Sara Miles

Student, Alternative Genre Project

Diabetes Brochure
December 5, 2021

Diabetes Overview
Diabetes is a serious disease involving blood sugar and insulin that can wreak havoc on every
part of the body. There are records dating back hundreds of years to a medical condition that
sounds like diabetes. Due to more people developing the
disease it has been discovered that there are two types.

Type 1
Type 1 diabetes is the more rare type of diabetes to have.
It is when someone cannot produce insulin or at least not
enough for the body. When someone has type 1 they are
usually born with it. Though there has been some rare
cases of it happening later in life.

Type 2
Type 2 is the most common type of diabetes. It’s when the
pancreas doesn’t make insulin with the right receptors.
Without the correct receptors it cannot open the cell for it
to absorb the glucose ingested.

Commonalities
As seen above both types do have a lot of differences between them. But even if the cause is
different the side effects and health risks are the same.
2

Health Risks
The first health risk associated with diabetes is diabetic neuropathy or nerve damage. This is
especially common in people who have had diabetes for a long time. It is also one of the most
common health issues of diabetics. Though a subset of it is peripheral neuropathy which
causes pain, tingles, numbness in the hands and feet. This is the one most talked about
because diabetics are known to have a lot of problems with their feet from the pain and
numbness to bad blood flow.

Another deadly health risk associated with diabetes is cardiovascular disease. Diabetes causes
the blood vessels in the body to shrink as well as making a build up of plaque buildup within
them. Blood vessels transport oxygen to all parts of the body, the most important of which are
the heart and brain. If a blockage happens in a blood vessel in either of those two places it can
cause a heart attack and or a stroke to occur.

A third health risk associated with diabetes is kidney failure. This is from the kidneys being
overworked due to them trying to filter out all the excess sugar in the body. It leads to them
putting off other things that need to be filtered out. And eventually from being overworked so
much the kidneys start to fail. This causes the patient to have to do dialysis usually for the rest
of their life.

The final health risk associated with diabetes in this brochure is skin conditions. This is also
usually the first sign of diabetes. Diabetes can worsen pre existing skin conditions as well as
bring about more. The most common skin condition seen in diabetics is bacterial infections.
There's also some skin conditions you can only develop if you are a diabetic which are: diabetic
dermopathy, necrobiosis lipoidica diabeticorum, diabetic blisters, and eruptive xanthomatosis.