What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder which afflicts 14 million people in the United States, over two million of whom have its most severe form, childhood diabetes (also called juvenile, Type I or insulin-dependent diabetes).
How do insulin-dependent and adult onset diabetes differ?
Insulin-dependent diabetes appears suddenly, most often in children and young adults, and progresses rapidly. In this form, the pancreas ceases to manufacture insulin, a hormone necessary to convert the food we eat into energy for the body. People with insulin-dependent diabetes must take one to four daily injections of insulin to stay alive. But insulin is not a cure.
In adult onset (Type II) diabetes, the pancreas can still make insulin and treatment is usually through oral medication and strict diet.
Is Diabetes Serious and Life-Threatening?
In the United States:

• Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death, killing more than 162,000 people each year.
• The mortality rate of patients with insulin-dependent diabetes increases dramatically after 15 years of disease duration.
• 665,000 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed annually.
• Diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness in people between 20 and 70 years of age.

What Are The Complications?
Virtually every major organ system in the body is damaged by diabetes. Complications include blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, amputation of extremities, loss of nerve sensation, early loss of teeth, high-risk pregnancies and babies born with birth defects.
Is Diabetes Costly?
The cost to the health care system for the medical treatment of diabetes and its complications is in excess of $100 billion per year.
Diabetes Can Cause:

• Retinopathy: Nearly 39,000 Americans lose their sight to diabetes each year.
• Nephropathy: 1 out of 3 people with insulin-dependent diabetes develops kidney failure and need kidney transplants.
• Arteriosclerosis: Diabetes can cause arteriosclerosis which leads to heart disease, gangrene and loss of extremities. People with diabetes are 2-4 times more likely to have heart disease than the general population.
• Neuropathy: Diabetic neuropathy leads to severe pain and loss of sensation in extremities. Intestinal problems may also occur. Over 54,000 lower extremity amputations are performed each year on people with diabetes.

What Are The Symptoms Of Diabetes?
Insulin-dependent (onset is usually sudden):

• frequent urination
• excessive thirst
• excessive irritability
• extreme hunger accompanied by loss of weight
• nausea and vomiting
• weakness and fatigue

Non-insulin-dependent (may develop slowly):

• any of the above insulin-dependent symptoms, though not necessarily weight loss and/or
• tingling or numbness in hands or feet
• recurring or hard-to-heal skin, gum, or bladder infections
• fatigue
• blurred vision
• itching

Autoimmunity and Childhood Diabetes
It is now understood that childhood diabetes is an autoimmune illness, and thus similar to rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis.
Autoimmunity is an illness where the body's own white blood cells, which normally fight infection, turn on a part of one's body. In childhood diabetes, these white cells target the cells which produce insulin (the beta cells of the islets). Over time, so many of these cells are lost that there is a lack of insulin and diabetes subsequently develops.
Children with diabetes, and families of someone with diabetes, are at risk for other autoimmune illnesses; for example, approximately one in ten will develop thyroid autoimmunity (overactive or underactive).