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0:00
Hello everybody. My name
is Prof. Karim Meeran.
I am an endocrinologist,
and I'm looking after patients
with both types of diabetes:
Type 1 and Type 2.
Today, we're going to talk
about type 1 and
type 2 diabetes,
and the really
important differences
between those two conditions.
0:21
First of all, what is diabetes?
Diabetes means to literally
pass lots of urine.
Now diabetes mellitus,
which is what we're
talking about today,
mellitus means sweet,
and diabetes mellitus
is very, very common,
and it's called mellitus
because if you taste
the patient's urine,
it will be sweet.
Now, of course, we
don't do that anymore,
but in the distant past
physicians used to diagnose
diabetes mellitus by checking
if the urine was sweet.
People can pass large volumes
of urine, up to 10L daily.
This happens because
the high blood sugar
gets into the urine by osmosis,
and then water and salt follow,
and therefore, you have
lots of urine passed.
1:05
Now what is really interesting
is normal glucose homeostasis.
In fact, the way that
the body controls its
blood sugar is amazing,
and it depends on the
secretion of insulin,
which is secreted
from the pancreas
in response to a meal.
Whenever you have a
meal, your pancreas
makes large amounts of insulin.
Insulin is a messenger.
It's a signal to the
cells all over your body
that all those cells should
start using up glucose
because you've had a meal.
This especially
works in muscle,
a lot of your weight
is muscle, and liver.
Amazingly, in normal people,
blood glucose levels hardly
change whatever you eat.
You can eat a little
bit or a lot.
If you eat a large meal,
the pancreas makes more insulin
and it keeps down your
blood sugar levels.
