Answer 1:
When a person gets diabetes, it is the
pancreas or other tissues that are failing. The
pancreas is responsible for regulating how much
glucose (sugar) is in your blood. After every
meal you eat, your blood sugar levels rise (in
general, if there is more sugar in the food,
like in sodas, then there will be more sugar in
your blood). Because it's not good to have too
much sugar in your blood, your body regulates
how much sugar is in your blood by releasing a
molecule called insulin. In order to remove
sugar from the bloodstream, the insulin molecule
causes tissues in the body (such as liver,
muscle, and fat) to take up this sugar. These
tissues store the sugar for when you need to use
up energy. When the blood sugar levels start
falling, the pancreas stops releasing insulin. A
person with diabetes may not have enough insulin
made by the pancreas, or the tissues that need
to respond to insulin (such as liver, muscle,
and fat) may not respond properly.
I recently wrote a science fair project idea
related to diabetes and glucose levels in the
body that you may be interested in -- if nothing
else, I think the Introduction explains diabetes
pretty well. There is also a good video made by
the Khan Academy. Here is a link to the project
idea:
diabete
s
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Answer 2:
Fantastic questions! A person can get
diabetes at any age, young or old, and the
reason why people get diabetes is still not
completely understood. When a person gets
diabetes, the organ that is having trouble is
the pancreas. The pancreas is responsible for
producing a hormone called insulin. Our body
uses insulin to turn the sugar we eat into
energy. Without insulin sugar builds up in our
blood and our body does not know what to do and
gets very sick. Since diabetics have little or
no insulin produced by their own body they need
to control the amount of sugar they eat and/or
take extra insulin. This does not mean that
diabetics can't eat candy, it just means they
have to know exactly how much sugar they are
putting into their body so that they can take
enough insulin to turn that sugar into energy
since their body will not do that on its own.
Here is a great link to some more detailed
information on diabetes: diabetes research
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