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Family history link?

A

Agada

Active Member
Messages
25
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi all, I’m type 2 diabetic brought on by lifestyle and am now diet/exercise controlled, diagnosed in March aged 37. In terms of family history, there is no history of type 2 that I can find, one of my uncles was type 1 but he’s the only person in my family with diabetes history. Does this one bit of history with my uncle put me at risk of developing type 1 or are they not linked in such a way?
 
Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease. It is quite different from Type 2 Diabetes.
The similarities are so few that treatment and lifestyle changes vary enormously.
 
@Agada A quick google of "Type 1 diabetes inheritance" suggests that, if a brother, sister or parent is T1, you may be slightly more susceptible to becoming T1 yourself. An uncle is, of course another generation removed. I shouldn't worry about it, there's far too many things in life to worry about.
The fact that you are T2 is irrelevant, as @Guzzler says above, it's a quite different condition.
Sally
 
Hi @Agada. You are in luck! I live in the southern hemisphere and my cat woke me up at dawn this morning, and I haven't been able to go back to sleep...

Anyway.

Type 2 is a metabolic disease , metabolism referring to the chemicals that make up a living body or thing. Type two, (not the brought on by surgery or pancreatic damage kind), rather than being "brought on by lifestyle" (which always sounds like we woke up one morning and decided on playing petanque - and developing a metabolic disease that day!). I would say brought on by a bad food and drink environment and by insulin resistance. And people are having type two now in families that have never had type two before - because of the big changes in the food and drink environment and not in our genes - it takes a lot longer than a generation to change those.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, and western medicine and science has not got autoimmune diseases under wraps at all, is my understanding. (But the autoimmune thing is when your autoimmune system mistakenly attacks your body, to put it simply.)

Type 1 and type 2 are actually two very different diseases that culminate in the same symptom - too high blood glucose, and the word diabetes refers to that symptom, not the causes.

As for the short answer - I have been led to believe you could have both. You could develop type 1 as well as the insulin resistance based type 2 you have now. Others who that has happened to can pitch in? Or tell me I got it wrong?

My understanding is, what you can't have (- sorry Halle Berry I think you are wonderful in 'Cat Woman'!) - is type 1 develop into type 2 (Halle confused us all by saying this is what happened to her - but her docs didn't give her the right tests to find out early on what type she really had apparently), or type 2 develop into type 1.

(I see there are some other answers posted while I wrote this so I will post this and read those...)
 

Sort of true, but it's very common for doctors to misdiagnose T1 as T2 because they tend to assume that anyone who is overweight or older (some of them assume that only kids develop T1) must be T2. Then after a couple of years of failed T2 treatment they get rediagnosed as T1. Many older T1s develop the disease very gradually, so that an initial reduction of carbohydrate can keep them off insulin for quite some time.

In theory no reason why T2 can't develop T1, but T1 is a rare illness, so not very likely. T1s can become insulin resistant, one of the symptoms of T2, but the other T2 symptom, over production of insulin, isn't an issue because T1s produce no insulin in the long term.
 
Yes, my understanding is that it is theoretically true that you can have both type 2, and type 1, (have I read someone in this forum with this situation? I think so...) but, the reality is as you posters above say, and you @EllieM, that is more a case of misdiagnosis, and changing diagnosis.

As in the example I use of the lovely Halle Berry, which is interesting as it is the opposite scenario as is usual - that she got diagnosed as type 1 originally but it turned out to be type 2. (She is not insulin dependent.) The 'celebrities with diabetes' site I am getting this type 1/type 2 info from in regards to her thinks what happened is her medical team assumed it was type 1 rather than testing her antibodies, as she had an extreme response (ie a diabetic coma) at age 22, and she did not exhibit the way more common fat storage pathways that many type 2s do - ie she was very slim.
 
I mentioned the subject of this thread to Herr Svea, who is way more scientific and logical than I am, and he reminded me that it must be WAY rare to be both type 1 and type 2, as type 1 is 'going going going...gone' on insulin, and most type 2 is too much insulin (ie insulin resistance).

So how to have both? Only if, your type 2 is the SIDD - 'severe insulin deficient diabetes' according to the Swedes' subgroups of diabetes, which makes up 17% of all cases of diabetes, say they. And, to remind - 6.4% of all those with diabetes are SAIDs - 'severe autoimmune diabetes' which includes LADA.

So statistically possible?

Which brings us back to @Agada - there you are. As you have insulin resistance based diabetes, the SIRDs, MODs and the MARDs - which is the whole wopping rest of folks with diabetes minus the SIDDs and the SAIDs - 76.6% of who will not be getting a combo of type 1 and type 2 any time soon.

I would love to know what the actual chances of getting both SAID and SIDD is! ie what the percentage of this is, amongst a 'test population' of those with diabetes. (The Swedish subgroups of which I am obviously a fan did not include this category.) Anyone know?

(ps Herr Svea said he would kill me if I said those Swedish subgroup acronyms one more time... and he is Swedish!)
 
Great! Some very comprehensive replies here, thanks all! I worry about the onset of LADA however as I’ve got type 2 and managed to lower BS to normal levels makes me think perhaps this isn’t prevalent, I guess we could all be worried about that happening but because one of my uncles had type 1 I do worry if that is enough of a link to be worried about, but then if that’s the case then shouldn’t the rest of my family be worried even if they haven’t been diagnosed as type 2?? Confused or what ‍
 
@Agada - as you had a mild form of diabetes (how do I know this? Because you now have normal BG through diet and exercise) - the Swedes would give it the 'MOD' acronym.That you have got normal BG levels now is great news.

Don't relax so you eat a high-carb bad fats way of eating. And keep up the physically active thing as it is great for your cardio-vascular health, but, I would relax on worrying about getting the autoimmune diabetes now. Can't be good for you!

As for your close family members, and their risk of getting type 2 (experts on type 1 need to address that one, I can only discuss type 2), I use the belly fat indicator in my own family and extended family. If one has belly fat, or can go to fat on their belly rather easily (as is my own case), this is a noteworthy risk factor. I have a LOT of siblings, and even though their risk factor is x2 of getting T2D, because of me, none of them have (and none of them had my belly fat problem, bless them). OK, maybe one, and she doesn't want to tell me she has prediabetes again, or even, you know - worse. (Probably because she knows I will start giving her a Swedish acronym!)

So I hope you are celebrating knocking out the Type 2?! (With low to moderate carb food and drink of course!) And allowing yourself to relax on getting autoimmune diseases (or in fact - any disease). Keep going on the fit and healthy track you are already on - that is all any of us can do really, isn't it? To ward off nasty diseases. Or, as in my case, to live as well as you can with a nasty disease you already have.
 
@AloeSvea well last weekend was Christmas party time so I did have some celebrating to do. I’m pleased to get my BG down, I wouldn’t celebrate it as such as in hard on myself and feel I should not have let it get to this, but to go from 74 to 37.5 I’m happy my body reacted well to my efforts. I am always driving myself harder and want to get it even lower, people get angry with me as they say “but it’s normal, be happy” but I fear complacency and want to go as low as possible, next step is to quit nicotine to see if tar also helps. I still eat carbs but don’t go overboard, limit them most days but keep an eye on weight too as I think the belly/visceral fat thing is the key with me, and carbs are the main contributor to that! Thank you for your kind words and advice
 

Agada - Clearly only you can decide how to live on a day-to-day basis, however, please be mindful that you can't drive your A1c down forever.

In my experience, many have their own "sweet spot" where they seem to run, quite happily and repeatedly. For me, it seemed to be toggling 31<>33, and repeat, then I did have one lower, at 27.

My advice would be to try to find a place that controls your blood sugars in a good place, but that still allows you to enjoy life, and live it in your family and social circle. In my view, there's little point in living a hermit lifestyle, just to chase a number, when it means passing on enriching life adventures and experiences.

Life is for living. Few can get away with total hedonism, but we only pass this way once, and as my avatar suggests, I need to get busy living!

Good luck with it all.
 
@DCUKMod thanks mate, you make good points, I find it difficult to accept a result if I think it could be lower, but that’s me and my stupid OCD. I do live a not too dissimilar life to before, just made those changes to diet/portion control and upped exercise to lose fat, but still like a few on a weekend and treat myself. Perhaps this is my sweet spot as you say, as someone said to me recently, we all have different levels of “normal” I suppose, the key word being normal
 
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