On Saturday, September 17th, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) hosted a walk to help raise donations to cure diabetes. It was a pleasant two-mile walk that overlooked beautiful Schenley Park. Over 7,000 people, consisting of individuals of every age, attended the walk. JDRF not only hosts these walks every year, but they are the leading charitable funder and advocate of type 1 (juvenile) diabetes.
For those who are not familiar what causes diabetes, it occurs when a person has either too much or too little sugar in their blood. Everyone has some amount of sugar in their blood. We could not live without the glucose that comes from the sugar in foods we eat. It helps cells grow and get the power they need to function properly.
Most people’s bodies do an amazingly good job of controlling the amount of glucose in their blood. One of the body’s organs, the pancreas, makes a very important substance called insulin. Insulin does most of the work in moving glucose out of the blood to where it’s needed in the rest of the body’s cells. In a person who does not have diabetes, the pancreas produces just the right amount of insulin needed by the body.
Type 1 diabetes happens when the body has trouble controlling the level of glucose in its blood. Either the person’s pancreas can’t make insulin, or make enough insulin, or his or her body has a problem using the insulin it does make.
While it has the same causes and results of type two diabetes, type one diabetes strikes children, rather than adults.
As of now, the only treatment available requires multiple injections of insulin daily or a continuous infusion of insulin through a pump. Unfortunately, insulin is not a cure for diabetes, nor does it prevent its eventual and devastating complications, which may include kidney failure, blindness, stroke, heart disease, and amputation.
The JDRF is constantly holding events to raise enough funds to cure diabetes, and to end this devastating disease forever.