Diabetes Causes

What to Look For

Being diagnosed with diabetes of any type can be an unfamiliar and potentially overwhelming time. Not only are you being asked to comprehend living the rest of your life with a serious disease, you are also being asked to make some very important lifestyle and eating changes that can be frustrating and tedious at first. Amidst everything, the most pressing questions in your mind are most likely, "Why me?" and "What caused this illness?" The truth is that there are many myths circulating in the public knowledge about diabetes causes, and you should take the time to educate yourself about what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to this disease.

The first myth that you should put out of your head about diabetes causes is that eating too much candy, sweets or simply eating the wrong kinds of food can lead to a diagnosis. While eating these foods might rot your teeth, there is nothing directly connecting them with a diabetic diagnosis. However, eating an excess of these kinds of foods may certainly lead to a diagnosis of obesity, and obese persons are much more susceptible to developing diabetes.

Stress is another factor commonly and incorrectly attributed to diabetes causes. Just like with eating sweets, too much stress alone is not likely to give you diabetes, however an excessively stressful lifestyle can cause the body to turn on itself, as with Type 1 diabetes in which a lack of insulin producing cells are destroyed by the body’s autoimmune reaction. It is important to note, however, that stress can aggravate the condition of a person already diagnosed with diabetes. A viral or bacterial infection, exposure to chemical toxins that may be present in food, like pesticides, and in some people, an exposure to cow’s milk as a very young infant have been found to be Type 1 diabetes causes.

One of the diabetes causes that have been confirmed by scientists and doctors is obesity. The technical term for an excessive build up of fat within the body of a patient, obesity is a serious condition in American and some other western countries. Diets that include too much processed sugar, white flour, saturated fat, and oil, and not enough fiber, vitamins, and unsaturated fats are prone to creating obesity. Since fat cells actually resist insulin when the body produces it, people who suffer from obesity are much more prone to developing Type 2 diabetes.