What is Diabetes?

If you have been living with diabetes for a while, you probably already know how serious the disease is. And you are probably aware about the importance of better management of your diabetes to help prevent worsening symptoms and other health complications. ConditionCare can help you just do that.

If you are newly diagnosed, you may have heard people say their sugar is a little high. These words suggest that diabetes is not a serious disease. That is not correct. Diabetes is a serious health concern for the Hispanic community. But you can learn to manage it! And ConditionCare can help.

Diabetes is a disease of high levels of blood sugar (glucose). Your body changes most of what you eat into glucose.

Glucose travels throughout your body in your blood. Insulin is a hormone that helps move the glucose from your blood into your cells. Every cell in your whole body must have glucose for energy for healthy living.

Having diabetes means one of the following happens:

• Your body does not make any insulin
• Your body does not make enough insulin
• Your body makes insulin that doesn’t work right - sometimes doctors may tell you that “your body is resistant to insulin”

When your body doesn’t have enough insulin to help move the glucose from your blood into your cells, your blood sugar levels stay high. Uncontrolled high blood sugar levels gradually cause diabetes.

The most common types of diabetes are type 1 and type 2.