Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a complex chronic disease involving disorders in carbohydrate, protein, and fat metabolism and the development of macro-vascular, micro-vascular, neurological complications that don’t occur over a few nights or weeks or months.　 It is a metabolic disorder in where the pancreas organ ends up causing many disruptions in proper working of our body.　 The pancreas is both an endocrine and exocrine gland. 　The problem with diabetes is due to the endocrine part of the pancreas not working properly.　 More than 1 million islet cells are located throughout the organ.　 The three types of endocrine cells that the pancreas excretes into our blood stream are alpha, beta, and delta cells.　 The alpha cells secrete glucagon (stored glucose), beta secrete insulin, and delta secrete gastrin and pancreatic somatostatin.　　 A person with DM has minimal or no beta cells secreted from the pancreas, which shows minimal or no insulin excreted in the person’s bloodstream.　 Insulin is necessary for the transport of glucose, amino acids, potassium, and phosphate across the cell membrane getting these chemical elements into the cell.　 When getting these elements into the cells it is like the cell eating a meal and the glucose, being one of the ingredients in the meal, is used for energy=fuel to our body; the glucose inside the cells gets carried to all our tissues in the body to allow the glucose to be utilized into all our tissues so they can do their functions (Ex. Getting glucose into the muscle tissue allows the muscles to have the energy to do the range of motion in letting us do our daily activities of living, like as simple as type or walk).　 The problem with diabetes is the glucose doesn’t have the insulin being　sent into the bloodstream by the pancreas　to transfer the glucose across the cell membrane to be distributed as just discussed.　 Instead what results is a high glucose levels in the blood stream causing hyperglycemia.　 It should be apparent that when there is a deficit of insulin, as in DM, hyperglycemia with increased fat metabolism and decreased protein synthesis occur　( Our body being exposed to this type of environment　over　 years causes the development of many chronic conditions that　would not have　occurred if DM never took place in the body, all due to high glucose levels starting with not being properly displaced in the body as it should be normally.).

People with normal metabolism upon awaking and before breakfast are able to maintain blood glucose levels in the AM ranging from 60 to 110mg/dl.　 After eating food the non-diabetic’s blood glucose may rise to 120-140 mg/dl after eating (postprandial), but these then rapidly return back to normal.　 The reason for this happening is you eat food, it reaches the stomach, digestion takes place during digestion the stomach brakes down fats, carbohydrates, and sugars from compound sugars to simple sugars (fructose and glucose).　 Than the sugars transfer from the stomach into the bloodstream causing an increase in sugar levels.　　Now, your body uses the sugar it needs at that time throughout the entire body for energy and if still extra sugar left in the bloodstream that isn’t needed at that time to be utilized it now needs to go somewhere　out of the bloodstream to　allow the glucose blood level to get back between 60-110mg/dl.　 That extra glucose first gets stored up in the liver 60-80% and then gets stored in our fat tissue=fat storage=weight increase.　 Unfortunately this doesn’t take place with a diabetic since there is very little or no insulin being released by the pancreas and over time due to the high blood glucose blood levels (called hyperglycemia) problems arise in the body over years.　　 When diabetes occurs there is　a resolution and you have the disease the rest of your life.　 You need to　control your glucoselevel. 2 TYPES OFDM: a.)Diabetes I 　& b.) Diabetes ll.　We have risk factors that can cause disease/illness; there are unmodified and modified risk factors. With unmodified risk factors we have no control in them, which are 4 and these are: Heredity, Sex, Age, Race. 　Now modified risk factors are factors we can control, 3 of them that you can control is your weight, diet and health habits (which play a big role in why many people get diabetes II).　 Look at what the Mayo Clinic (www.mayoclinic.com /health/diabetes)says about risk factors: See Part 2 tomorrow! 😉