Question:What is the relationship between age and the risk of
developing type 1 and type 2 diabetes? Answer:We divide diabetes
broadly into two types, one's called type 1 and one's called
type 2. It's an arbitrary division, but type 1 is a disease in
which your own body destroys your insulin-secreting cells, the
islets; this is an immune abnormality. And it used to be called
'juvenile onset' diabetes because mostly children would get
this. But then people became aware, as the years went on and
research continued, that in fact you could get this same disease
when you were 92. But what happens is, when you're 20, 30, 40,
60, 80, the process of destroying the islets seems to occur more
slowly. So it was confusing for years, but now we know it's the
same disease. So therefore, although it's most common in
children, you can still get type 1 diabetes as you get older. On
the other hand, the other type of disease we talk about is type
2 diabetes, and that's where your insulin-secreting cells are
still there, but the