What is Diabetes? | Type 1 (Juvenile) Diabetes Facts | General Diabetes Facts

AFFECTS YOUNG CHILDREN
Type 1 diabetes strikes children suddenly, makes them dependent on injected or pumped insulin for life, and carries the constant threat of devastating complications. While diagnosis most often occurs in childhood and adolescence, it can and does strike adults as well. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. While the causes of this process are not yet entirely understood, scientists believe that both genetic factors and environmental triggers are involved.

NEEDS CONSTANT ATTENTION
To stay alive, people with type 1 diabetes must take multiple insulin injections daily or continually infuse insulin through a pump, and test their blood by pricking their fingers for their glucose level six or more times a day. While trying to balance insulin doses with food intake and daily activities, people with this form of diabetes must always be prepared for serious hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) and hyperglycemic (high blood sugar) reactions, both of which can be life-limiting and life-threatening.

INSULIN DOES NOT CURE IT
While insulin allows a person to stay alive, it does not cure diabetes nor does it prevent its eventual and devastating complications: kidney failure, blindness, nerve damage, amputations, heart attack, and stroke.

DIFFICULT TO MANAGE
Despite rigorous attention to maintaining a meal plan and exercise regimen, and always injecting the proper amount of insulin, many other factors can adversely affect efforts to tightly control blood glucose levels including: stress, hormonal changes, periods of growth, physical activity, medications, illness/infection, and fatigue.

Statistics and Warning Signs

As many as 3 million Americans may have type 1 diabetes.^*

Each year over 15,000 children are diagnosed with diabetes in the U.S. That's 41 children each and every day.

Warning signs of type 1 diabetes include: extreme thirst, frequent urination, drowsiness or lethargy, increased appetite, sudden weight loss for no reason, sudden vision changes, sugar in urine, fruity odor on breath, heavy or labored breathing, stupor or unconsciousness. These may occur suddenly.

What is it like to have juvenile diabetes?
Ask people who have juvenile diabetes. It's difficult. It's upsetting. It's life threatening. It doesn't go away.

"Both children and adults like me who live with type 1 diabetes need to be mathematicians, physicians, personal trainers and dieticians all rolled into one. We need to be constantly factoring and adjusting, making frequent finger sticks to check blood sugars, and giving ourselves multiple daily insulin injections just to stay alive."
— Actress Mary Tyler Moore, JDRF's International Chairman

"Diabetes is always there. There's never a vacation. It's like a bad dream that lasts all day, all year, for my entire life."
— Patrick Finan, 16, New York

"Every day, I have to endure up to six injections of insulin and more than ten finger pricks to keep me alive. When my blood sugar is high, my head hurts, I feel angry and sad, and it is hard to concentrate. When my blood sugar is low, I am dizzy, shaky, and in danger of becoming unconscious."
— Emma Melton, 16, Massachusetts

"I already have problems with my kidneys, and I take medicine every day so my kidneys won't fail. I worry about what will happen if a cure isn't found soon. I don't have time to wait."
— LaNiece Evans-Scott, 11, Ohio


* Type 1 Diabetes, 2004;KRC Research for JDRF, Jan. 2005