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Diabetic life span?

J

Jelaca

Well-Known Member
Messages
225
Location
UK
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi there,

I've been diabetic for 8 years since I was 10 and I understand it creates a lot of strain on your body.
It's not possible for a diabetic to have perfect control 24/7, but will every diabetics life span be reduced? Or do a lot life a long life like a normal person would?

Sorry if this is a silly question..
 
I've also wondered this, but in the end summised that even non diabetics will die younger than they should and non diabetics will also get life long complications they have to live with. Live your life, look after yourself, take care of your diabetes and in sure you will have a "normal happy life". I've also thought that As a diabetic getting regular health checks will only help as problems may be picked up before they would be in a non diabetic, with time to reverse anything found.


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I agree with brett, for various reasons. I agree that we tend to look after ourselves pretty well, sometimes a lot better than non-diabetics. And despite all our gripes on the forum we do get a lot of attention from Drs, and access to drugs if we want them. That all helps.

Recently, I've been doing some research on diabetic life spans. I was diagnosed in 1969, aged 11, so if you do the maths you'll spot I have reached a point where I could take my work pension(s) early. Even just writing that is a great statement. I decided in 1969 that I'd be dead before I was 40, and here I am, nearly pension age :D

I've been looking at various government websites (Office for national statistics, government actuaries department,...). The closest figure I have got to is that being diabetic might shave 7 years of our lives. It varies by different things, such as the age we are diagnosed, but here's an example. Suppose you are diagnosed at age 40. Someone without diabetes aged 40 might live to 83.2, but a diabetic diagnosed at 40 might be expected to live till 76.9 (I made tht example up, I'll check and edit ths post if I am way out).

So I think thats's good news. Don't cancel your pension contributions, you'll still need them!
 
With modern treatment and monitoring, and a good measure of luck, you should live a normal lifespan. If you abuse your diabetes you could knock years or decades off it. With routine checks any issues with BP or cholesterol will be spotted sooner than later and appropriate treatment started if necessary. However genes also come into it and long lived forefathers are a useful asset! I know of one person who was on insulin for over 70 years after starting treatment in the twenties. Sadly I suspect his life was shorted by being changed from porcine to synthetic insulin as it would (allegedly) be better for him. As he had no complications up to then there was no reason for change!
 
So here the small print for my post above.

I slightly underestimated the ages in my example. These figures come from the GAD website, Demographics section, the 2010 cohort based life expectancy tables. (E1 for high life expectancy, whole of UK, and F1 for low life expectancy, UK). Some one 40 this year with a high life expectancy might expect to live another 51.5 years, while someone 40 this year with a low life expectancy could be expected to live another 42.4 years. That’s 91.5 and 82.4 years respectively.

Someone 18 this year, with a low life expectancy could expect another 63.5 years, taking them to 81.5. I should point out, I’m not qualified to give financial advice – but I’d still say you’ll need a pension.

I haven’t found the “7 year difference” article again yet, but I’ll add it when I do. I did find this useful document from the office for national statistics which talks about all causes of death, and why we are all living longer leading to the pensions crisis.

Health Statistics Quarterly - No. 45, Spring 2010: Quantifying the contribution of leading causes of death to mortality decline among older people (Pdf 1218Kb) (can't get that URL to work, sorry)

What’s increasing (liver disease) and what’s falling (highest is heart disease). Here is a quote about the decline in deaths from diabetes in just a 14 year period - "The other conditions with the largest relative declines in mortality rates were asthma (63.7 per cent decline), IHD (51.5 per cent), stomach cancer (50.6 per cent) and diabetes (42.6 per cent).”

Thanks for asking the question, hope the answer is reassuring.
 
Just enjoy life Jelaca and stay healthy as far as possible, your far too young to be getting worried about what may be decades away, no- one really knows when their time will be up and that's the way it should be.
 
My father's been a t2 or over 30 years and he's still walking about causing trouble coming into his 70s! lol

In that time he's outlasted many of his infinitely more 'healthy' contemporaries.

So it's not over till it's over!

Keep your head up and enjoy one day at a time, especially lovely, sunny ones like we have today in London! : )
 
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