very scary for parents.
      One of the first signs of Type 1 diabetes is flu like illness. It gradually turns into diabetes over the next few weeks. Typical signs are increased thirst and frequent urination. At this stage your body is pulling excess sugar from your body tissue which makes you thirsty. All...