Type 2 but young and otherwise healthy- can I avoid needing medication?

[MauricienneScot]

Hi,

My questions is: As someone who already lives an active lifestyle, follows a LCHF diet and is thin (BMI 22), is my diabetes likely to get worse to the point I will need medication to manage it?

Background: Just been diagnosed this year in Jan, although have had symptoms of high blood sugar for at least the past 10 years. I am 24, and have followed LCHF for the last three years anyway since I was feeling absolutely awful when I was frequently eating carby foods (and they made me pile on weight). I am fairly active- run 3.5miles home from work every day, run marathons etc, lift weights. I am not overweight- 63kg at 5’6, but I do carry weight badly as it’s all muffin top, nowhere else (cry).

I do think this may be largely genetic, as I am half Mauritian and this year the prime minister there said in a speech that 50% of Mauritians are either diabetic or prediabetic.

Fasting BS is around 6-7.5. After exercise it is around 8. PP is normally around 6.5-7.5. Eat between 20g carbs, 50/60g on a bad day. Wholegrain carbs put my BS up to 11 so I don’t eat these.

I’d ideally like to remain medication free, but I don’t really feel there is much scope for me to make drastic lifestyle changes to make myself healthier because I feel I am kind of already there. I’d love to hear other people’s experiences of this/or get some suggestions where I can make further changes. Like should I try and get my weight down further? Thank you!!

 

[Guzzler]

Hello and welcome to the forum. It sounds like you are doing all the right things. It is good that you are testing, keep recording the readings and keep a wary eye on any upward trends. Otherwise, keep doing what you are doing.

Edited to add.
May I ask what your last HbA1c score was, please?

 

[LittleGreyCat]

Just noticed the 2 day wait for a reply. Oops! Tagging @daisy1 for the welcome.
If you put fat on round your waist then the most important thing is for your waist measurement to be less than half your height. So you may need to lose a bit more weight if your waist needs trimming.
No medication is good, but consider Metformin which may help improve your numbers a little.

 

[Guzzler]

You sound like a proactive winner. Couple things, just from reading:

1. Your fasting glucose is high and you have central obesity, a mark of metabolic syndrome, so you are already into the struggle.

2. In your age group only 12.5% of Mauritians are diabetic. The 50 % thing refers to age 45+

3. the way I look at challenges like this, which I also have, being multiethnic, is it's like genes. It ain't necessarily so, won't necessarily happen, but forewarned is to be prepared. You are a prepared winner.

4. On the weight thing, I have central obesity also, which is cardiovacular and other risks not just diabetes, but my weight is about the same but I am a couple inches taller. but that is now. A doc told me a dozen years ago when I was waaaay heavier that I had the choice of losing 50 pounds or dying. I chose life.

In my mid20s, I weighed 125 pounds but I was three inches taller than you and had had a couple children. I had already gone through gestational diabetes twice, gained over 60 pounds each pregnancy. And lost it. I was not healthy.

In your place, knowing what I know now, I would try to see a good endocrinologist and a cardiologist, have all the metabolic stuff checked out and have a stress test and then ask those docs what would be my ideal weight. Before pregnancy. If I had the bucks, would see a sports medicine doc and work out an ideal joint saving exercise program. I would have rowed crew longer. I would have swum more. No way can central obesity fight those two sports

Your point on rowing, Sir Steve Redgrave the Olympic rower couldn't stave off T2. You can't excercise your way out of a bad diet.