What+is+Diabetes

**__What is diabetes?__**
Diabetes happens when someone's body does not have enough insulin. A car needs fuel to give it the energy to keep working. Our bodies need fuel to give them the energy to keep working. We get the fuel from our food.

The food gets changed into glucose, the main energy that our bodies use. This change happens in our gut and in our liver.

Enzymes help this change (they are not the same enzymes as the ones in washing powder). These enzymes come from several different parts of our body including the pancreas [say pan-kree-ass]. The glucose travels around our bodies inside blood vessels but it cannot be used as energy until it gets into our body cells. Insulin is the key that lets the glucose go through the cell wall into our cells.

If there is not enough insulin there can be a lot of glucose travelling around in the blood, but cells do not have enough energy to work well, which makes people sick. Lots of small clumps of cells in the pancreas make insulin. These cells are called 'islets' because they are like little islands in the pancreas. The rest of the pancreas makes enzymes.

Type 1 diabetes (formerly known as "childhood" or "juvenile" diabetes) is a chronic (lifelong) disease that occurs when the pancreas produces too little insulin to regulate blood sugar levels appropriately. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar (glucose), starches and other food into energy needed for daily life.