“Diabetes mellitus” is the generic term for multiple disorders of human metabolism. The main feature of diabetes is chronic hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), which is why it is colloquially referred to as “diabetes.” But not only the carbohydrate metabolism can be disturbed. Fat and protein metabolism can also be affected. A distinction is made between type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Type 1 is an autoimmune disease in which the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are destroyed by the body’s own defense system. The body no longer produces insulin. Type 2 affects about 90 percent of diabetes patients. The main characteristic of this variant is that the effect of insulin in the body’s cells is reduced (=insulin resistance) and is thus always simultaneously coupled with an insulin deficiency.