So very true in all aspects of your post. I think from my standpoint and for much of the first half of my journey with this disease, I was in a poor me, pity me, the world is against me mindset. I felt life was so unfair and what did I do to deserve this. And back than parents of “juvenile diabetics “ kind of feed it.
But as I have meet more and more people with diabetes and I hear their stories, I have come to realize as much as I hate the day to day, I can manage it pretty well. And I hear the people talk about the many different doctors they have for all the medical problems they have. And the medications they take, I cringe thinking about how they juggle all of it everyday. I take insulin and a statin for preventive measures. That’s it. I see my endo every four months and my PCP every few years or as needed and my eye doctor every year, foot doctor when needed. So yes, I am very fortunate. But listening to these stories and others daily norm, I have come to realize there are many, many others who have it much, much harder than I do. Sure I have crappy days or weeks. But everything always comes back in line. I am always very defensive whenever I hear someone say that same old same old, that people with type 2 did it to themselves. It drives me crazy! Just like I did nothing to cause my diabetes no one with type 2 asked for it. And I am always in awe of people later in life who can just switch over and make all the changes that must be made when diagnosed with diabetes.
Another personal belief that it is easier as a child to be diagnosed with diabetes, because I had no bad habits started. My parents told me what I could and couldn’t do and it became my norm. I don’t know how I could handle be very set in my ways and learning everything just got turned upside down.
These chat lines are great for us all to voice our opinions and I love hearing others viewpoint. But I do stand firm on the statement that no one caused their diabetes! No one has control over family, genetics or how their body reacts to things. So which is easier? Let’s just throw it up in the air and say both can suck sometimes, both can be challenging sometimes and sometimes the blood sugar fairies are nice and let things ride smoothly once in awhile!
I was diagnosed in 1959 with type 1 when I was 8. I knew children who died and never had a chance to grow up to even have the argument about about whether it is more difficult to have type 1 or 2 diabetes. These type 1 children never had a chance.
Sometimes I agree that it is easier to become a diabetic at an earlier age, but we who were diagnosed as children also have a lot more years to be ravaged by this illness, if we have been fortunate enough to make it to adulthood. Most make it now but some don’t.
I admire people who have become diabetic as adults, and have had to change their lives.
I know that I had to change my way of eating several times as an adult and I found that it can be done. It has helped me become a very strong disciplined person.It is difficult but much of life is.
I was fortunate to have this disease for 50 yrs before I had any serious complications from it. Now after having been a type 1 for 60 yrs I can see what having had this disease has done to me both physically and emotionally over the years. I worry a lot about what the next years will be like. Will I still be able to make sense of how much insulin I need or what foods I can eat? If in a nursing home will I have competent help? I really doubt it, because competent medical professionals can be hard to find.
I think I could rely on a nurse to give me a pill but could she figure out the correct insulin doses? I feel bad for all diabetics who become insulin dependent whether type 1 or 2 and whether young or old.
I have always said that there are far worse illnesses to have than diabetes, but this is a very difficult illness to have for all of us. I am not finding it any easier as I age.
We all need to be treated with kindness. We are all fighting for our lives.
We all need to treat and be treated with kindness, diabetic or not!!!
Have a Merry Christmas
and/or a Contented Feast of the Immaculate Conception
or Happy Hanukkah
or Joyous Kwanzaa
or a Kickn’ “Tet”
or a Blissful Bodhi Day
or a Cheerful Maunajiyaras
or Wonderful Festival of Lights
or a Blessed Ramadan
or a Good Winter Solstice
and/or a Joyful Canadian Boxing Day
and a Festive Festivus,
and a Happy New Year!
I try to be kind to all people, because we are all fighting our own battles. People can always use a smile and a kind word, even people we don’t agree with.
I am a morbidly obese T2. I have heard and seen many times, on TuD and many other places, that I am worth less as a human being because I allow my unbridled lusts for sweets and other inappropriate foods to give me this terrible disease. Indeed, I really do accept that improper eating and the accompanying overweight tend to aggravate both diabetes and its complications. But am I really so thoroughly guilty for these behaviors?
I was a very, very fat infant, even at the age of a few months. The photos are hard to argue with. There is plenty of research associating infant obesity with lifelong obesity, apparently through endocrine processes which, among other mechanisms, increase appetite and a desire for sugar. So if I am guilty, the two- or three-month old pre-me was probably much more so. The courts and the dispensers of justice in many societies try to avoid assigning criminal guilt to infants, but many diabetics refuse to take part in this sloppy sentimentality. Punishment for the Type 2s! (Yes, I’ve really heard this. From a doctor.)
So what is my point in all of this? Just blowing off some boiling bile? No, there’s yet an earlier stage to the story, before me the criminal infant and me the criminal adult. When I was born, I was not breastfed at all, because of a fashion in that time and place. I was fed “formula”. And there’s now plenty of research on the negative correlation between breastfeeding on the one hand and both infant and adult overweight on the other. So it turns out that aside from an opportunity for namecalling, wchich we all love, there is a practical lesson to be learned from all of these discussions about the guilty T2s:
You ladies who are young and having babies, nurse them with your own milk! There are a lot of other medical advantages to breastfeeding, but just reducing one’s child’s chances of getting this disease with all of its complications is quite enough. In fact, just reducing your child’s chances of getting the dirty looks reserved for the overweight is quite enough reason to nurse them.
And I don’t mean than you should start out nursing them, and then once slip a box of formula in the house when you’re in a hurry. And the next time, you won’t be in quite as much of a hurry, but you’ll still find a reason. The famous slippery slope.
MOTHERS, YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT DIABETES? YOU WANT TO DO YOUR SHARE AGAINST THE EPIDEMIC OF OBESITY? NURSE YOUR BABIES! (You may even decide it’s fun.)
Your story and observations are compelling, @MapleSugar. I live with T1D, so please excuse any ignorance I may have in making this comment. Over the years here at TuD, I’ve learned that type 2 diabetes likely follows a sequence of events that few in the general public are aware, even many who live with T2D.
The theory goes like this: a defect causes dysfunctional T2D metabolic physiology, possibly due to a genetic predisposition, occurs first, even before substantial weight gain. Once that dysfunction takes root then large weight gains follow and make it harder to lose weight.
In other words, T2D occurs before and then drives the weight gain.
Gluttony and sloth do not cause type 2 diabetes! I truly believe a genetic weakness sets people up for this condition and it then sets up a slippery slope to make effective treatment difficult. Current clinical medicine has failed miserably to help patients.
Here’s one program that has enjoyed amazing success in treating T2D over the last few years. I have read the one and two-year test results that provide impressive and hopeful data. It may not work for every patient but the numbers it produces exceeds any of the current clinical regimens in place.
Interesting. both my husband and son are prediabetic. My husband because of taking statins and my son because he eats and drinks too much of whatever sounds good at the time. My husband is 5’9” and weighs 150. He eats mostly like I do, so I doubt that he will gain weight if his A1c continues to climb. His last A1c was 6, so he is working hard to lower that. Before statins his A1c was perfect. None of his blood relatives had or have diabetes.
My 31 yr old son seems to be unable to control his eating, and is about 40 lbs overweight. All through his childhood and adulthood he watched me deal with this disease, but he is still able to control his eating. His last A1c was 5.7 or 5.8. I am scared for his future. Maybe actually being diagnosed with diabetes and having to take medication will force him to change his ways if he is capable of doing so. He was a thin child. The more weight he gains, the higher his A1c
I too believe that nursing is extremely helpful, so I nursed my son for a long time. Such good bonding time.
My understanding is that genes are a factor only in response to an environmental trigger (or triggers) which gets things going. As evidence of this (and really, I’m sure you’ll agree – neither one of us really knows), I look to the many patients I’ve seen from other countries, particularly central America and southeast Asia who, a few years after arrival in the US, develop T2D and/or other metabolic conditions. It’s not like they were eating especially low carb in Mexico or Pakistan. Like others way more intelligent and dedicated that me, I believe it’s the additional processed crap, particularly white sugar and HFCS that we consume in un Godly quantities in this country that set them over the edge. To my mind, and at this point, there’s just no doubt. Genes are not destiny is an adage that I still stick to very firmly.
Although he does not specifically address the gene question per se, Jason Fung, on the Drive podcast with Peter Attia (who is an investor in Virta), fleshed out the mechanism of insulin resistance. What is it? he asked, stating this is the most important problem in medicine. The way we think about it is wrong, he says. We think insulin resistance is a problem of glucose not getting into the cells, in the presence of normal levels of insulin, leading to high levels of glucose, so the cell is resistant; it’s the old lock and key problem: something is gumming up the system and the cell is starved. That’s our thinking. But it’s almost 100% incorrect, says Fung. The paradox is insulin has many different functions only one of which is letting glucose into the cell. Insulin is responsible for de novo lipogenesis. With T2D, how can it be that insulin is working with de novo lipogenesis but not working by not letting glucose in the cells?! That is the paradox. Peter Attia added to the point that a very common phenotype of resistance is obesity. For a fat cell to get larger it has to incorporate triglycerides, and to incorporate triglyceride, insulin is required! To keep insulin in the fat cell, requires insulin. So the fat cell is quite sensitive to insulin! A new paradigm is needed, he says. It is an overflow problem, not underfill. We say they are not getting glucose into the cell, but there are two reasons that might not happen: 1) door is closed; or 2) already too full. So this is a totally different paradigm. It’s an overflow paradigm. Why is the liver making so much fat? Because it’s jammed full. The problem is not insulin resistance, it’s hyperinsulinemia. Our solution is to jam them up with more insulin. But really, it should be to get rid of the glucose, which is totally different than what we’ve been taught.
That is so insightful! In addition to over-processed foods and HFCS there are the endocrine desruptors from plastics and other environmental pollutants.
This is extremely unfortunate, TuD is meant to be a safe and supportive place for diabetics of all types. To shame or blame someone goes against The Values of TuDiabetes. I am sorry that you have felt shamed and blamed here.
In my life that is an obvious solution that works well, limit glucose intake.
No surprise.
My mother did not nurse any of her four children. Out of the four I am only t2 but slim diabetic. My sister a non diabetic was morbidly obese, until she did a gastric bypass.
At least in my family not nursing and diabetes has no correlation, Of course every person who is a diabetic has a different story.
i nursed my son who was diagnosed at 14 with Type 1, so don’t blame formula because most people i know used formula and they aren’t either type nor do they have obesity issues but my son was a lil overweight at diagnosis and now i’m worried about him not weighing enough he lost 35lbs in 10 months! i need to go all the way with the low carbs and lose a few myself Best Wishes to you and hope the cure for all types will be revealed in thevery near future!!
As someone with limited knowledge of how genes work, I understand our genes as giving us a range of expression in health outcomes. I agree that exposure to environmental factors can play a crucial role in how our set of genes express themselves. The study of this phenomena is called epigenetics.
I read one theory recently that proposed that the genes handed down from one generation to the next is impacted by epigenetics and that genetic weaknesses or strengths can accumulate over more than one generation. This is a sped-up version of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
When you look at the incidence of type 2 diabetes and obesity over the last several decades, one can see that trends got worse starting in 1980. Those negative health trends are consistent with consuming less fat, less saturated fat, less red meat, and fewer eggs. We replaced those foods mostly with processed carbohydrates, often made more palatable with added sugar including high fructose corn syrup.
While I agree that genes are not destiny, they do have a profound impact in how our health plays out over our lifetime. I agree that we can optimize our genetic expression toward the most healthful but we still are limited to whatever range of possibility our genes grant us.
Many factors likely play into a disease like type 2 diabetes and we don’t understand how all these variables interact. This discussion reminds me of the classic arguments of Fate versus Free Will. I think the ultimate determinant of all of our lives is some blend of these two diametrically opposed forces.
I think we do ourselves a disservice to polarize our understanding of disease causes to either extreme, genes or lifestyle. I find the cultural prejudice of blaming and shaming people with T2D as particularly distasteful and view its basis extreme. It heaps all responsibility for the disease onto the lifestyle choices of the person and ignores genetic predisposition.
This is a complicated topic and one that should be fully tempered by the kindness that the original poster writes about. Kindness can lead us out of this mess and in the meantime help individuals make better choices and enjoy better health.
Jayden’s Momma,
A heartfelt welcome to TuDiabetes! I’m sure you’ll find this community useful and encouraging.
I wasn’t blaming anyone or anything. I was merely making a suggestion based on statistical correlations, themselves based on large numbers and careful work.
These were the first five relevant studies that I found on pubmed. I could have found a zillion more, but my finger got tired. Note that they relate only to overwheight and obesity, not diabetes.
And it never hurts to study the original sources. I may be lying, or they may have made serious errors. And even just to read what you already know sometimes strengthens your resolve.
Thanks, and welcome again, JM,
M.
I am not a medical professional , but I did try to read and understand the papers presented. I have one question, and definitely would like to be better informed.
Based on the presented papers the conclusion is there is some connection between not breast feed and adult obesity. I don’t seen any conclusion that connects not breast feeding with adult morbid obesity. Please point out to me if I am incorrect.
Hi!
Me neither.
As far as I remember, those papers don’t explicitly mention such a connection. In fact, as far as I remember, in the whole thread the only mention of MO in the whole thread was by me, only in describing myself.
On the other hand, assuming that non-breastfeeding is in some sense a partial cause of adult obesity, I would expect it to also be associated with morbid obesity, since the difference between the two is extremely arbitrary, as one would expect the difference between two such definitions to be. (In fact, in my innocent youth I was suddenly cured of a metabolic illness by having the numerical cutoff point suddenly changed.)
On the arbitrary nature of the cutoff between obesity and morbid obesity, and therefore the reasonableness of a guess at common causes, someone might want to read section 1.5 of An Up-to-Date Vision on the Aetiology and on the Epidemiology of Obesity and Morbid Obesity | SpringerLink . In fact, IMHO, that whole chapter is a good introduction to some medical perspectives on everything we’ve been discussing in this thread.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.2047-6310.2012.00064.x also has a lot on the question of cutoff points here.
Good luck, and thanks for putting up with so many words,
M.
I love the article. Well written and well thought out. There is so much people don’t know about diabetes. I have had doctors ask if I had sugar diabetes or if I was boarderline. Ok sugar diabetes, I didn’t know that there was a form that was sugar free diabetes. And boarderline diabetes, really? Diabetes is like a tattoo. You either have it or you don’t. You wouldn’t walk up to someone with a fading tattoo and say Oh, you have a boarderline tattoo. That would be crazy, but people still think that if you are just on pills then your not a real diabetic. This thinking drives me crazy. I agree with the writer, we as diabetics need to change people’s perception of the disease by educating and advocacy.
If you have been a diabetic for years, like you have, it is possible that the antibodies no longer are present, so that cannot conclusively exclude you from being a Type 1.5 (or LADA). How long you were are oral medication before requiring insulin, the amount of insulin, and how low your c-peptide was could make it more suspicious could be taken into consideration in trying to determine if you are 1.5 or not. (If you are curious however, finding out if you are or not might not necessarily change anything).