Extra: Teens and Diabetes

What Is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a disease that affects how the body uses glucose, a sugar that is the body's main source of fuel. Like a CD player needs batteries, your body needs glucose to keep running.

Here's how it should work:
1. You eat.
2. Glucose from the food gets into your bloodstream.
3. Your pancreas makes a hormone called insulin.
4. Insulin helps the glucose get into the body's cells.
5. Your body gets the energy it needs.

The pancreas is a long, flat gland in your belly that helps your body digest food. It also makes insulin. Insulin is kind of like a key that opens the doors to the cells of the body. It lets the glucose in. Then the glucose can move out of the blood and into the cells.

But if someone has diabetes, the body either can't make insulin (type 1 diabetes) or the insulin doesn't work in the body like it should (type 2 diabetes). The glucose can't get into the cells normally, so the blood sugar level gets too high. Lots of sugar in the blood makes people sick if they don't get treatment.

Type 1 diabetes can't be prevented.
Doctors can't even tell who will get it and who won't. Type 1 diabetes isn't contagious, so you can't catch it from anyone else or pass it along to your friends. And stuff like eating too much sugar doesn't cause type 1 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is different — sometimes, it can be prevented.
In type 2 diabetes, the pancreas can still make insulin, but the body doesn't respond to it in the right way. This problem is usually related to being overweight. In the past, mainly overweight adults developed type 2 diabetes. Today, more young people have type 2 diabetes, probably because more of them are overweight.

Taking Steps to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes
If you want to help keep yourself from getting type 2 diabetes — or just be healthier in lots of other ways — take these steps:

• Chow down on good-for-you foods. Try to eat foods that are low in fat and high in other nutrients — like whole-grain cereals and breads, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and lean proteins. These super-foods provide you with the nutrition you need to grow but are also great for helping you get to or stay at a healthy weight, which can help prevent type 2 diabetes.

• Limit fast food and sugary sodas. Eating lots of calorie-laden fast food and sugar-filled beverages — like sodas, juices, and iced teas — can lead to a lot of weight gain.

• Get up and go. Staying active and decreasing the amount of time spent in sedentary activities (like watching TV, surfing online, or playing video or computer games) can help prevent type 2 diabetes. You don't need to hit the gym or commit to three sports every semester — being active can be as simple as walking the long way to classes or always taking the stairs. Try to do something that gets you moving every day.

• If you have questions about your weight, ask. If you think you may be overweight or you're just wondering about ways to be healthier, your parents and doctor can help. They can help you find out what your weight goals should be and how to get there — and stay there.

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