Type 2's needing insulin?

The only statistic I've come across so far is American where it says 27% of type 2's need insulin. If you can manage to keep your blood sugar levels down below 7 then this increases your chance of not requiring insulin for a good while.this can be done with a mixture of diet and oral medications.

My Gp insists I shall end up on insulin eventually, whaever I do. I say not. I'd like to get off all medication and go to diet and exercise only.

Look at things from the other way round. How would you cope with visual impairment, chronic pain and visits for dialysis three times a week?

If you need insulin to keep your blood sugars within a reasonable range to prevent complications, then that is surely the best thing to do.

Before my son got diabetes I could not envisage that a day filled with blood tests and injections several times a day would not be a terrible painful burden. But, within days we were just doing it and not bothering about it.

You may know how fussy cats are? Some diabetic cats come to their humans for jags and let their blood sugars get checked from ear pricks!

50% of gliclazide users need insulin after 5 years. Probably insulin should be used a lot earlier than this as it has a favourable effect in prolonging the life of beta cells in the pancreas.

If the thought of insulin terrifys you (as it does to many people) I would ask your doctor to try putting an insulin needle under your skin so you can see what it is like. I suspect you will be surprised that it is so well tolerated. Once you have got the needle thing over with it could really put your mind at rest.

Life on insulin really isn't that bad once you get used to it. Type 1s have no choice in the matter and the proportion who genuinely can't cope with that is small.

I don't have any worries about eventually going onto insulin. I do worry about living long enough to get to that stage.

I also worry about worrying.

Why worry?

Katharine said:

50% of gliclazide users need insulin after 5 years.

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That's a very interesting statistic Katherine, but does it actually prove that the progression to insulin is inevitable, or that the action of sulphonylureas on the pancreas makes insulin progression more likely?

And Jenny - if you weren't worried you would probably worry about why you aren't worried!!

What! me Worry?

Life is too short.

Simply get on with it as it suits you to do.

Hi Dennis,

That is US figures quoted by Diabetes in Control. These people will be on the usual high carb/low protein/low fat diet which will exhaust the pancreas all by itself by virtue of promoting glucotoxicty.

The gliclazide is said to also have an additional exhaustive effect by Dr Bernstein. I did find some evidence of a direct adverse effect on beta cells by gliclazide in a huge Brazilian paper which I have stored on my hard drive. If you look at comparative graphs all type twos get worsening beta cell function as they go on but the gliclazide decline group is the steepest.

I should say that many type twos can completely reverse high blood sugars and metabolic syndrome on a tight low carb diet. I don't think the long term studies have been done to show how this is affected over a long time. We only know from the people who come back and say, "My doctor says I have normal blood sugars and am no longer in the diabetic range. "

I think we actually need non randomised dietary studies where the candidates are allowed the information on the various diets and then freely choose which one they believe would suit them and that they would stick to. The patients could act as their own controls and the percentage difference in their weight, hbaic, fasting bs, bp, insulin levels, lipids, and so forth could be assessed. The big problem with randomisation is that most people will end up eating what they usually eat whatever they are instructed to do.

999sugarbabe said:

Excuse my ignorance, but I'm sure I read somewhere (can't remember where) that a number of type 2 diabetics end up having to go on to require insulin :?:

If that is correct, does anyone have statistics relating to this? I'm worried that, as I get (even) older, I may end up in that position. I don't see myself coping in that senario. Living alone I'm already struggling to cope, and that's without being on insulin :!:

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I would say this was impossible to predict.

Don't forget that most studied diabetics are eating a Healthy High Carb diet and banging their BG down with ever increasing quantities of medications, and the average A1c is barely out of two figures.

There aren't (yet) many studies of diabetics with prolonged good control. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence though, just read here or almost any other forum or newsgroup.