Diabetes : What is diabetes? (BD Medical - Diabetes Care)

When you swallow food, it goes into your stomach where enzymes break it down to simple sugars.
The sugars that are found in food like potato, bread and pasta are taken out more slowly by the enzymes than the sugars that are in sweet food such as chocolate and toffees.

The sugar is then taken from your stomach to your small intestine where it enters your blood stream to be carried around your body.
Normally, when sugar starts entering your blood stream, a hormone called insulin is released from a part of your body called the pancreas.

Insulins job is to take the sugar out of the blood stream and feed it to all the cells that make up your body.

Each cell is like a tiny oven that uses the sugar as fuel. They need a constant supply of sugar to keep them going.

When you have Type 1 diabetes, your pancreas doesn't produce insulin any more.
Your stomach will continue to take out the sugar from the food you eat but there will be no insulin to take it out from your blood stream and feed it to your body cells.

This means that the amount of sugar in your blood keeps on going up and the cells don't get any fuel.
At this point, your body will start to tell you that something is not right. You'll probably pass a lot of urine, feel thirsty, hungry and lose weight.