We're starting to gear up for our 08 Walk to A Cure!
If you can join us or would like to make a donation please click on the JDRF
button below!
Thank You for Your Support in helping to find a cure!
Love,
AJ's Avengers, aka Team McCarthy!
To Make a donation to Andrews walk team (AJ's Avengers)
for the JDRF walk for a cure please click on the JDRF Logo!
Update: AJ's Avengers along with Team McCarthy
raised over $6,000.00 during our 07 Walk to a Cure!
Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder which afflicts 14 million people
in the United States, over two million of whom have its most severe form,
childhood diabetes (also called juvenile, Type I or insulin-dependent
diabetes).
How do insulin-dependent and adult onset diabetes differ?
Insulin-dependent diabetes appears suddenly, most often in children and
young adults, and progresses rapidly. In this form, the pancreas ceases to
manufacture insulin, a hormone necessary to convert the food we eat into
energy for the body. People with insulin-dependent diabetes must take one
to four daily injections of insulin to stay alive. But insulin is not a
cure.
In adult onset (Type II) diabetes, the pancreas can still make insulin and
treatment is usually through oral medication and strict diet.
Autoimmunity and Childhood Diabetes
It is now understood that childhood diabetes is an autoimmune illness, and
thus similar to rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis.
Autoimmunity is an illness where the body's own white blood cells, which
normally fight infection, turn on a part of one's body. In childhood
diabetes, these white cells target the cells which produce insulin (the
beta cells of the islets). Over time, so many of these cells are lost that
there is a lack of insulin and diabetes subsequently develops.
Children with diabetes, and families of someone with diabetes, are at risk
for other auto-immune illnesses; for example, approximately one in ten will
develop thyroid autoimmunity (overactive or underactive).
Barbara Davis Medical Center
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation JDRF
Andrew age 11, diagnosed with Type 1 at
9yrs old
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