Complications of Diabetes:

Untreated Diabetes Mellitus may lead to severe Complications that may be acute or chronic.

The two main complications of diabetes that arise from a severe insufficiency of insulin include hypoglycemia and Diabetic acidosis and coma. An actual lack of insulin or a relative deficiency of insulin causes severely elevated blood sugar levels.

Abnormally low blood sugar levels due to too much insulin or other glucose-lowering medications.

Insulin is very important to patients with type 1 diabetes - they cannot survive without an exogenous source of insulin.

Without insulin, patients with type 1 diabetes develop severely elevated blood sugar levels leading to increased excretion of glucose in the urine, which in turn leads to excessive loss of fluids and electrolytes.

Lack of insulin also causes the inability to store fat and protein. This dysregulation, results in the process of ketosis and the release of ketones into the blood.

The ketones turn the blood acidic, a condition called diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). With no proper medical treatment, patients with Diabetic Ketoacidosis can rapidly go into shock, coma, and even death.