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When I was first diagnosed a type 2 diabetic in 1986,
my doctor gave me a prescription for an oral anti-diabetic drug (Micronase, a
sulfonylurea) and another for a meter and test strips. I asked the pharmacist, a
friend, for his advice on which meter to buy. As we were looking over my
choices, to my utter amazement he mentioned to me in passing that he was also a
type 2 diabetic – in fact, an insulin-dependent
type 2 diabetic.
In retrospect, I’m not sure what was so shocking to
me: Dick wasn’t especially fat. He was overweight but not more than “normal”
for someone of our age and generation. We were both in our mid-40s. Maybe what
shocked me was that his disease had ‘progressed’ as far as it had; was ‘this’(becoming
insulin-dependent) an omen of what was to come for me? Maybe that was Dick’s
message to me. If so, it was a friendly warning, and it worked. I never forgot
it.
After buying my meter and start-up supplies from Dick,
I went into a mail order program for ongoing drugs and supplies and never had
occasion to discuss the disease we shared again. Years later, Dick retired and
moved to Florida. In 2010, I read in the local paper that, “after a long
illness,” my former pharmacist and friend had died at age 72 (my age today). I
don’t know this for a fact, but in all likelihood, Dick died of one of the
complications of the disease we shared, type 2 diabetes mellitus.
I recall and tell this story because that is how I got
into writing about type 2 diabetes. I was initially stunned that this disease
had advanced in my friend to the point where he was insulin dependent. And
today, knowing what I know and what I
think he should have known (as I see it today), I am flabbergasted that
Dick allowed his disease to progress to the point that he was
insulin-dependent, and then to where he likely became a victim of one of its
tentacles: the myriad causes of morbidity and all-cause mortality that are
associated with “controlled” diabetes – “controlled,”
that is, as defined by the medical establishment and our government. His loss
was such a waste, and so unnecessary. With Dick, it was personal for me, but
this is a tragedy of immense proportions being repeated all over the world
today, and it doesn’t need to be…
So, a few weeks after learning of his death, I was
talking informally with the publisher of a local weekly newspaper who “knew” me,
and I him, by reputation only. He knew me because he had read many
letters-to-the-editor that I had written to another then-defunct weekly. He
knew that I knew how to write, and he invited me to write “on any subject” for
his fledgling newspaper. Thinking of my friend Dick, the insulin-dependent type
2 diabetic pharmacist who never should have allowed his diabetes to progress to
that point, I said that I wanted to write about diabetes. I wanted to educate
people so that they did not have to blindly follow the prescription for
“control” that leads to more and more maxed-out anti-diabetic medications (up
to 3 types, usually) – and then to becoming insulin-dependent – all the while
allowing blood glucose levels, that are dangerously high on average, to course
through the veins doing untold damage, until
it is too late…
There is an alternative. We know it today. To be fair,
“low-carb” and Atkins were “out-of-favor” in 1986 when Dick was already
insulin-dependent. But today, we (many practitioners and patients) know that
“progression” is not the natural or necessary or inevitable course of type 2
diabetes, IF WE TAKE CORRECTIVE ACTION. Unless you have an enlightened
physician, or you are willing to “go it alone,” that is an unlikely scenario.
But, if you decide to take charge of
your own health, and avail yourself of all the resources (on-line
especially, but there are many good books as well), you can beat this thing. You can put your type 2 diabetes in
remission. And along the way, you will
lose a lot of weight easily and
greatly improve other health markers such as blood lipids (cholesterol) and
high blood pressure, as you lose weight.
As my regular readers know, eleven years ago I was
maxed out on two anti-diabetic medications and starting a third and had A1c’s
in the 8s. I was also, at 375 pounds, morbidly obese (BMI=52), had borderline
cholesterol, and was taking 3 BP meds and was still poorly controlled. Today,
my A1c is 5.6, I weight 235 (BMI=33), I’ve doubled my HDLs and cut my TGs by
2/3rds, and my BP has dropped from 130/90 to 120/80 on the same meds. And I
feel great. I am healthier today at 72 than I was when I retired 10 years ago. THE SIMPLE REASON: I changed
from eating a “balanced diet” to a “Very Low Carb” diet.
The key to a healthy body is what you put into it.
Whole foods are good, in fact essential, to transforming our health. If you are
a little overweight, with marginal cholesterol, or mildly elevated blood
pressure (symptoms of Metabolic Syndrome), you may well be pre-diabetic, or
even an undiagnosed full-blown type 2. Ignore
carbohydrate intolerance at your peril. You can live and eventually,
but prematurely, die a diabetes related death, as Dick did, if you continue to
eat a “balanced” diet, or you can wake
up and do something about it. I did.
Do you track your blood sugar levels as a pre-diabetic
or diabetic? Have you experimented with reducing the carbs in your diet?
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