Diabetes occurs when the body does not make enough insulin or doesn’t respond to insulin properly.

Your body is a fuel-burning machine, and the main fuel it burns is sugar, also known as glucose. In people who have diabetes, though, the body doesn’t effectively store and use sugar for energy. As a result, sugar builds up in the blood, where it can lead to serious problems like blindness and nerve damage. Let’s talk about a kind of diabetes known as type 1 diabetes. Unlike type 2 diabetes, which is often caused by obesity, type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. That means your immune system, which normally protects your body, turns against you. In this case, the immune system attacks the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that moves sugar into cells. There it’s stored until your body needs it for energy. Without enough insulin, sugar can’t move into your cells, so it builds up in your bloodstream.