Type 1 Diabetes Can Wear You Down

A diabetes advocate describes how the condition has impacted him throughout his life.
Editors note: We strive to provide a complete picture of life with Type 1 diabetes. While we love sharing inspirational stories, we want to make sure to acknowledge the difficulties of managing a chronic condition over decades. Aaron D. Johnson sent us this honest account, and we thank him for it.
The world of a child is an amazing place. Its a medley of bicycles, ballgames in the sun, building forts, sledding in the snow, birthday cakes and Christmas lights. What child is going to pay any attention to dry skin and constant thirst when there is so much to do? Childhood is a time to run and play, to get dirty, soaking wet, or covered with snow. The only need is to race home after school to catch a favorite TV show and then charge outside again to play superhero among your superhero friends.
Then, one day, you are just too tired to get up from in front of the television. Your tummy hurts and your dry skin is flushed. Your mother is talking to you, but you cant understand what she is saying. The bright, kaleidoscope of childhood is replaced with a blur of hospital images: doctors frowning with concern and talking in low, serious voices; nurses looking at you like you were the walking dead; endless medical tests; waiting rooms and gurneys behind curtains; and, of course, the needles. Always the needles.
I was six years old when I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. In my case, it is a form known as brittle diabetes, or Labile diabetes. This is a fairly rare form of diabetes that causes w Continue reading

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Introducing Diabetes Strong - a health and fitness website for people with diabetes

Introducing Diabetes Strong - a health and fitness website for people with diabetes
Im living the dream! I work side by side with my husband writing Diabetes Strong, a website and community for people living with diabetes who want to be active and healthy.
This is not my first career, but its most definitely the most rewarding, not only because I live with diabetes myself but because of everyone who has reached out to me to let me know that Diabetes Strong has made a difference in their lives.
I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1997 (Oh my gosh, thats 20 years ago!!) right out of high school. It wasnt a super dramatic diagnosis, so no coma or extreme weight loss. I did show several of the usual symptoms though, like extreme thirst, frequent urination, and feeling deathly tired all the time. I think the sleepiness was the worst; I fell asleep at work more than once.
Looking back, its incredible that I didnt notice the symptoms earlier, but I guess you get used to even extreme behavior like that very quickly.
My family ultimately started to take notice and urged me to see a doctor. I went to my PCP and it only took a simple finger prick to diagnose my diabetes. He sent me home and I was completely freaked out. Id never met anybody with diabetes, didnt know what it was and basically thought Id been handed a death sentence.
Luckily, my mom is a nurse and could calm me down and explain the basics. She also went with me to Steno Diabetes Center, the closest diabetes center to where I lived in Denmark, where I got my initial diabetes training.
At Steno, I was paired Continue reading

Why You Need (And How to Find) Diabetes Education Courses

Why You Need (And How to Find) Diabetes Education Courses
Your guide to gaining the know-how, skills, and support to live well with diabetes
Becky Blanton could count on two fingers what she knew about diabetes in the days and weeks that followed her type 2 diagnosis: I couldnt have sugar, and I had to take insulin every day, says Blanton, 61. She was only half right. I took the initial information provided by the diabetes educator, but I didnt take it seriously, she says. Since there were no symptoms, I just ignored it.
Fast-forward a year and a half to 2014. Late one night, she suddenly felt nauseous, lightheaded, and inexplicably angry. She shared her symptoms on Facebook, where her friends include other people with diabetes, as well as nurses and paramedics. About 10 minutes later, I hear a knock at the door, and its [emergency medical services], insisting I go with them to the emergency room, says Blanton, who lives in rural Virginia. She had dismissed the concerns of a Facebook friend who suggested she go to a hospital; he called the emergency response team.
Blanton, as it turned out, was diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). This life-threatening condition happens when extreme high blood glucose, along with a severe lack of insulin, results in the breakdown of body fat thats used for energy, causing a buildup of acids, called ketones, in the bloodstream. Though its more common in people with type 1 diabetes , DKA can occur in people with type 2 as well. Its usually triggered by illness, infection, or missed doses of medicinesall of which can lead to high Continue reading

High fructose corn syrup causes diabetes what is the evidence?

High fructose corn syrup causes diabetes what is the evidence?
The internet claims that high fructose corn syrup causes diabetes and a bunch of other maladies . Usually based on some weak evidence, the usual suspects have triedto link high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to Type 2 diabetes .
Like many of these medical myths, there is, at its core, some tiny bit of evidence that is generally misinterpreted or misused. But lets take a close look at Type 2 diabetes, HFCS and the evidence that either supports or refutes the hypothesis that drinking HFCS is any more responsible for the disease than other sugars.
Just for background, type 2 diabetes mellitus (or type 2 diabetes, T2DM) is a metabolic disorder that is characterized by high blood glucose with insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency. In general, someone with T2DM produces low (or maybe even adequate) levels of insulin, but various cells and organs become resistant to insulin, so cells dont remove or store blood glucose.
Although the cause of T2DM is not completely understood, it results from a complex interaction between diet, obesity, genetics, age and gender. Some of the causes of T2DM are under a persons own control, like diet and obesity, but many of the causal factors arent.
Because they are often confused, its important to note that T2DM has a completely different etiology and pathophysiology than type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM, and once called juvenile diabetes). Type 1 diabetes results from the inability of the beta cells of the pancreas to produce insulin, as a result of an autoimmune disease. Continue reading

GLP-1 Diabetes Drug Neutral for the Heart

GLP-1 Diabetes Drug Neutral for the Heart
-Once-weekly exenatide safe for CV outcomes but falls short of showing benefit
by Crystal Phend, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today 2017-09-14
This article is a collaboration between MedPage Today and:
LISBON -- Extended-release exenatide (Bydureon) was safe for the heart but didn't help prevent cardiovascular events in type 2 diabetes among a mixed primary and secondary prevention population, the EXSCEL trial showed.
For the primary composite endpoint of death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke, the once-weekly GLP-1 diabetes drug fell just short of showing a cardiovascular benefit, Rury Holman, FRCP, of the Diabetes Trials Unit at the University of Oxford in England, and colleagues reported here at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting and in a paper published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine .
Note that this large, pragmatic randomized trial failed to demonstrate that extended release exenatide was superior to placebo in terms of cardiac outcomes among patients with type 2 diabetes.
This stands in contrast to trials with certain other agents in the GLP-1 class, which showed beneficial cardiovascular effects.
Rates for the composite after median follow-up of 3.2 years were 11.4% with the drug versus 12.2% with placebo (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.83-1.00), each used along with usual care. That translated to noninferiority for safety (P<0.001 for noninferiority) but missed superiority for efficacy (P=0.06 for superiority), as had been annou Continue reading