le with diabetes seeks out the cells that produce insulin and destroys them. This causes people with diabetes to stop producing insulin partially or completely. Without the presence of insulin, diabetes develops. Scientists are still trying to discover what causes the immune system to attack these cells. Heredity plays a role in determining who will develop diabetes.
             Diabetes-especially Type II diabetes-tends to develop in people with a family history of the disorder. Along with other traits, such as eye color and height, parents can also pass on certain characteristics that may predispose their children to develop diabetes. In the case of Type I diabetes, scientists believe that if a father has diabetes, his children have a 5 to 10 percent chance of developing the disorder before the age of twenty. If a mother has Type I diabetes the children have half the risk, a 2 to 5 percent chance of developing the illness. In addition, the risk of developing Type I diabetes increases with the number of relatives affected. For example, if one siblin
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