Stress and Diabetes

Stressful lifestyles and stressful situations cannot cause diabetes, however, they can bring on symptoms in someone who is already headed for diabetes. In people with Type 1 diabetes, the immune system mistakenly attacks its own beta cells of the pancreas. It takes a matter of years or months before this attack on the beta cells eventually causes diabetes. At this time, the number of beta cells are reduced, until the person has very little capability to make insulin.

Stress increases the need for insulin, and in a person who is in the middle of this beta-cell destruction series of events, less insulin is made. The supply of insulin cannot match the demands for insulin under high stress. Thus is the beginning of diabetic symptoms in this scenario.

Stress might also speed up the development of Type 2 diabetes. In people with this disease, the body is not able to use insulin properly and for some, the pancreas fails in its ability to produce enough insulin. In a person headed for Type 2 diabetes, the added demands of stress on the body could jump-start the first symptoms of Type 2 diabetes.

In people who already have diabetes, stress can impact their sugar levels. In people with Type 2 diabetes, mental stress often raises blood sugar, or blood glucose levels. However, in Type 1 diabetes, the effect of stress is variable among individuals. Some people's sugar levels rise, while others' drop. Physical stress, such as illness, or injury to the body raises blood glucose levels in both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

Clearly stress has a physiological impact on diabetes. Acknowledging stress is very important in managing both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes and to some extent, it has a role in the onset of these diseases.