Endocrinologists Middle River MD

Rising to the Challenge

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By Alan Reder

Diabetes used to be a fixed sentence: If you had type-1 you faced a lifetime of insulin injections, innumerable health problems, and the prospect of an early death; type-2 simply arrived with old age, along with arthritis and high blood pressure. These days, children as young as 6 have type-2 and many seniors face diabetes-related dementia. Learn how you can sidestep the ravages of the disease through diet and lifestyle changes.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, I watched a constant stream of TV westerns, but in real life it was diabetes, not outlaws, that had me surrounded.

Every member of my immediate family, excluding me, had the disease. My mother and sister had type-1 diabetes, and later in life, my father was diagnosed with type-2, as was my maternal grandmother Molly. My Dad’s sister Thelma was a “brittle” type-1, meaning her blood sugar swung wildly between low and high. She ultimately died of diabetes complications, as did Mom, also a brittle diabetic whose disease ravaged her heart. Other casualties include Dad’s uncle Jake, who was blinded by type-1 before succumbing to it in his early 50s, and my fraternal cousin Danny, who struggles to control his type-2.

Diabetes is now tearing through the nation the way it has torn through my family. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that some 20.8 million Americans—about 7 percent of the population—are diabetic. Contrary to other health trends, diabetes is killing more people, too. Diabetes-related deaths have jumped by 45 percent since 1987, even as the death rates from heart disease, stroke, and cancer have slowed.

No mystery why, though. The diabetes epidemic—really a type-2 epidemic—is the demon spawn of junk food, channel surfing, and Internet surfing, which have long since replaced healthy food and physical activity in many American lives. The increase in type-2 diabetes correlates with America’s obesity epidemic almost as closely as thunder follows lightning. From 1991 to 2001, a CDC study found, diagnosed diabetes increased by 61 percent and obesity rates grew by 74 percent. Connecting the dots is simple because most people with type-2 diabetes, by far the most common form, are overweight.

Diabetes rarely announces itself with dramatic symptoms, so about a third of type-2s go undiagnosed. And because they’re not being treated, they could be blindsided later in life by diabetes’ serious complications. That sobering list includes kidney failure, nervous system damage, blindness, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, heart attack, stroke, lower limb amputations, gum disease, and pregnancy complications including birth defects.

But diabetes isn’t a death sentence or even a sentence to a compromised life. With training and diligent attention to your blood sugar levels, insulin doses, and diet, you can manage your type-1 diabetes and live a long, healthy life. Type-2 diabetes is easily prevented, and if battled aggress...

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