CRPetersen
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 67
- Type of diabetes
- Treatment type
- Diet only
History
Both of my parents lived through and experienced the Great Depression. As a child, my mother’s family also lost everything they had in a flood. My mother did not like to waste anything. I was very fortunate to be raised in a hardworking and good home with great parents. Being the youngest, at an early age, it was often my assignment to eat whatever was left. I can well remember hearing my mother say to give it to me to finish because I was skinny. Well, you can imagine how long being skinny lasted, in spite of being a fairly active kid.
I also have to take personal responsibility because I developed a sweet tooth and looked for anything delicious I could devour. When my older sister got married she stored the top of her wedding cake in our freezer to be eaten at their anniversary. At the time I didn’t know that was the reason, but I found it, and yes, I ate it. I was a fat kid and endured most of the humiliations common to fat kids. Humiliations I would not wish on any child, teen, or adult.
Between my high-school sophomore and junior years I went on a decidedly unhealthy diet but managed to get myself into pretty good shape. This lasted until I was about 19 when I slowly started to put it back on. I continued to be physically active but had become over-weight again. I was starting to have symptoms, which I didn’t fully understand at the time, of both low blood sugar and depression.
At age 26 I married a beautiful young woman who was exactly one month younger than me by the name of Jasmine. We went on to have four wonderful children and now have four wonderful grandchildren and another on the way. As I write this, we have been married for over 30 years. Soon after our marriage, I started to put on more weight to the point of becoming morbidly obese. I continued to walk quite a bit, though became decidedly less active than I had previously been. At one point I was prescribed the Fen-Phen drug diet and lost a bunch of weight . . . for a while, then put it all back on and a bunch more. Of course I worried about the possible side effects which may have been caused by the medications.
I have also had 9 eye surgeries, two on one eye and 7 on the other ending in the loss of one of my eyes. My eye problems impacted my activity level for many years. I vividly remember on July 4th 1996 while my sons were still quite young, I was trying to play soccer in our back yard with the two of them. I say “trying” because even at their young age, because of my obesity I was no match for either. While trying to play soccer, one of my retinas’ detached. (While not enjoyable, it is an interesting experience actually watching your own retina detach.) Because of my particular eye diagnosis and the complete loss of sight in one eye, I was fearful too much physical exertion would cause the retina in the other eye to detach putting me in another downward spiral to total blindness in my better eye. After many years living under this cloud of fear, I finally decided I could no longer live my life like this. Other ophthalmologists have since told me the chance of another detachment is fairly slim, but either way, I don’t want to live my life afraid of physical activity.
Scared of Alzheimer’s
My father had Alzheimer’s and according to an uncle, my grandfather also had Alzheimer’s. Having diabetes and being overweight are both huge risk factors for Alzheimer’s.
URL’s for two easy to read articles:
http://weight-lossnewsandresearch.blogspot.com/2014/09/alzheimers-is-type-3-diabetes-big-think.html
http://scaredofalzheimers.blogspot.com/2012/09/alzheimers-disease-type-3-diabetes-maybe.html
Alzheimer’s is even sometimes referred to as “type 3 diabetes.” Seeing what it did to my father who we cared for, I was highly motivated to avoid Alzheimer’s. I have often said, only half-jokingly, that I’d rather be run over by a truck or train than get Alzheimer’s.
(Sometimes URLs are changed and an article may be placed in a different location. If you cannot find the article by the URL, type the name of the article into a search engine and see if it will come up someplace else.)
Research:
Diabetes Mellitus and Risk of Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia with Stroke in a Multiethnic Cohort
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/154/7/635.short
Impaired insulin and insulin-like growth factor expression and signaling mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease - is this type 3 diabetes?
http://iospress.metapress.com/content/qunmpv4q3w77e5vm/
Increased risk of Alzheimer's disease in Type II diabetes: insulin resistance of the brain or insulin-induced amyloid pathology?
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/16246041
Insulin resistance syndrome and Alzheimer's disease: Age- and obesity-related effects on memory, amyloid, and inflammation
http://www.neurobiologyofaging.org/article/S0197-4580(05)00230-7/abstract
Meta-Analysis of Alzheimer's Disease Risk with Obesity, Diabetes, and Related Disorders
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322309002261
Both of my parents lived through and experienced the Great Depression. As a child, my mother’s family also lost everything they had in a flood. My mother did not like to waste anything. I was very fortunate to be raised in a hardworking and good home with great parents. Being the youngest, at an early age, it was often my assignment to eat whatever was left. I can well remember hearing my mother say to give it to me to finish because I was skinny. Well, you can imagine how long being skinny lasted, in spite of being a fairly active kid.
I also have to take personal responsibility because I developed a sweet tooth and looked for anything delicious I could devour. When my older sister got married she stored the top of her wedding cake in our freezer to be eaten at their anniversary. At the time I didn’t know that was the reason, but I found it, and yes, I ate it. I was a fat kid and endured most of the humiliations common to fat kids. Humiliations I would not wish on any child, teen, or adult.
Between my high-school sophomore and junior years I went on a decidedly unhealthy diet but managed to get myself into pretty good shape. This lasted until I was about 19 when I slowly started to put it back on. I continued to be physically active but had become over-weight again. I was starting to have symptoms, which I didn’t fully understand at the time, of both low blood sugar and depression.
At age 26 I married a beautiful young woman who was exactly one month younger than me by the name of Jasmine. We went on to have four wonderful children and now have four wonderful grandchildren and another on the way. As I write this, we have been married for over 30 years. Soon after our marriage, I started to put on more weight to the point of becoming morbidly obese. I continued to walk quite a bit, though became decidedly less active than I had previously been. At one point I was prescribed the Fen-Phen drug diet and lost a bunch of weight . . . for a while, then put it all back on and a bunch more. Of course I worried about the possible side effects which may have been caused by the medications.
I have also had 9 eye surgeries, two on one eye and 7 on the other ending in the loss of one of my eyes. My eye problems impacted my activity level for many years. I vividly remember on July 4th 1996 while my sons were still quite young, I was trying to play soccer in our back yard with the two of them. I say “trying” because even at their young age, because of my obesity I was no match for either. While trying to play soccer, one of my retinas’ detached. (While not enjoyable, it is an interesting experience actually watching your own retina detach.) Because of my particular eye diagnosis and the complete loss of sight in one eye, I was fearful too much physical exertion would cause the retina in the other eye to detach putting me in another downward spiral to total blindness in my better eye. After many years living under this cloud of fear, I finally decided I could no longer live my life like this. Other ophthalmologists have since told me the chance of another detachment is fairly slim, but either way, I don’t want to live my life afraid of physical activity.
Scared of Alzheimer’s
My father had Alzheimer’s and according to an uncle, my grandfather also had Alzheimer’s. Having diabetes and being overweight are both huge risk factors for Alzheimer’s.
URL’s for two easy to read articles:
http://weight-lossnewsandresearch.blogspot.com/2014/09/alzheimers-is-type-3-diabetes-big-think.html
http://scaredofalzheimers.blogspot.com/2012/09/alzheimers-disease-type-3-diabetes-maybe.html
Alzheimer’s is even sometimes referred to as “type 3 diabetes.” Seeing what it did to my father who we cared for, I was highly motivated to avoid Alzheimer’s. I have often said, only half-jokingly, that I’d rather be run over by a truck or train than get Alzheimer’s.
(Sometimes URLs are changed and an article may be placed in a different location. If you cannot find the article by the URL, type the name of the article into a search engine and see if it will come up someplace else.)
Research:
Diabetes Mellitus and Risk of Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia with Stroke in a Multiethnic Cohort
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/154/7/635.short
Impaired insulin and insulin-like growth factor expression and signaling mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease - is this type 3 diabetes?
http://iospress.metapress.com/content/qunmpv4q3w77e5vm/
Increased risk of Alzheimer's disease in Type II diabetes: insulin resistance of the brain or insulin-induced amyloid pathology?
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/16246041
Insulin resistance syndrome and Alzheimer's disease: Age- and obesity-related effects on memory, amyloid, and inflammation
http://www.neurobiologyofaging.org/article/S0197-4580(05)00230-7/abstract
Meta-Analysis of Alzheimer's Disease Risk with Obesity, Diabetes, and Related Disorders
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322309002261
