Do You Consider Diabetes To Be A Disability?

We asked the Diabetes Community “Do you consider diabetes to be a disability”. Here’s what they had to say.
Danielle Watson: Bowers No, I do not. In 34 years, the only times diabetes has kept me from doing things I want to do in life have been the times I did not take care of it.
JeVonda Flint: No, not at all. Definitely not overall. People may have complications from Type 1 that cause them to be disabled, but I don’t consider myself disabled just because I have it. I teach full time and work a part time job too and never miss work for diabetes
Jessica Marie Mittasch: Yes and no. Yes, because it does inhibit some of your daily life. Even a job asks if you have any disabilities and have listed diabetes as one. If people around us don’t give us leniency to take care of ourselves, we get sick or hospitalized etc.
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Lauren DuBois: Even well-controlled diabetics can be faced with complications. There is a lot of shame and stigma in the diabetes community regarding this, and I can’t help myself from commenting! After 15 years, up to 80% of T1 diabetics will show some signs of diabetic retinopathy (the leading cause for blindness among working-age adults), and it’s not always split by those that did and didn’t care for themselves! Thanks for reading.
Jessica Marie Mittasch: I agree. I have retinopathy and I was well controlled for a while before it happened. I probably should have worded my comment better.
Amy Headrick: I think it depends on the person. I didn’t for the longest, but as I get older I see how it’s become one. I’ Continue reading

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Type 2 diabetes? It's 'walking deficiency syndrome' and not a real illness, says top doctor

Type 2 diabetes should be renamed 'walking deficiency syndrome' because it is not a 'real disease', according to one of Britain's leading medical practitioners.
Sir Muir Gray has done extensive research on how modern lifestyles such as sitting at a desk or in a car are contributing to the risk of disease.
He claims that type 2 diabetes, which is largely preventable but costs the NHS billions of pounds a year to treat, should be renamed because it is caused by the 'modern environment'.
Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival, Sir Muir said: 'Type two diabetes or walking deficiency syndrome, I'm trying to get the name changed.
'I wrote about this and somebody wrote back and said it was called a metabolic syndrome. I said I don't believe in metabolic syndromes.
'The problem with calling it type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome makes you think it's like rheumatoid arthritis or a real disease. These are conditions caused by the modern environment.'
Nearly 4 million people in the UK suffer from diabetes and approximately 90 per cent of these are type 2 diabetes sufferers.
By contrast, type 1 diabetes – whose sufferers include Theresa May – is an autoimmune condition and often emerges in childhood.
The chances of developing type 2 diabetes are greatly exacerbated by being overweight and many sufferers are able to reverse the condition by dieting alone.
The NHS now spends more on medication for diabetes than any other condition.
Diabetes is thought to cost the NHS about £10billion, once the cost of treatment, including amputation and hospitalisations for life-threatening hypo Continue reading

Deadly diabetes in 'unrelenting march'

The world is facing an "unrelenting march" of diabetes which now affects nearly one in 11 adults, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.
In a major report it warned cases had nearly quadrupled to 422 million in 2014 from 108 million in 1980.
High blood sugar levels are a major killer - linked to 3.7 million deaths around the world each year, it says.
And officials said the numbers would continue to increase unless "drastic action" was taken.
The report lumps both type 1 and type 2 diabetes together, but the surge in cases is predominantly down to type 2 - the form closely linked to poor lifestyle.
As the world's waistlines have ballooned - with one-in-three people now overweight, so too has the number of diabetes cases.
How diabetes has taken its toll
422 million
adults were living with diabetes in 2014 - that's
314 million
more than there were in 1980
8.5% of adults worldwide has diabetes
1.5 million people died as a result of diabetes in 2012
2.2 million additional deaths were caused by higher-than-optimal blood glucose
43% of these 3.7m people died before they were 70 years old
Source: WHO
Dr Etienne Krug, the WHO official in charge of leading efforts against diabetes, told the BBC: "Diabetes is a silent disease, but it is on an unrelenting march that we need to stop.
"We can stop it, we know what needs to be done, but we cannot let it evolve like it does because it has a huge impact on people's health, on families and on society."
Failing to control levels of sugar in the blood has devastating health consequences.
It triples the risk of a heart attack and leaves peop Continue reading

The ACA Repeal & Medicaid: What Would it Look Like For Patients with Diabetes?

President Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has touched the lives of nearly every American. Over 20 million people are currently covered by a healthcare plan governed and facilitated by the Health Insurance Marketplaces (healthcare.gov), established by the ACA. While many discussions focus on the Marketplace and ACA in general, an important discussion needs to happen about Medicaid.
Medicaid expansion has opened up the opportunity for many people who didn’t qualify for Medicaid traditionally thanks to its income-only requirement. For people in the 32 states who have adopted the expansion, if their income is at or below 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), they can qualify for Medicaid.
For all of its controversy, the facts remain clear: the ACA has helped millions of people afford healthcare coverage, access contraceptives, receive mammograms and other important health screenings, and provide healthcare to their children up to the age of 26. For people with diabetes, we cannot be charged more for coverage than those without diabetes and we cannot be denied.
However, if the current Republican leadership gets its way, that’s all about to change. President Trump, Vice President Pence, and a sizeable number of Republican lawmakers in Congress have already begun to pave the way for a swift repeal of the ACA. What’s even more concerning to a large number of Americans is that they have no solid plan prepared to replace the ACA in the event of its repeal. (While they have proposed plans and two are in the markup phase, many experts hav Continue reading

Carb counting for diabetes: Meal planning to manage blood sugar

Carb counting is one form of meal planning that can help people with diabetes manage their blood sugar levels.
Diabetes is an incurable, yet manageable, medical condition where the body's blood sugar levels are too high. This happens when there is not enough insulin in the body, or the insulin does not work properly.
Insulin is a hormone that is made by the pancreas. It helps the body to process glucose (the simplest form of sugar), which is used by the cells to create energy. When this doesn't happen, sugar stays in the bloodstream. This can lead to serious health problems.
This article explores carb counting as a meal planning method that can help people with any form of diabetes manage their blood sugar levels.
Diabetes and the role of carbohydrates
In the United States in 2014, approximately 9 percent of Americans, totaling nearly 29 million people, were found to have diabetes. Diabetes is classified into different types and includes:
Type 1 diabetes: In this type, the body does not produce insulin. This is due to the body attacking its own insulin producing cells within the pancreas. It is most commonly diagnosed in children and young adults.
Type 2 diabetes: In this type, insulin is either not made in high enough quantities or not used efficiently. This form of diabetes affects people of all ages and is the most common type.
Gestational diabetes: Some pregnant women will develop a typically temporary form of diabetes called gestational diabetes. This raises their risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life. Most times, once the baby is born, this form of diabetes Continue reading