When I was a boy, the doctor would wag his head and say, “It’s the sugar.” He meant diabetes, though he didn’t bother splitting hairs about what sort. Today, the hair has been not only split but braided into several categories, each with its own peculiar misery. Progress, they call it. And I bet you didn’t know there were at least five types of diabetes—though the count keeps growing like weeds in a summer field. Let’s have a look.
Type 1 Diabetes
This one is no fault of appetite or sloth. The body’s own immune system turns mutinous and attacks the very cells that make insulin, leaving the poor soul high and dry. It often shows up in children or the young, and it demands insulin injections for life. No negotiation is possible with a traitor army.
Type 2 Diabetes
Here lies the most common brand. The body still makes insulin, but the tissues act deaf to its orders—a condition called insulin resistance. At first the pancreas tries harder, then tires out. This is the diabetes of middle age, of excess weight, and of modern abundance. Unlike Type 1, it can sometimes be managed with diet, exercise, and pills, though many end up needing insulin too. This is the autoimmune form where the body’s immune system attacks insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. It’s often diagnosed in children or young adults, and people with Type 1 need insulin for life.
This is the most common type, typically developing in adults (though it can occur at any age). It involves insulin resistance, meaning the body doesn’t use insulin properly, and over time the pancreas can’t make enough insulin to keep blood sugar levels normal.
Type 3 Diabetes
This one isn’t in every doctor’s handbook, but it’s whispered about in medical circles. The notion is that Alzheimer’s disease is, in part, “diabetes of the brain,” born of insulin resistance upstairs in the skull. It is amazing to me that like the link between Sugar and Cancer, your doctor will seldom mention them to you. The evidence is mounting.
Type 4 Diabetes
This is the odd cousin. It strikes older folks who are not overweight, showing that time itself can corrode the body’s dealings with insulin. It’s still more proposed than proven, but the evidence suggests there’s a sugar sickness that comes not from gluttony but from years piled upon years.
Type 5 Diabetes
Here is the newest entry, fresh from the International Diabetes Federation. They say malnutrition in youth—lean years when the body grows but the pantry does not—can stunt the pancreas. The result is a person who is slim, sensitive to insulin, yet unable to make enough of it. This malnutrition-related diabetes afflicts some 20 to 25 million souls, mostly in poorer parts of Asia and Africa. Give them the same insulin doses as a Type 1, and you may harm them. They need different rules, and now at last, they have a name.
Other Subspecies
The sugar ailment multiplies like rabbits. There is gestational diabetes, which ambushes pregnant women, then may vanish after birth—though it leaves a shadow of risk for later. There is MODY, a rare genetic form that sneaks in young and behaves half like Type 1, half like Type 2. And LADA, sometimes called Type 1.5, a slow-burn autoimmune diabetes that fools doctors by showing up in adults.
The Moral of the Catalog
What we once lumped into one malady has now become a whole cabinet of curiosities, each with its own cause, consequence, and cure. The names matter, for the treatment that saves one type may endanger another. If there is a lesson here, it is that nature delights in variety, and mankind is left scrambling to keep pace with her catalog.
Diabetes is no longer a single sentence—it is a whole library.
EXTRA CREDIT:
Lies, More Lies…and the truth about Sugar, Spikes, Diets and Aging
Sugar can be causing 43% Of Mental Illness, starting in Childhood
Too Sweet to Swallow – Time to Sweeten Life Differently
What Would a Diabetic Do on Gilligan’s Island? –
How Do You Manage Diabetes Without Insulin
The Feet We Mistreat: A Guide to Walking the Right Path
Take Care of Your Mental and Physical Health—You Only Get One Body and Mind
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