Diabetes is a disorder that affects the way your body uses food for energy. Tends be a long-term (chronic) condition caused by too much glucose (sugar) in the blood. Diabetes is a chronic (life-long) condition that can have serious consequences. It is now the leading cause of new blindness in people 20 to 74 years of age. Diabetes is the fifth deadliest disease in the United States. Diabetes is a disease characterized by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both.

If your body doesn't make enough insulin, or if the insulin doesn't work the way it should, glucose can't get into your cells.

The signs of diabetes are being very thirsty urinating often feeling very hungry or tired losing weight without trying having sores that heal slowly having dry, itchy skin losing the feeling in your feet or having tingling in your feet having blurry eyesight.

The good news is: You can reduce the risk of getting diabetes and even return to normal blood sugar levels with modest weight loss and moderate physical activity.

If you're 45 or older and overweight (Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI) you may want to get tested more often. The best way to prevent diabetes is to make some lifestyle changes, maintain a healthy weight.

If your body does not make enough insulin or the insulin does not work right, the sugar can't get into the cells, so it stays in the blood.

Since glucose cannot enter the cells, it builds up in the blood and the body's cells literally starve to death. Type 1 diabetes is a disease that results from the body's failure to produce insulin, the hormone that "unlocks" the cells of the body allowing glucose to enter and fuel them.

More than 20 million Americans now live with the condition. Tomato juice is an effective blood thinner in persons with type 2 diabetes, suggests Australian research published in the August 2004 issue of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association.

People with pre-diabetes are at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes and for heart disease and stroke. It's a lifestyle disease, triggered by obesity, a lack of exercise, increased age and to some degree, genetic predisposition.

Type 1 diabetes is most common in those younger than 20, although a person could develop it at any age. While it's not uncommon, it can still be scary if you or your child has just been diagnosed. The disease is most common in overweight people older than 40.