More than 30,000 Andalusians have type 1 diabetes. An autoimmune disease that destroys the beta cells of the pancreas, responsible for producing insulin, the glucose regulator.Most people who debut with this disease are under fifteen, so they are also known as children's diabetes.It is not known what causes, but it is not caused by eating a lot of sugar, having obesity or a sedentary life.Therefore, those who have type 1 diabetes feel often misunderstood.As they say, it may be the most unknown disease.
"I am Elena, I am eight years old, I am in third grade and I have diabetes."Counted in the first person or with the pain it produces in the closest environment.It is the difficult experience of living with type 1 diabetes, especially when those who debut with this disease are children.In Andalusia, there are 3,200 minors diagnosed.It is a metabolic disease that has an autoimmune base.Autoimmune means that the antibodies that are caused, which are produced by the body itself, attack the cells that produce insulin and what they end up causing is an absolute deficit of the ability to produce insulin.
And if the body does not produce insulin, a hormone, it cannot control the glucose level, which we popularly call sugar.A very high blood level can even be deadly.A very low level can lead to coma.Type 1 has no cure and represents between 10 and 5 % of diabetes.The most common and known is type 2. Confusing both processes causes a distorted vision of the disease.
Type 1 diabetes and type 2 are two completely different diseases that the only thing they share is high glucose.The basis of type 1 diabetes is the lack of ability to produce insulin.Type 2 diabetes is the result of insulin action resistance, aspects that cause this insulin resistance because they are, for example, obesity, overweight, sedentary lifestyle so that the big difference is that the styles ofLife can avoid and prevent type 2 diabetes while type 1 diabetes is not mediated by life styles.
A foundation born in Andalusia, created by parents who do not surrender and have been among the most prestigious in the world.They have been collected 800,000 euros and finance five projects, including, who leads the Canadian researcher Benoit Gauthier, one of the great type 1 diabetes specialists.In this Sevillian center, the Cabimer.Its research line is based on developing therapeutic molecules and targets that can reverse the process of type 1 diabetes. In fact, they have already patented a molecule with good preclinical results.