Diabetes
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a disorder that affects the way our bodies use food for energy and growth. Most of the food we eat is broken down into glucose and passes into the blood. It is then moved into cells where it is broken down and used as the body’s main source of fuel. Insulin – a hormone produced by the pancreas – helps glucose to enter cells. But if a person’s body is not producing or not using insulin properly, then too much glucose accumulates in their blood. This causes diabetes, with symptoms including excessive thirst, frequent urination, extreme hunger, unusual weight loss, fatigue and blurred vision. If left untreated diabetes can lead to coma and even death.
Diabetes can cause complications in other parts of the body, because high glucose levels damage the blood vessels. For instance, it can lead to damage to the eyes, kidneys, heart and nerves. According to the charity Diabetes UK, three million people in the UK have diabetes, including up to a million who have the condition without even knowing.
Some women develop a temporary type of diabetes called gestational diabetes while they are pregnant. This usually goes away after their baby is born, but is linked to an increased risk of developing diabetes later on.
Type 1 diabetes
People diagnosed with type 1 diabetes are usually under 40, and often in their teens or younger. The condition is due to a fault in the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas that causes the body to produce little or no insulin. Sufferers must check their blood glucose levels regularly and usually need daily injections of insulin for the rest of their lives.
Type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is caused by the body making some but not enough insulin or not using what it does produce correctly. It is usually linked to obesity and mostly affects people aged over 40. The condition can usually be treated with a healthy diet, weight loss and exercise, although some sufferers may need tablets or insulin.
A snapshot of MRC research into diabetes
The MRC funds research into diabetes at our Epidemiology Unit and Human Nutrition Research centre in Cambridge and through grants to scientists working at different universities around the country. Our current projects include studying what causes or contributes to people developing diabetes, obesity and related disorders; investigating molecular aspects of the disease, and finding ways of preventing heart disease in diabetic people. Here are some examples:
- Directed by Dr Nick Wareham, the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge has four main programmes, studying the causes of diabetes and obesity in adults, the causes of childhood obesity, the impact of physical activity on the disease, and long-term population studies into ways to prevent obesity and diabetes.
- Professor Jill Belch of Dundee University is carrying out a long-term clinical trial to assess whether giving aspirin and/or antioxidants to diabetic patients who have ‘asymptomatic arterial disease’ reduces their risk of eventual heart disease or stroke.
- At Bristol University, Professors Richard Denton and Jeremy Tavare are trying to find out exactly how insulin regulates the way glucose enters and moves in fat cells, while Professor Geoffrey Holman at the University of Bath is studying the structure and movement of molecules that transport glucose in a range of cells.
- In his work on obesity, Professor Steve Bloom at Imperial College London is investigating how a part of the brain called the hypothalamus regulates food intake, energy expenditure and fat storage.