Diabetes
Diabetes
Diabetes is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either due to the body producing too much or not enough insulin.
Signs and symptoms of diabetes can include:
- always feeling tired
- craving extra liquids
- frequent urination
- numbness and tingling of feet
- always being hungry
- unexplained weight loss.
Our diabetes service is based at Tauranga Hospital and Whakatāne Hospitals.
It will provide you with specialist medical, nursing and dietetic assessment, treatment and care to best manage your diabetes and promote self-management where possible.
There are three main types of diabetes:
- Type 1 diabetes is less common than Type 2. This occurs when your body fails to produce insulin or does not produce enough.
- Type 2 diabetes makes up about 90% of diabetes cases. It is caused by insulin resistance, which is when cells fail to use insulin properly.
Both types of diabetes can cause serious health problems if the blood sugars are not "controlled" i.e. kept as normal as possible.
- Gestational diabetes is when pregnant women who have never had diabetes before have high blood glucose levels during pregnancy.
Related information/resources