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I am not Obese


Please note that I very carefull said "linked to".
I didn't say which came first.

The original complaint was that people assume diabetics are obese.

My point was that with over 80% of diabetics reportedly obese this is a reasonable assumption.

This may not seem fair to the 20% or less who are not obese but it still remains a reasonable assumption pending further evidence/information.

Cheers

LGC
 
It seems to me that although weight has an input on diabetes, maybe we should just accept that diabetes is unique to each person. Take me for instance.. I am 20 years old, 5'11, 10st6, diagnosed at 17. I was diagnosed initially with type 2 diabetes, started on insulin. A month later I was told I didn't need insulin, just metformin and glicazide, and maybe I had a new type of diabetes - type 3.

Upon moving to a new town, new hospital, new team, they decided to test me for yet another type of diabetes, known as MODY or Maturity Onset Diabetes in the Young for those that haven't come accross it. I am still waiting for the results, but if it is MODY I then have to find out which strain I have, and who else in my family have it, because MODY diabetics have a 50% chance of passing the MODY gene to their child.

So, do you have to be obese to get Type 2 diabetes? No.
Do you have to be young to get Type 1 diabetes? Not Always
Do you have to be young to be diagnosed MODY? No. Because if I do have MODY, Mum will need to be tested - my mum is now 43 - too young to have MODY in most peoples mind..

Don't worry about stigmas attatched to diabetes or weight. Some people are big boned, some people have thyroid problems, some people have eating disorders. Diabetes isn't a fussy beast, it doesn't hand pick certain people. Everyone has a chane of getting diabetes whether they are the healthiest or indeed unhealthiest person in the world.

Matt
 
It is very interesting reading some of the posts as there are many issues raised that I haev often pondered over the last few years.
AM I obese ? no , however I did spend most of my life as a "big " Guy peaking at just under 18stone but as an active Rugby player this was taken for granted and I never had (and still never have ) had any medical problems.

I did enjoy the rich western diet that we love to indulge in and certainly my taste for the "falling down Juice" did meet the normal Rugby intake on an annual basis.

I was told I was diabetic many years after I lost the weight during a routine check up at my new Doctors.
I have spent many hours sitting through questionnaires by the so called experts who scratched their head as I answered time and again no to all their "DO you have ......symptoms"

Last year I had a dose of thrush and I kid you not the joy that exhaled from our nurse was greater than Wills on his nuptials ! I was quite astonished as he punched the air in delight ! He finnaly had me. " Now will you believe me he exclaimed !"
I simply said I have never doubted that there was a high sugar in my blood, or that my family has a history of diabetes (this was a little bit unavoidable as I have just buried my two Uncles and father over the last 14 months)

However I felt it was a little bit easy to lump me in with the standard Obese American Hot dog eater that we are treated to every time there is a "Slow mo" on any "LOSE WEIGHT OR YOU DIE !" programme hosted by an Anorexic Celebrity (or gastric Cheat!)

I have several uncertainties that I have been looking into as we seem to be faced constantly with stereotype in balances , when we the ones with the ailments are stuck in the middle shouting "Hey what about us we are dealing with this problem"

My thoughts and I guess questions are this
I was told take your medication look what happened to your Uncle A.
Will yes Uncle A did die at the age of 73 with poor eyesight and poor mobility in his last year

My Father was a complete skeleton when he died having been on over 16 pills a day since his diagnosis of some 25 years prior. He had the indignity of dying in a ward where alchoholics and drug users spent their last days (he never touched a drop) as his drug filled liver collapsed and every mineral was slowly depleated from his once strong body.
He died aged 71. He hadn't worked consistently for over 20 years due to his health conditions. My Uncle did.
He was medium build and athletic, my Uncle tall and skinny (yes Skinny)
The only family connection I am constantly coming across is that;( their mother also just had diabetes but died of "old age" it was very late onset so she was not really treated.)

My whole family is first generation from the islands of Scotland my Grandfather being the one who came to the central belt.
This is generations who lived off the land , eating quality organic meat and produce grown and hunted from the land and sea.

My father and his brothers all were brought up in a era where quality was replace by processed.
I read a medical article several years ago that discussed what we were putting into our food and the resounding anomaly was did we really know that the human body could break down the components of what was added to preserve food through quite amazing and extreme situations in our food chain. Yet upon being faced with the human body would suddenly break down and disappear.

If we look at countries that do not use the same processing products (more organic or natural and more use of pulses etc )like India and other Asian continents there is practically no diabetes, however if you expose that same group to our western culture the rate of diabetes especially goes through the roof .

Old age will kill us we know that , and many people may have died before they were old enough to get diabetes if at all.

Do the drugs work ? I don't know and its a quandary for all non stereo type "fatties" out there, and there seems to be more of us every day.

Surely its about quality of life more than longevity ? Its proven that some people are more predisposed to having higher blood sugar levels than others. We are all being herded by some age old standard that a government set up as a standard fro blood sugar . Not agreed entirely by the medical profession.

So I think if you are not Obese, then look at your family history, what part of the world did they come from what was the staple diet , then , and question is your sugar level really dangerous for your family history ?
I eat where possible only organic or natural products avoiding as far as possible anything in the processed chain(Its unbelievably difficult at times) and I have never had a day sick in my diabetic years.

I do know that when I succumb to the pre packed aisle it hits me like a ton of bricks.
Are we diabetic ? I don't know ? Are we just resistant to a modern food conveyor belt ? I will leave that open for discussion
thank you for the opportunity to express myself after a pretty awful year witnessing the lows of DIabetes.

B
 
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