We ran this piece this moringing on Diabetes News Hound and I was wondering if anyone has dealt with this firsthand with a family member or loved one and is willing to share. Diabetes May Speed up Decline in Patients With Mild Dementia
OTHER CURRENT HEADLINES FROM DIABETES NEWS HOUND
Diabetes Costs U.S. Economy $218 Billion Per Year
Blood Pressure Meds Said to Help Prevent Diabetic Retinopathy
Diabetic Sibling Can Tell You a Lot About Your Gestational Diabetes Risk
In a recent study, scientists discovered that the brain also produces insulin. In patients in which their brains had stopped producing insulin, symptoms of dementia and Alzeheimer’s were noticed. This is now being considered as a Type 3 Diabetes. While very little is known at this time, it doesn’t seem unlikely to me that a deterioration in the body, itself, from complications of Diabetes, may lead to this sort of situation in which the mind will not produce insulin anymore.
In the last stages of his life, my father (a Type 2 Diabetic), did indeed go through dementia. He had already had his kidneys fail, his eye sight fail, he had to inject insulin every day, and he could not walk anymore, on his own, due to the advanced neuropathy in his legs/extremities. My father passed away from respiratory failure, in the OR, while being prepped for a foot amputation. In the last months of his life, he lived in the past… and barely remembered the present. He treated us much like an Alzeheimer’s patient would… recognizing the person, but not the decade… if that makes any sense. I was always me, to him, but not me… today. I was me, but back in 1989. He was only 64 yrs old.