Diabetes has been recognized as a unique disease for more than three thousand years.

Diabetes is an autoimmune disease. This means the immune system is defective and attacks or mediates an attack on the body’s healthy tissue and organs.

There are two types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. In type 1 diabetes, which is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, the immune system attacks the islet cells of the pancreas (the cells in the body that produce insulin) and the body does not produce insulin. In type 2 diabetes, which is usually diagnosed in adults, the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells ignore the insulin.

In addition to the one to two million Americans with type 1 diabetes, approximately 30,000 individuals – mostly children – are newly diagnosed with the disease each year.

Understanding the Cost
Soaring amounts of money are spent each year to fight diabetes in the U.S. and worldwide. The chronic long-term care costs of managing type 1 diabetes are estimated to be between $15,000 and $20,000 per person with type 1 diabetes per year. Care costs are dramatically increased once the complications of the disease begin to emerge.

Working Toward a Cure
We have known about diabetes for a very long time, but we still don’t have a cure. Only in the last hundred years have we been able to treat diabetes, and current therapies only manage the symptoms and slow the progression of the disease. Innovations in medicine take time, resources and money. We need to keep working.

Frequently Asked Questions
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Volunteer
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Information From www.joinleenow.org.