What is diabetes?

Most of the food we eat is turned into glucose (sugar) for our body to use for energy. The pancreas, an organ that lies near the stomach, makes a hormone called insulin to help glucose enter the cells of our bodies. When you have diabetes, your body either does not produce enough insulin, or cannot use the insulin it does produce as well as it should. This causes glucose to build up in your blood.

Left untreated, diabetes can cause serious complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, loss of feeling to the hands and feet and lower extremity amputations. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.