Some Important Facts Related To Juvenile Diabetes

Juvenile diabetes is considered as being a chronic ailment that occurs whenever the human body is not able to properly manage sugar levels and will instead store the sugar as a fuel to be used by the body. Later, when the body is unable to break down the glucose so as to facilitate absorption by the cells, this unabsorbed sugar remains in the blood leading to among other things diabetes.

It is believed that approximately three percent of all diabetics suffer from juvenile diabetes and furthermore, it is expected that juvenile diabetes will affect one in seven thousand children on an annual basis. In fact, there are numerous instances of this disease affecting even young adults that have yet to reach the age of twenty.

Another Name For Type 1 Diabetes

There is no difference between juvenile diabetes and Type 1 diabetes though the use of the word juvenile does signify that the disease occurs when the patient is at the beginning of their childhood. Furthermore, children identified as being sufferers of juvenile diabetes will require being given insulin in order to ensure that their bodies are equipped with enough levels of insulin to ensure conversion of their foods into useful energy.

Much research has been conducted by the medical community as well as by scientists that show that juvenile diabetes is also an autoimmune disease which is generally characterized by the fact that the patient's immune system breaks down leading to the body being directed to fight against its own defense system.

Juvenile diabetes causes, or so it is believed, the destruction of the beta cells that are located in the pancreas and more particularly in the Isles of Langerhans and this in turn results in inadequate production of insulin.

The best way to treat juvenile diabetes is through injecting the patient with insulin a minimum of five times on a daily basis as this will then help to regulate the amount of glucose required by the body to treat the diabetic condition. However, insulin cannot and does not even cure diabetes; it does however help to manage the levels of blood glucose and so ensures that the diabetic's life is made that much easier to bear.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is an organization that works with a view to helping parents of diabetic children. This foundation provides useful advice and also offers help that can make the life of diabetics as well as their family members that much better and it allows them to cope with as well as cope with children diagnosed with juvenile diabetes.