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Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Type 1 diabetes is a condition in which your immune system destroys insulin-making cells in your pancreas. These are called beta cells. Without insulin, high levels of glucose accumulate in the blood. The immune system protects our body from invading microbes. There are normally many safeguards that prevent it from attacking the body’s own tissues. In type 1 diabetes, these safeguards fail, and immune cells specifically destroy beta cells.

Hyperglycaemia in diabetes is thought to cause dysfunction of the immune response, which fails to control the spread of invading pathogens in diabetic subjects. Therefore, diabetic subjects are known to more susceptible to infections. The main difference between the type 1 and type 2 diabetes is that type 1 diabetes is a genetic condition that often shows up early in life, and type 2 is mainly lifestyle-related and develops over time. It occurs when the immune system antibodies attack and destroy insulin producing cells in the pancreas.