What is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a “chronic” disease. It's not like the flu that you can catch lots of times. Once you get diabetes, you always have it and you have to control it. Diabetes has to do with “insulin” which comes from the pancreas. Insulin helps sugar leave the blood and go to cells where it gets used for energy. If you have diabetes, your body doesn't allow the sugar to move from the blood into the cells.

Lots of people have diabetes and more and more are getting it. Diabetes is genetic, it is carried in families. If your mom, dad or grandparents have diabetes, you have a bigger chance of getting it. Most kids have the type of diabetes called type 1. Most grownups get type 2. More and more kids are getting type 2. Doctors think this is because kids are eating too much junk food and gaining weight.

People with diabetes need to take care of themselves and check their blood sugar. You check your blood sugar with a little machine. You poke your finger and get a drop of blood and the machine says the blood sugar number. When diabetes isn't taken care of, you can get kidney problems, blindness, stroke or heart attack.