Type 2 Diabetes is more common than Type 1 Diabetes. (accounts for 85-90% of diabetic cases, and it is thought that there are a further 1 million Type 2 diabetic people but undiagnosed). Type 2 diabetes occurs due to decreased sensitivity of body tissues to insulin (insulin resistance). The body cells become less responsive to the regulatory effects of insulin. Type 2 diabetes usually develops in middle age or later. This tendency has given rise to the term "adult onset diabetes". Type 2 may go unnoticed for years in a patient before diagnosis, since it has a slow onset and the symptoms are typically milder and rather sporadic. However, severe complications can result from unnoticed type 2 diabetes, including renal failure, and coronary artery disease. The symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes is same as Type 1.

• Frequent urination and increased thirst
• Extreme hunger
• Sudden weight loss
• Weakness
• Blurred vision
• Smell of acetone on the breath (a dangerous symptom)· Rapid, deep breathing
• Nausea and vomiting (acute symptoms).
• Few other symptoms could be:
• Slow healing cuts/sores
• Itchy skin
• Leg pain

Complications of type 2 diabetes
Abnormally high levels of glucose sugar in the bloodstream eventually cause tissue damage. Long-term complications include cardiovascular disease, chronic renal failure, retinal damage leading to blindness, nerve damage which can lead to impotence, frequent infections, gangrene with risk of amputation of toes, feet, and even legs.

Causes of diabetes
This is a medically and economically important disease, almost an epidemic. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are partly inherited. It is even becoming possible to sometimes trace the cause to a single defective gene.

Type 1 diabetes could be triggered by infection, stress, or environmental factors. Type 2 diabetes has a stronger inheritance pattern. Monozygotic twins are at nearly 100% risk; 25% of the patients have a family history of diabetes. Approximately 38% of siblings are likely to develop diabetes or abnormal glucose metabolism at some point.

Other causes of diabetes could relate to unhealthy habits as smoking and lack of physical exercise. As per statistics, certain ethnic groups as Africans, Latinos, Hispanics and Asians are possibly more at risk. The "urbanisation phenomenon" for the rise in Type 2 diabetes has been most carefully studied in non-white populations, but probably, it has no ethnic and racial connections, and is influenced more by age, obesity and genetic factors.