
Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes: What’s the Difference?
There are two main types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. Both types of diabetes are chronic diseases that affect the way your body regulates blood sugar, or glucose. Glucose is the fuel that feeds your body’s cells, but to enter your cells it needs a key. Insulin is that key.
People with type 1 diabetes don’t produce insulin. You can think of it as not having a key.
People with type 2 diabetes don’t respond to insulin as well as they should and later in the disease often don’t make enough insulin. You can think of this as having a broken key.
Both types of diabetes can lead to chronically high blood sugar levels. That increases the risk of diabetes complications.
Both types of diabetes, if not controlled, share many similar symptoms, including:
frequent urination
feeling very thirsty and drinking a lot
feeling very hungry
feeling very fatigued
blurry vision
cuts or sores that don’t heal properly
People with type 1 diabetes may also experience irritability and mood changes, and unintentionally lose weight. People with type 2 diabetes may also have numbness and tingling in their hands or feet.
Although many of the symptoms of type 1 and type 2 diabetes are similar, they present in very different ways. Many people with type 2 diabetes won’t have symptoms for many years. Then often the symptoms of type 2 diabetes develop slowly over the course of time. Some people with type 2 diabetes have no symptoms at all and don’t discover their condition until complications develop.
The symptoms of type 1 diabetes develop fast, typically over the course of several weeks. Type
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