Some health conditions are preventable, others are unavoidable. However, there is always something that we can do to improve our health and it is up to us to take responsibility for our own health and well-being as much as is possible. We might find ourselves more predisposed to certain conditions due to our genetics, environment, diet and/or lifestyle – but even a pre-disposition doesn’t, usually, mean a disease or condition is inevitable.
What is diabetes?
Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease (to better understand the word metabolic see our box) that causes high blood sugars. The hormone insulin moves sugar from the blood into the cells to be used for storage or energy. In diabetes your body either doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t effectively use the insulin it does make. This results in higher than normal blood sugar levels.
The history of diabetes started approximately 1550BC, and overtime has become classified as several types. The two main types we now recognise are Type 1 diabetes which is an autoimmune disorder where the immune system destroys the cells producing insulin resulting in a complete absence of insulin and Type2 diabetes where the cells in the body become resistant to the insulin being produced – both types resulting in the body being unable to control sugar levels in the blood.
Gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy and usually goes after giving birth but has a risk of going on to develop into Type2 diabetes.
So, as you can already see from what has been said here, some types of diabetes are unpreventable (Type 1), some avoidable and reversible (Type 2) and some often transient (Gestational).
Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90% of the UK’s diabetic population. The condition can be hereditary and a person with one parent with Type 2 diabetes has a 15% chance of developing the condition whereas a person with two parents with the condition has a 75% chance of becoming diabetic.*
A step in the right direction
A diagnosis of any kind of diabetes is often frightening and the future can seem daunting. It is important to remember that life goes on and that all we can do is our best. Small changes can make a big difference and every journey begins with a single step. It is not always possible to change our entire lifestyle at once – and changing any entrenched pattern of behaviour is challenging to say the least, but every healthy change will be of benefit.
Type 2 diabetes – Myni’s journey continues
If you’ve read my story (see Myni’s story), you’ll have lived through my experiences (largely self-inflicted) of being Type 2 diabetic. And, although, when first diagnosed my doctor threw the book at me in terms of medication for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, you’ll also know once I shifted a few stone (that’s kilos in modern money), I have pretty much stayed the right side of the NHS law (ie medication free) since then.
However, over the last year or so, with our protracted and complicated house move, Bob in knee failure, having to eat out or grabbing less than healthy processed snacks – my body’s early warning lights started to flash.
Getting complicated …
Diabetes, as you’ve read above, is a metabolic disease and can, left uncontrolled, cause complications in just about every part of the body. Some diabetic complications get well-aired by the media – others less so. These are some of the complications that appeared recently on my horizon – and that, at first, I felt were joining forces to come and get me! I daresay that ignorance is bliss, but I hoped that by sharing my journey it might help others to be more aware, wake up earlier than me to smell the coffee ie prevention is always better than cure.
It started with my eyes……Each year I get called in for diabetic eye screening. Last year, the testing flagged up the beginning of macular retinopathy, and this year’s testing required me to go through further tests because of the major deterioration in the sight of one of my eyes. In the back of my mind was my father’s battle with macular degeneration – he was virtually blind for the last years of his life, ie a possible genetic connection.
And then there have been the long-term issues with my mouth.
Although I have been to the same dentist for the last ten years (I do not have a good history with dentists ie traumatised at an early age by the ancient and dilapidated family dentist (his hands shook and he operated the high pitched screaming drill with a foot pedal) I was treated by as a child – so always super anxious) and, somehow, because I had got into the habit of floating along on a sea of trust with this excellent, especially calming and understanding practice, I was blissfully unaware of serious troubles brewing. And even when my main front tooth gradually, but increasingly, started to wobble, I still didn’t wake up and smell the coffee.
I’m not sure exactly at what point I did wake up – or why (it may have been an article I’d read in the magazine I take ‘What the doctors don’t tell you’, about the link between not brushing your teeth properly, gum disease leading to possible heart disease), but something sent me straight back home to my computer (after this latest dental appointment) where I easily found the link between diabetes and gum disease ie a well-documented chicken and egg situation in which the two issues escalate and exacerbate each other leading to all sorts of nasties including tooth loss. Periodontitis was a word I’d never even heard of before, but it took me no time at all to find a periodontist (a different branch of dentistry looking at the support structure of teeth ie gums and bone) and make an appointment. Once there my worst fears were confirmed – I had all sorts of advanced troubles which weren’t helped by the periodontist saying that the only reason that anyone like me should lose a front tooth was if they fell off a ladder.
I went into a bit of a spin after this piece of news, made contact with a dental law firm and with their backing was all set to sue. But, I did calm down, did go back and talk to my dentist about everything, he did take responsibility to do the best for me going forwards. So, yes, I have since had to lose my front tooth – but, no, I never did fall off a ladder …..and, no, we’re never going to know what was the root (ha!) cause.
Since all of this saga I have found that in real life doctors don’t really seem to have much of an interest in mouths while dentists are more interested in procedures such as implants, bridges or root canal work – rather than the underlying health conditions of their patients. So, perhaps, a bit of a gap in the market …..well, something like that!
And, then, there was the angry gaping wound that opened up on my shin. Thinking about diabetic leg ulcers, amputations and worse, I tried to keep calm and behave appropriately. So first I went to Tesco’s chemist – who thought it was a bite/sting and gave me topical ointment to draw any sting out. I then tried and failed to see a doctor at our surgery (these were covid lockdown times – but still, these days, actually getting to see a doctor can be a hen’s teeth situation), but was allowed to see a nurse. The nurse didn’t really know either but didn’t think it looked like a sting, more like an ulcer (panic!), gave me topical anti-biotic cream and made an appointment for me to come back an see another nurse in a week’s time. With the wild imaginings of losing my leg – or worse, Bob took charge and drove me to our nearest functioning A and E where the distinctly dishy New Zealand doctor on duty who had a strong interest in lifestyle medicine (Wow!), intently listened to my apparently not so crackpot theories re the ongoing, low level infection from my periodontitis affecting my body’s ability to heal – prescribed antibiotics – and, as if by magic, the wound healed up and disappeared. I must have injured my leg at some point in the first place (but just hadn’t noticed) ie the catalyst, the trauma comes first, but the body’s already compromised immune system is unable to cope.
The moral of all of this…..
If I can ask you to hang in there a little longer… there is a bit further to go on this journey to bring it right up to date – which, for me, has supplied some of the missing pieces of my own life’s ‘jigsaw’ – except I hadn’t realised they were missing.
Let me explain…
Recently, as my time with Glinys alongside came to an end, I made the decision to find someone – someone else/someone different to drive me forwards and watch over me.
Glinys had told me about the Public Health Collaboration (look at the box and find out more about this charity). And it was within this charity that I searched for, found and arranged to have a phone consultation with Campbell Murdoch – a Private GP with a special interest in Metabolic Health (watch his presentation given at the Public Health Collaboration virtual conference 2020 entitled ‘Breaking You: How to ruin your metabolic health ( https://youtu.be/gbTqY3rAvNc )
By the time I got to speak to Campbell he had tirelessly and patiently gathered together as much info as I could give him together with my medical history notes sent to him by my surgery.
Campbell’s first question made my day and won me over instantly ie did I need to lose weight urgently to get into a particular garment for a special occasion – or anything like that? Well, of course, I didn’t and with that fact established the subject of weight and weight loss was never mentioned again. As a person with a lifetime’s label of being fat – always accompanied by the instruction to lose weight, this was music to my ears.
As we started to talk I soon realised that Glinys had given me a good grounding in doing the best for myself – so I was on the right track, and have since streamlined and become more serious about, actually, the ‘Four purrfect foundations for living well’ (all within Campbell’s original questionnaire).
Campbell also suggested I read a recently published book called ‘Why we get sick’ by Ben Bickman about insulin resistance – the villain of the piece underlying far-reaching aspects of today’s most prevalent diseases and conditions.
Campbell then went on to put my own medical history into context by saying that although we may not be able to find out the reasons why, I clearly have a predisposition for easily putting on weight. In a sense, he continued, when people become over-weight it is a sign of “civil war” (as he described it) within the body as the body strives to keep ‘operations’ (a beyond complex affair to say the least) in balance. It all comes under the heading of a wonderful word ‘homeostasis’ (don’t ask me to describe it – look it up!}.
As I spoke to Campbell asking endless questions – further informed by finishing Ben Bickman’s book, I realised that my eyes had been opened and I was looking at the history of my own health and well-being from a very different perspective.
Of course, hindsight (as we all well know) is a wonderful thing and we can’t change the past – but, almost always, the past can, does and should inform the future – and that is what it seems to have done for me. As I did a quick audit of my main health issues I wondered about my early battles with ear, nose and throat troubles, continuously accompanied by antibiotics until the tonsils and adenoids were removed – a common pastime when I was a child. (apparently they almost always leave them in tact these days, the thinking being that they’re there for a purpose). I thought about my ongoing mouth issues and wondered if the early exuberance for filling everything – often with awful stuff such as mercury had left a down payment on later life troubles (see the box on Weston A Price an enlightened holistic dentist who lived, researched and practised his passion up until the mid-1900s. He was called the Darwin of nutrition). I wondered too about my diagnosis with high blood pressure and heartburn about 30 years ago and whether, now, equipped with my new knowledge about insulin resistance, this should all have been picked up, correctly diagnosed and the outcomes might have been different. I could go on…..
The thing is, there wasn’t any joined up thinking when I was a child, and, actually as Campbell confirmed, there still isn’t that much around today (why am I thinking about my mouth?). Yes, science, medicine and the rest are awesome, but it’s surprising (well, I found it surprising – but may be that’s simply a reflection of my great age) just how relatively recent the world of medicine is, plus it all moves at an extraordinarily slow speed. Then there is the issue of the whole world and his (or her!) brother (or sister!) jumping on every bandwagon from every angle and every point of its journey to make money which often results (aided by the power of the media – and all that jazz) getting everyone into a fizz about what might later turn out to be mis-information. And we won’t even start down the road of questioning the relationship between the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry.
Yes, there are many commonalities between each of us, but also there are many differences – genes, environment, conditioning, education, diet – an infinite list. So the point of all this is don’t just go to the doctor (if you can find one), accept a pill, tug your forelock and leave. Remind yourself, it should be a partnership between you and the health professional. So use your own eyes, ears and brain, take an interest, ask questions – be a bloody nuisance – yes, it’s called personal responsibility. After all it’s your life – and you’ve got a vested interest in that.
What does metabolic mean? Campbell Murdoch explains…
S0…! The body is an open complex adaptive system (meaning there are loads of things going on in the body, and changing one thing leads to lots of other things changing…just like any living thing or ecosystem. And the “open” bit means the system is affected by things that go into it). There is a reasonable amount we know about the human body, and lots we don’t know, and some stuff we know which we think is right but we are in fact wrong. There are genetics (including epigenetics which is how our genes are used), microbiome, hormones, a brain, muscles etc etc. All of these and more will play into the body’s ability to maintain a normal blood glucose. There are also the different foods we eat…e.g. the sugar fructose is thought to be a major contributor to the development of insulin resistance, and subsequently type 2 diabetes. What we do with our body also matters – so someone with more muscle mass (ie has a greater amount of muscle on their body) will not only have greater capacity to soak up extra sugar from the blood, but muscle also releases anti-inflammatory messengers….which the body likes.
Then we have the complexity of our behaviours and decisions, and how that is influenced by things such as hormones, mental health, beliefs, environment etc etc.
So in short whilst there are some general principles that hold true for all (or nearly all) humans, there is also a degree of personalisation/individualisation.
