Erika Krueger-Santos, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
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Richard, your very good results are most likely due to a genetic protection against the development of type 1 diabetes complications, especially given the many decades of extreme high blood sugar you doubtlessly had in the days when only the most indirect and approximate measures of glycemic control were available, I. e., urine sugar testing. Typically hyperglycemic memory would perpetuate that damage today regardless of your present blood sugar control if you were genetically susceptible to it. I was diagnosed in 1966 and now, despite having had an A1c value in the four range for the last decade, my development of retinopathy has never been worse, no doubt because of hyperglycemic memory from the period of the disease prior to the availability of home glucometers in the 1980s.
Interestingly, the regimen I was given in 1966 for managing the disease imposed very strict control of the mealtime balance of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, which had to be held constant at each meal by weighing all the different types of food on a scale. It was in no sense a low carbohydrate diet, but there was extreme insistence on avoiding all sugars, as though it was still in the pre-insulin era.
The great pity of the modern fad of low carbohydrate diets for diabetics is that the ability of the patient to have a normal diet of carbohydrates was initially celebrated as one of the triumphs of the development of insulin therapy. Now, because of the obsession with strict blood sugar control, we have to surrender that victory.
