• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Why Do We Get Diabetes?

Totto said:
I think it is mainly about genes. There are lots of genes that can cause diabetes, and the more of them you have the likelier it is you develop it. If you on top of that also have insulin resistance of course it doesn't help, but insulin resistance isn't a requirement for diabetes. So you can get some diabetic genes from both parents who themselves didn't have developed it. And I wouldnt be surprised to hear of chemicals or pollutants that affect the pancreas/genes too as a cause.

I for example have no trace of fatty liver, normal weight, excellent cholesterol breakdown and low blood pressure. But I also have diabetes. I find it hard to be taken seriously by HCP because of this and add a (now) normal HbA1c they tend to overlook the fact that I am indeed diabetic.
Click to expand...
I only know Pitney.
 
Hmm. This is a bit like the discussion about the person who smoked 100 cigarettes a day and did not get lung cancer, but the person who never smoked gets it. These are the exceptions. I think there is lots of evidence that being overweight, eating all the wrong things, doing no exercise and building up fatty deposits in our liver and pancreas are definitely contributing factors. But, it is clearly also genetic and some people are simply predisposed, because as some of you have said, being overweight with bad habits is not the whole story - healthy slim people get it as well! Like many diseases we simply don't know why one person gets it and not another - but we do have some idea about who seems to be at risk!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I think my previous-life crime must have been being boring.

This life, all my various physical irritants (aka 'health problems') have only one purpose - they make me soooo interesting.

To me, anyway. :happy:
 
paulins said:
Hmm. This is a bit like the discussion about the person who smoked 100 cigarettes a day and did not get lung cancer, but the person who never smoked gets it. These are the exceptions. I think there is lots of evidence that being overweight, eating all the wrong things, doing no exercise and building up fatty deposits in our liver and pancreas are definitely a contributing factors. But, it is also clearly also genetic and some people are simply predisposed, because as some of you have said, being overweight with bad habits is not the whole story - healthy slim people get it as well! Like many diseases we simply don't know why one person gets it and not another - but we do have some idea about who seems to be at risk!
Click to expand...

Well I am scratching my head over my risk as it's not on the list of 'risks' you find on the internet. A few weeks ago I filled in a questionnaire online to tell me if I was at risk of diabetes...I passed with flying colours of having little or nor risk. That told me a lot! I have asked a lot of my family on both sides and we know of no one who had diabetes in our families and we know up to great grandparents. This leaves me to think I couldn't prevent my prediabetes at all. It just happened and I doubt I will ever know why.
 
SJC said:
Well I am scratching my head over my risk as it's not on the list of 'risks' you find on the internet. A few weeks ago I filled in a questionnaire online to tell me if I was at risk of diabetes...I passed with flying colours of having little or nor risk. That told me a lot! I have asked a lot of my family on both sides and we know of no one who had diabetes in our families and we know up to great grandparents. This leaves me to think I couldn't prevent my prediabetes at all. It just happened and I doubt I will ever know why.
Click to expand...


So you are one of the unfortunate people who are simply for some reason genetically predisposed ... despite apparently being low risk. I think this is the only explanation for you @SJC .
 
I know of diabetics who have done manual labour all their life, I have worked walking up and down a production line, shifts and bad eating habits and every other thing that you have to do and some I will not mention to earn a crust, there have been athletes that have had serious health problems! The randomness can not be predicted, maybe in the future. It maybe in the genes, at what age are you susceptible from T2? Or pre diabetes?
Cancer, is very unpredictable, why in some people does it occur in only a certain part of the body?
Are we born with it? Do we inherit it, my parents never had it? My brother did, but my other two don't. The wife has it but no other member of her close family has it! And that's all together, ten people!
It is unpredictable! Maybe, it's just fate????
 
this is too difficult said:
are you?
Click to expand...

No! I was very overweight, ate all the wrong things, led a very sedentary life, and was not at all surprised to find I had diabetes. But I am no longer any of these things, and it is my hope that I can reverse the diabetes. If not, I plan to look after myself much better than I previously did. But I do feel for healthy slim people who have done nothing other than look after their bodies, and who nevertheless get it - life is so unfair!
 
Brunneria said:
I think my previous-life crime must have been being boring.

This life, all my various physical irritants (aka 'health problems') have only one purpose - they make me soooo interesting.

To me, anyway. :happy:
Click to expand...

Well, being boring is certainly not what you are in this incarnation :) Carry on beating the karma :D

I wonder what happened to Marie Antoinette in a future life if she really did make that cake remark ? Possibly a diabetic dietician as we speak ?;)

Signy
 
By genetically predisposed, do you mean members of my family carried it? Well if that's the case, they were all very lucky and they didn't get diabetes and it skipped generations! I can't even think of an overweight relative on either side. I have had cancer and luckily that was found incidentally when they were looking for something else. I had been walking around with the cancer on my kidney for around six years they said!
 
SJC said:
By genetically predisposed, do you mean members of my family carried it? Well if that's the case, they were all very lucky and they didn't get diabetes and it skipped generations! I can't even think of an overweight relative on either side. I have had cancer and luckily that was found incidentally when they were looking for something else. I had been walking around with the cancer on my kidney for around six years they said!
Click to expand...

I mean that while we are all genetically linked to our families we are all unique and individual - and the particular genetic combination that we have predisposes some of us and not others. Only identical twins are genetically identical. It would be very interesting to know if one twin has been diagnosed and not the other! By the way, I am NOT into the blame game - except for myself! I know what I did!
 
paulins said:
I mean that while we are all genetically linked to our families we are all unique and individual - and the particular genetic combination that we have predisposes some of us and not others. Only identical twins are genetically identical. It would be very interesting to know if one twin has been diagnosed and not the other! By the way, I am NOT into the blame game - except for myself! I know what I did!
Click to expand...
Yes, I know what I did too, but I also know the reasons I did it. I was in no way to blame for the things that caused my depression which in turn caused my obesity. I was to blame for eating the wrong things and not exercising enough, but I couldn't find the will to get it right. I became morbidly obese because of it. I think I would rather have been a slim person who became diabetic for no reason than have all the years of hell becoming fat because I was depressed for a reason.
 
zand said:
Yes, I know what I did too, but I also know the reasons I did it. I was in no way to blame for the things that caused my depression which in turn caused my obesity. I was to blame for eating the wrong things and not exercising enough, but I couldn't find the will to get it right. I became morbidly obese because of it. I think I would rather have been a slim person who became diabetic for no reason than have all the years of hell becoming fat because I was depressed for a reason.
Click to expand...

You sound so honest and so brave zand - but from what you say you now understand why you were depressed, and from what I understand about depression understanding why we are depressed is the hardest part of the journey back to good mental health, and then to good physical health. We are all on a journey, and yours sounds particularly hard, but we are lucky to have the support we get from each other on this forum.
 
On a slightly lighter note, I can now do 5k on the treadmill. I set it up in my bedroom so nobody could see me! When I first started trying to do this my cheeky daughter asked if she could lie on my bed and watch me as I was more entertaining than what was on TV! She laughed like a drain! Last Saturday she was visiting again, and again lay on my bed - and she was impressed! Ha ha! Amazing what we can do if we are determined. I hated exercise and was so unfit and can understand why she thought it was so amusing. I hasten to add she is actually very supportive and was being mischievous!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
paulins said:
You sound so honest and so brave zand - but from what you say you now understand why you were depressed, and from what I understand about depression understanding why we are depressed is the hardest part of the journey back to good mental health, and then to good physical health. We are all on a journey, and yours sounds particularly hard, but we are lucky to have the support we get from each other on this forum.
Click to expand...

Yes, sorry I didn't mean to sound so....well ...depressed ! I didn't mean to sound so angry either, because I'm not. I am still coveting your treadmill. I will get one soon! :)
 
SJC said:
Well I am scratching my head over my risk as it's not on the list of 'risks' you find on the internet. A few weeks ago I filled in a questionnaire online to tell me if I was at risk of diabetes...I passed with flying colours of having little or nor risk. That told me a lot! I have asked a lot of my family on both sides and we know of no one who had diabetes in our families and we know up to great grandparents. This leaves me to think I couldn't prevent my prediabetes at all. It just happened and I doubt I will ever know why.
Click to expand...

Wow.
Of course, as soon as I read this, I had to bustle off and find a Diabetes Risk Q'aire.
Amazingly, I am apparently at low risk
Low risk

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Apparently my waist size and weight don't even raise me into the 'raised risk' section of the chart.

But then, they didn't ask about my medication history, or previous BG warning signs, or any of the things that actually seem to factor in.

Priceless!
 
Brunneria said:
Wow.
Of course, as soon as I read this, I had to bustle off and find a Diabetes Risk Q'aire.
Amazingly, I am apparently at low risk
Low risk

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Apparently my waist size and weight don't even raise me into the 'raised risk' section of the chart.

But then, they didn't ask about my medication history, or previous BG warning signs, or any of the things that actually seem to factor in.

Priceless!
Click to expand...

It's ridiculous isn't it? And we wonder about why we don't know if we at risk? The education surrounding it is full of holes!
 
Back
Top