What is Diabetes?

Chances are, if you found this website, you already know a little something or two about diabetes. You may be new to diabetes and in search of more information. Or not. Maybe, you have lived with diabetes for a long time but have questions. Whatever your stage, living well with diabetes is a commitment to lifelong learning. There is ALWAYS more to learn about diabetes.

But maybe, like me, you are now expected to inform the people around you. I’ve found diabetes is not easy to explain and it usually requires more than a short sentence, which means people's eyes glaze over and you lose them before you get to the "good" stuff. But recently, I’ve stumbled upon an explanation that seems to engage people more and they start asking for more detailed information - I wrote about that experience in more detail here.

In a Nutshell

What is Diabetes?
Diabetes happens when the process of turning food into fuel is broken. Our bodies use food as fuel, or energy, to breath, blink, grow, regenerate, live, etc.
It does this by turning that food into glucose (not sugar) which travels to our cells, where the “insulin” key unlocks the cell door and lets the glucose inside to turn into energy.

The piece of the Food to Fuel process that is broken is the Insulin “key”: the keys are either all dead or they are all sick and unable to do what they need to do.
If diabetes isn’t diagnosed and treated the result is fatal.