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

Does T1 slow down aging?

do you look younger than your age?

  • Yes

    Votes: 10 83.3%

  • No

    Votes: 2 16.7%
  • Total voters
    12

Zhnyaka

Well-Known Member
Messages
851
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Homophobia, racism, sexism
I hear this very often from diabetics themselves, but I have never seen a serious scientific work on this topic (if you have a link, please share it). When I have to show my passport or tell people how old I am, they are usually very surprised that I am so old, and recently I was told that I look like a schoolgirl, although I graduated from school 10 years ago. Is that the case with you too?
 
I too have been told I look younger than I am but I don't put that down to diabetes. I used to be told the same thing for decades before my diagnosis and still do.
Maybe we look after ourselves better because we are more aware of our health or maybe some people just look younger than others. I definitely know some people with Type 1 who look older than I expect.

I embrace it and, provided it is not holding you back (I did not like getting "carded" in the US when I was in my mid-30s and wanted a beer), I recommend doing the same.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I am often told I look 10-15 years younger than I am (yes I was still getting ID'd buying booze when I was 40), however, so did my mum and so did my grandma and neither of them were T1, so I think mine is more a family trait rather than anything else.
 
what a pity we don't have a twin without diabetes to test this theory!
 
I was often told I looked younger than my age. I wasn't diabetic and didn't particularly look after myself.
 
Does T1 slow down aging? I don’t know but I think it’s a great idea. If anyone wants to make a motion, I’ll be happy to second it. Of course, I already think I look younger than my age. Then again, who doesn’t?
 
I'm the eldest out of 4 siblings, I and my following brother are both type 1, I've had it 6 years longer than him but always looked younger than him to his disappointment
I'm 61 he's 59 but can't believe this theory tbh.
 
I’m always getting told I don’t look my age my daughter gets ID regular and she’s 35 , my mum went to hospital and got asked her date of birth 3 times and she’s 84 and was told I’m sure you’ve been told “you don’t look your age” , brother is same , I’m the only diabetic so I think it’s like the Levi advert all in the genes
 
Last edited:
All I can say is that everything began late in my life. I was still singing soprano when just 16!! Many times I have been told I look 10 years younger than my actual age, to the point where a group of elderly ladies called me Peter Pan. Help!! As a result of all this I took a real interest and wasn't surprised when there was a report stating that the less insulin called on to aid digestion on a regular basis, the slower aging developed. If I can find the article I shall of course post it. I have found this, but it's not conclusive:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.4161/cc.7.21.7012
Best wishes from a 17 year-old!
Edited to add: Especially before Dafne came in in 1999, Type 1s were regularly put on a fixed carb-counting diet, with insulin doses to match. In theory this would mean that a Type 1 would not be walking around with excess insulin unless hypo. But then they wouldn't be walking around! This then makes me wonder whether excessive hypos cause aging? In my childhood I would get several a week, so I can't give a logical answer.
 
Last edited:
interestingly, many people say that this is typical in their family. I wonder if this means a tendency to diabetes or autoimmune aggression. In theory, there should be a factor that triggered this autoimmune aggression...

I remembered that I had been told since childhood (earlier than I was diagnosed with diabetes, much earlier) that I was very thin, but somehow I did not correlate this with the fact that perhaps even at that time my pancreas could not secrete enough insulin... how interesting! Good question, at what point did I start autoimmune aggression
 
nice thread but I do not think it is a diabetic related thing.

it is written in someones genes. So, it is a genetic thing ( I think)
 
On my father's side: All I know is that my father suffered from chronic asthma and hay fever
Mother's side: her mother had rheumatoid arthritis
Brother: asthmatic in his earlier years
Sister: Rheumatoid arthritis
Me: Type 1 and prone to rashes
So there is clearly a thread of autoimmune conditions running through from both sides. I wish I could find out more about my grandparents, but all I do know is that on my mother's side bowel cancer struck at least 3 out of 6. Maybe I got the better deal!!
 
Yaya10_10 said:
nice thread but I do not think it is a diabetic related thing.

it is written in someones genes. So, it is a genetic thing ( I think)
Click to expand...
For decades diabetologists have tried to make diabetes purely a genetic condition. There is now some room for exceptions, but I don't see how you can say this is not a diabetes related thing, any more than I can say it definitely is! The most interesting aspect of this is that Type 1s have absolute control of how much insulin goes into their blood chemistry daily. If everybody had exactly the same carb input, regardless of health, it would then be possible to give this a fair test because in theory we should all use similar amounts of insulin. But this wouldn't account for age, metabolic rate or even undiagnosed insulin resistance.
 
zand said:
I was often told I looked younger than my age. I wasn't diabetic and didn't particularly look after myself.
Click to expand...
I think it would be crazy to suggest that insulin is the only aging factor in our bodies!
 
david4503 said:
Does T1 slow down aging? I don’t know but I think it’s a great idea. If anyone wants to make a motion, I’ll be happy to second it. Of course, I already think I look younger than my age. Then again, who doesn’t?
Click to expand...
If you look at #9 on this thread, you will realise why slow aging CAN cause embarrassment! I could't wait for my voice to break...
 
I have everything surprisingly clean in terms of heredity. Neither parents nor grandparents had any chronic diseases. The only thing that can have anything to do with hormone problems is that my mother had such an irregular menstrual cycle that she discovered pregnancy only in the fourth or fifth month, when abortion was no longer possible. And probably the fact that before pregnancy my mother was plump, but after giving birth she was never able to gain weight, I always attributed it to stress caused by the need to raise me, but now that I take care of myself and do not need help, I increasingly wonder if there are any hormonal reasons for the fact that she weighs only 45kg with a normal diet. And my father never had any serious health problems at all. I have no idea where I got diabetes from


Grant_Vicat said:
Maybe I got the better deal!!
Click to expand...
diabetes, of course, unlike arthritis does not cause pain, but I would not say that you got the better deal
 

No, the thing is that in studies they usually focus on factor and ignore the rest and in reality things are more complicated.

Some people start getting white hair although they are younger.

Many poor kids from different countries seem to be a bit older, although the kids from rich countries do not have diabetes.

I know people how have this problem and this happens to his family members.

How can someone separate the effects of diabetes from genetic effects.

I do not know tbh but things seem to be a lot complicated
 

In fact, it is quite simple to separate the influence of genetics from the environment - for this purpose, twins (especially identical ones) are studied. It is believed that where twins have a difference, the external environment has had an impact. Therefore, T1 is not considered a completely genetic disease, because there may be identical twins, one of whom has diabetes and the other does not (I'm not sure, but as far as I know, if one of the twins has T2, then the second one has 100% too).

As for social factors, the samples are never made up of people who are in conditions that vary greatly. Usually they try to choose people for the experiment so that they have differences only in the factor that is being investigated


But of course no one says that we age only because of insulin
 
coming to your example of the twin.

you mean if one of them has t2 then we look if they age slower Tham his other non-diabetic sibling.

hmmm if you say the other 100% will develop t2 (because of genetic) then how can not you tell that age is not a genetic thing?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…