se. The first part of the name, meaning a siphon or drain, seems quite appropriate. The urine of a person with diabetes contains sugar, which is the reason for the “mellitus” part, from the Latin word for honey. Most people just talk about “diabetes”, but physicians prefer to use its more precise, full name, diabetes mellitus. In this way they avoid confusion with another much rarer disease called diabetes insipidus, in which great qualities of urine are also produced, but it does not contain sugar. Although it is still unclear exactly what causes diabetes, doctors and scientists believe that there are a number of possible causes: The body’s immune system plays an important role in the development of diabetes. The immune system protects us from foreign substances that may enter our bodies, such as viruses and bacteria. For some reason that scientists have yet to understand, the immune system of people with diabetes seeks out the cells that produce insulin and destroys them. This causes people with diabetes to stop producing insulin partially or completely. Without the presence of insulin, diabetes develops. Scientists are still trying to discover what causes the immune system to attack these cells. Heredity plays a role in determining who will develop diabetes. Diabetes-especially Type II diabetes-tends to develop in people with a family history of the disorder. Along with other traits, such as eye color and height, parents can also pass on certain characteristics that may predispose their children to develop diabetes. In the case of Type I diabetes, scientists believe that if a father has diabetes, his children have a 5 to 10 percent chance of developing the disorder before the age of twenty. If a mother has Type I diabetes the children have half the risk, a 2 to 5 percent chance of developing the illness. In addition, the risk of developing Type I diabetes increases with the number of relatives affected. ...
