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creas (the organ where insulin is made). With the beta cells destroyed, the pancreas can no longer produce insulin, and the person with diabetes must give himself regular insulin shots to regulate his blood-sugar level. Type 1 diabetes is a very serious disease requiring constant medical management, but it’s relatively rare. Gestational diabetes is a complication that can occur during pregnancy. Certain hormones produced during pregnancy can interfere with insulin function and production, and diabetes can result. Although gestational dia- betes can be serious, once the pregnancy is over, the patient’s blood-sugar and insulin levels usually return to normal. Neither gestational nor type 1 diabetes is caused by obesity (although obesity could worsen the condition). Only type 2 diabetes is directly associated with overweight and obesity. This is the type of diabetes Tara’s mother has developed.

Type 2 Diabetes In the past, doctors referred to type 2 diabetes as adult-onset diabetes because it occurred almost exclusively in adults. In adulthood, people tend to become less active and gain weight, especially during one’s forties, fifties, sixties, and beyond. However,

the medical community now refers to adult-onset diabetes as type 2 diabetes because as childhood obesity has increased over recent decades, so too has the number of diabetic children. Doctors now understand that type 2 dia- betes develops at any age, even in childhood, suggesting that age is not as strong an influence on the condition as obesity is. The term “adult” simply no longer applies to this disease. Today, 90 to 95 percent of all diabetes cases are type 2. So what exactly is type 2 diabetes? When a person has this condition, his body makes too little insulin (this is called insulin deficiency) or doesn’t

Not So Sweet: Diabetes / 27