stop diabetes two stigma and find a cure instead of blaming us for being sick

[QUOTE="aimee11, post: 674005, member: 136952"

I wish that all medical professionals and the media would stop stigmatizing our illness as being self caused so that real research and understanding can follow and breakthrough treatments discovered[/QUOTE]

I wish these clowns would look at the global figures and work it out in their tiny little *(%$$ brains that this is an epidemic. I was about to add that I'd almost hope someone in government(s) who hold the purse strings in dealing with this contracts it but I'll pull back from that as I would not wish this on anyone.

This needs billions thrown at it and a LOUD (let's call that REALLLLLY LOUD) international voice to get monies directed to this issue.

My rant over

aimee11 said:

numerous news items about research show that faulty genes are the cause of both obesity and diabetes two

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Don't forget that as well as the Ob Gene as it's known and there's more than one, a virus has been identified as being connected to obesity and I have now read that there is a gut bacteria associated with obesity.

aimee11 said:

it is time to stop saying that diabetes type two is a lifestyle disease because it is not.

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It's too easy for the media to blame lifestyle which quite often is a lifestyle that is recommended by the powers that be. Without getting into the low carb debate, we're all different, I believe that the 300 gms a day recommended is possibly too high. The media just make it worse, as they did with HIV/AIDS, I don't even bother reading them any more.

aimee11 said:

thin people are getting diabetes two possibly at the same rate as fat people - think Halle Berry and Tom Hanks and tennis star Billie Jean King who were never known for being fat yet have the disease

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Steve Redgrave (rower), Larry King, Patti LaBelle, BB King, George Lucas. Lot of Americans there. Mmmmmmm?

aimee11 said:

I wish that all medical professionals and the media would stop stigmatizing our illness as being self caused so that real research and understanding can follow and breakthrough treatments discovered

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One of the other problems is with the way the pharmaceutical industry works and how research takes place. They already think they've got the answer to why there is a type II epidemic, obesity being the major cause, and that's why we hear about gastric bypass being suggested as the way forward. I'm not going to knock Bariatric surgery because it has it's place, I just don't think it's a cure for diabetes.

aimee11 said:

thin people are getting diabetes two possibly at the same rate as fat people - think Halle Berry and Tom Hanks and tennis star Billie Jean King who were never known for being fat yet have the disease

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Note however, that Tom Hanks has "Yo-Yo'"d his weight for years for his acting roles which may have been a contributing trigger!

I wonder what the actual percentages are?

How many obese people go on to get diabetes, (me, for one)
What was their lifestyle like before (Mine was appalling, with hindsight)
Did losing weight improve the symptoms (yes)

And,
how many thin people go on to get diabetes.
What was their lifestyle like?
Did changing their lifestyle improve the symptoms?

Only by comparing the two will we know if obesity plays a part, all I can say is treating my obesity has worked well for me, and all I've changed is lifestyle.
I also now nag my kids to stop eating junk, and eat healthily, and they're not obese, or even slightly overweight.

My father was underweight and he was diagnosed at about the age of 68. However, after retiring he became very inactive.

His eating habits were so-so. He eat lots of biscuits & loved his bread with honey or jam.

There are many factors at play here. Whilst some may suffer from this so called "Obesity Gene" not all will.
Environment has a huge part to play. I was surprised to recently find out that radiation can trigger diabetes. Food nowadays goes through so many processes before we eat it and god knows what chemicals are in there.
Yes it's quite amusing that professionals claim this condition is brought about by excess weight and I know diabetics who are thin as a rake.


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douglas99 said:

How many obese people go on to get diabetes, (me, for one)
What was their lifestyle like before (Mine was appalling, with hindsight)
Did losing weight improve the symptoms (yes)

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I think we could easily get large numbers of all types of people. I'm still overweight but I have been on a low(er) fat diet since 1980. I was also very active having played rugby into my late twenties, badmington from then into my early forties, swimming and cycling figured high on my list of activities as well. I struggled to lose any weight because of the drugs I took for diabetes, Rosiglitazone being the worst with Gliclazide having an adverse effect as well. Symptoms only improved when I cut carbs, was then able to stop taking so many drugs which then helped me to lose weight. So low(er) carb, low(er) fat (can't eat too much anyway), led to less medication and improved health.

That's correct graj. Gliclazide actually puts or retains weight which beats the objective. That tablet is a killer. So glad I'm off it.


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graj0 said:

I think we could easily get large numbers of all types of people. I'm still overweight but I have been on a low(er) fat diet since 1980. I was also very active having played rugby into my late twenties, badmington from then into my early forties, swimming and cycling figured high on my list of activities as well. I struggled to lose any weight because of the drugs I took for diabetes, Rosiglitazone being the worst with Gliclazide having an adverse effect as well. Symptoms only improved when I cut carbs, was then able to stop taking so many drugs which then helped me to lose weight. So low(er) carb, low(er) fat (can't eat too much anyway), led to less medication and improved health.

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Lower calorie worked for me as well, low fat specifically, but a lot less of everything overall.
Probably down from an excess of 3000 calories to around 1200, then careful watch of portion sizes to ensure it stays around 2000 normally.

Well LCHF worked for me, although I do still have weight to lose. I don't think 'they' need to spend billions to improve things. All 'they' need to do is to tell people to cut carbs.

Judging by media reports and the ongoing trickle of medical articles, studies and meta-studies, there appears to be a significant correlation between unnecessary refined carbs in the average diet and a number of diseases, including Type 2 and certain cardio-vascular conditions.

As a number of people I know who are neither overweight nor have poor lifestyles (one regularly runs half marathons) have developed type 2, there is clearly more to it than just "not looking after yourself"....

That's the thing though isn't it? Refined carbs are bad for everyone, not just diabetics. People who think they are looking after themselves by eating them are in fact harming their bodies. Conversely people are staying away from fats like butter and animal fats when these are healthy. So what is needed is education This won't happen because there is a lot of money to be made in processing carbs and selling them to us and also a lot more money to be made when these foods make us ill and we 'need' drugs to stay alive. We don't need carbs and we don't need the drugs that help us to keep eating carbs. But what would big business say about a message like that?

It is so easy to put right, but sadly it won't happen. So it's up to individuals to find out for themselves.

aimee11 said:

numerous news items about research show that faulty genes are the cause of both obesity and diabetes two

it is time to stop blaming the poor sick person

it was only once AIDS sufferers stopped being stigmatized for causing their illness that treatments and research was done

it is time to stop saying that diabetes type two is a lifestyle disease because it is not.

it is much more likely that we became fat because our genes are faulty and not the other way round

if we stop stigmatizing diabetes type two sufferers doctors will start testing thin people for the disease and that will save lives

thin people are getting diabetes two possibly at the same rate as fat people - think Halle Berry and Tom Hanks and tennis star Billie Jean King who were never known for being fat yet have the disease

I wish that all medical professionals and the media would stop stigmatizing our illness as being self caused so that real research and understanding can follow and breakthrough treatments discovered

Click to expand...

Whilst it would be more popular to agree with all of the above I, personally, think it is dangerous to say that there is no blame or lifestyle choice influences at play with T2 diabetes. Yes, there is a genetic element to obesity but that is normally a predisposition to obesity. Not a gene that says "you are destined whatever you do to be obese".

Has this gene magically appeared in our society or has it always been there? If it's always been there then why did we not see "obesity epidemics" at other points in history?

It would be ridiculous to say that every T2 diabetic has become so through lifestyle choices but I think there is a larger proportion than who do so than people in the diabetic community are willing to accept.

I don't think blame and stigmatisation of people helps one little bit and is totally wrong.

.However blaming it on genes can't be the whole story either. There are obviously some families that may have rare genetic mutations which affect their family . People with MODY have very rare variants that mean each child from a carrier parent has a 50% chance of developing diabetes. I'm sure that there will be similar rare 'familial' genes that 'cause' some individuals 'type 2' diabetes.

The incidence of T2 though has increased dramatically and because DNA changes extremely slowly, genetic change can't account for the big increase seen in recent years.
. .
The simplest answer is often the most likely.

Our 'food' environment has undergone rapid change, just look at a photo of the high street now and 30 years ago, The population in the UK and in many other parts of Europe have along with these changes become more overweight. It includes those who would not be classified as overweight, (slight edit for grammar) It's a general shift upwards.
There are some excellent slides of graphs and pictures of people in the street presented in Professor Taylors recent lecture which demonstrate this very clearly. He suggests that it this shift of weight upwards has pushed people past the threshold at which they as an individual are likely to become diabetic

I think this ties in with a genetic study from EPIC (this is a very large European research collaboration) They looked at over 16000 middle aged people who were not diabetic at the start of the study .
They sequenced DNA to look for 49 SNPs (genetic variations) that have been found to be most associated with T2 in European populations They then followed them up for up to 10 years.

They found theyounger people with a high number of these related SNPs were at a slightly higher risk at all weights . For the most part though what made the difference was weight (and waist measurement)
If you had lots of the diabetes associated SNPs but you remained thin ie had a BMI under 25 then you had only a small risk of developing T2. In fact even with lots of 'diabetes SNPs' you had a lower risk of developing T2 than someone who had only few diabetes related SNPs but was very overweight.
(graphs 1-4 left to right; increasing number of diabetes SNPs , red line BMI less than 25, blue BMI 25 to 30 , black over 30 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001647



So far fewer people would be likely to develop T2 when it was the norm for people to have a BMI of less than 25. People had the same genes and the same risks . What has changed is an environment where ready prepared, cheap calories are easily available all day, everyday . The problem is how to reverse/change the environment.

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Scardoc said:

Whilst it would be more popular to agree with all of the above I, personally, think it is dangerous to say that there is no blame or lifestyle choice influences at play with T2 diabetes. Yes, there is a genetic element to obesity but that is normally a predisposition to obesity. Not a gene that says "you are destined whatever you do to be obese".

Has this gene magically appeared in our society or has it always been there? If it's always been there then why did we not see "obesity epidemics" at other points in history?

It would be ridiculous to say that every T2 diabetic has become so through lifestyle choices but I think there is a larger proportion than who do so than people in the diabetic community are willing to accept.

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I'm not a geneticist although my wife knows a fair bit and she tells me that although genes do not just appear, they do mutate, so who knows how long the gene has been around? To make things even more interesting that same gene will behave differently even in siblings, it needs something to switch it on (google epigenetics) and even then, as you say, it's not a forgone conclusion, just a predisposition to exhibit whatever the gene is supposed to be responsible for. So, it would be very useful to know that you have a predisposition to something because of genes, you might start avoiding action much younger, assuming you know that you have that gene and it's switched on.
I don't think anybody would suggest that life style is blameless, what I dislike is that because lifestyle can lead to diabetes, the NHS tells us that all diabetics need to look at their lifestyle, it's unfair to lump us all together, we're different.
For myself, I will say that with one skinny father, one average sized aunty (father's side), one chunky uncle (mum's side) all with type II, there seems to be a mixture of weight sizes with one thing in common, type II diabetes.
As for proportion of the diabetic community, who's got the numbers, we need to exclude type IIs with a wobbly pancreas not producing enough insulin and how many type IIs have had a c-peptide test? Then we need to look at the weight of each of the type IIs that we're left with, we could have small, medium and large and then with the larger ones we'd have to look at their lifestyle, or to be brutal, what they eat and drink. We shouldn't second guess the results, it would be interesting, perhaps somebody has already done the research.

graj0 said:

............ the NHS tells us that all diabetics need to look at their lifestyle, it's unfair to lump us all together, we're different..........................

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They don't.
They tell every overweight, or over drinker, or over eater, or donut lover, or macdonalds lover, or couch potato, to look at their lifestyle. The fact I fitted all that, and was diabetic, didn't affect their advice.
I'm sure if I had gone in with a heart attack, or a stroke, or high blood pressure, or even a sprained ankle, I would have been told to look at my lifestyle.

I also think you would be very hard pushed to find the NHS advising to eat refined carbs as well. They generally advise a moderate amount of food overall, and the preference is towards freshly prepared foods, not prepacked.

Dibbles1 said:

Well I was skinny all my life, I put weight on for a short while after my accident, then it just dropped off and thought I had diabetes. No one took me seriously, despite my gran having Type 1.
I ate properly cutting out wheat etc for years.
By then I had neuropathy in my feet, so I think it was there from my accident.
Then a few years ago, I got told off and that I should add back wheat products.
I put on weight over the last three years, about a 1lb a month, now unable to exercise and in a wheelchair.
Then someone decided to look for diabetes.
So I think the diabetes is there in the genes and people fight against it unknowingly for years, trying to stay slim.
Then either an accident, depression, inability to continue the fight to stay slim, disablement, having babies, getting older, etc etc take people over the precipice and they develop diabetes.
It's no one's fault.
As soon as Dr's open their blinkered eyes and research is done with an open mind, it'll be solved.
But we could be waiting an awful long time for that one

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Yes I put on weight after a car accident and tried harder and harder to stay slim. I eventually became morbidly obese and diabetic, despite trying hard to sort the weight problem out.