Diabetes mellitus is a dysfunction of either insulin production and secretion (Type 1) or the tissue’s insensitivity to the insulin hormone (Type 2 & gestational). As a consequence, glucose can not get into most cells of the body resulting in high blood sugar and cells ‘starving’ for glucose. Blood sugar becomes abnormally high, regardless of when or what a person has eaten.

An increasingly common disease, diabetes mellitus is diagnosed in both adults and children; however, millions of adults have undiagnosed diabetes. In addition, the population as a whole is approaching pre-diabetic levels, a condition in which blood glucose levels are abnormally high, but not yet high enough to be classified as diabetes.

This chapter is subdivided into:

• Pre-test
• Anatomy & histology of endocrine pancreas and glucose homeostasis
• Normal gross anatomy & histology of pancreas
• Type I (1) diabetes
• Type II (2) diabetes
• Gestational diabetes
• Diagnosis of diabetes
• Consequences of chronic high sugar in other systems
• Interprofessional collaboration during care of diabetes
• Management and treatment of diabetes
• Consequences of untreated high blood sugar: diabetic ketoacidosis
• Video of patient and family’s life with Type I diabetes: the McKinstry family
• Chapter summary
• Post-test

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used throughout the chapter.