The most popular post I did at ZDNet Healthcare last year had the provocative title "Diabetes is also Heart Disease."
The story was based on studies showing how diabetes ravages the heart. Doctors recommend that diabetics recognize this damage and treat themselves as heart patients.
Today I'm asking, without a lot of studies to back me up, whether the reverse might also be true. I'm asking the question here, rather than at my paid job, because all I have to go on is my own example.
Let's start with the fact I didn't post here yesterday.
The reason, I think, was simple. Hypoglycemia. My blood has never shown me to have it, but I am now convinced that I do, and that it's a normal part of aging.
What has been happening over the last several months is that, worried about my blood pressure, I was avoiding coffee and coffee's little friend, something sweet. Instead, I had switched my morning routine to green tea, along with snappy rice crackers, which go great with it.
So I do this Sunday, then head to the market, and while I'm there I feel weak. My vision start to close in on me. I start to shake. I drive home and have lunch, feel better.
But that night my mind starts working. I recall how a month earlier I covered the Predictive Health Institute conference here in Atlanta, worried over whether I could get through the morning, and how they had out these little jars of hard candies. I had a few and came through great — I felt better when I got home than I had in months.
Yesterday I had another spell of weakness, before noon, but this time I said "to heck with blood pressure" and drank a half-cup of coffee, and had a little piece of brownie. Surprisingly, I felt much better. I was still weak, I still had the headache, and I still lacked the mental clarity to write all afternoon and evening. But I had a Clue.
So today I conducted an experiment. Instead of having salt with my tea, I had a small pecan sandie. Later, I had another one. And now, some hours later, in mid-afternoon, I'm feeling great. There's no headache, no feeling of exhaustion. For the first time in ages I'm getting through the day.
It has to be hypoglycemia. I'd gone without sugar for 16 hours before both my failures, and sugar got me going again. Sugar with some protein, today, got me going even better.
What's depressing is that, because I was treating these incidents with sleep instead of snacks, I've done some serious damage to my body over the last few months. I've noticed it — an acceleration of aging in my hair, in my skin, in my energy level. I don't think I'm going to get that back. At 54 you don't — you just try to maintain.
But I can maintain better now. And when a diabetic friend comes by soon, if I'm feeling weak, I'm going to borrow their glucose meter and get me some hard data.
The question, however, remains. Is this just me, is this just part of the aging process (you should live so long) or is the association between heart disease and sugar problems closer than we think?
Good luck. I contend that people age in spurts, which is why someone you know will look the same for 18 years, and then five years later, they’ve aged 30 years! (Robert Plant can’t be 65, can he?)
As I understand it, hypoglycemia has an indirect impact on the nervous system over time. I’m sure I’m confused. But at 47 years old, 5’9, and 305-lbs., I’ve had crippling headaches all my life; the kind that put you to bed for an entire day or three. I can’t watch TV, certainly can’t read, can’t carry on a coherent conversation, and can barely breathe my head hurts so bad when they hit. Eating doesn’t help, nor does it seem to trigger them. But they are sudden. (Fifteen years ago, I weighed 165-lbs. and was winning my age class in 5k and 10k races.)
I did a fishing expedition to find out what possibly could be wrong. Blood sugar was fine (107 after a meal, 82 before). Blood pressure was naturally higher than normal, but that’s in large part due to my weight. No drug, no matter how powerful, ever worked to alleviate my headaches. Only a demerol shot that knocked me out did the trick once.
But what I found was that perhaps I had intracranial pressure due to excess spinal fluid being built up in the skull. All the symptoms fit. The fix? Not one, except to install a shunt in your spine that’s painful, and doesn’t really work. So I asked, what would pull water from your body? A diuretic. Bought some pills off the shelf, tried them, and I’ll be damned if they didn’t work.
They don’t always work because I can’t predict when the headaches will hit, and with them being so sudden, if I don’t catch them in time, it takes 4-6 hours to knock the edge off using the diuretic pills, staggered 3, 2, 1 every other hour. It’s a brutish treatment, but unable to afford healthcare, you gotta reach for any remedy. I’m sure if I went to a doctor, he’d just prescribe viagra, cialis, or some some pro sports sponsored drug!
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PS: Apologies for the long-winded responses. But your posts on any topic are always evocative.
Diabetes is a problem with the body’s ability to signal the body’s cells to metabolize glucose to lower the levels of blood glucose. In Type I, it’s because of an inability to produce insulin. In Type II, it’s due to insulin resistance. Untreated diabetes results in hyperglycemia, which can do significant damage to sensitive bodily tissues.
It’s my understanding that in either Type I or Type II, hypoglycemia would only result when one is treating diabetes through diet and/or insulin to avoid hyperglycemia. I’m not aware of hyperglycemia occurring in untreated diabetes.
(I am not a doctor, just someone who has to come up to speed on diabetes in the past few years.)
Diabetes is a problem with the body’s ability to signal the body’s cells to metabolize glucose to lower the levels of blood glucose. In Type I, it’s because of an inability to produce insulin. In Type II, it’s due to insulin resistance. Untreated diabetes results in hyperglycemia, which can do significant damage to sensitive bodily tissues.
It’s my understanding that in either Type I or Type II, hypoglycemia would only result when one is treating diabetes through diet and/or insulin to avoid hyperglycemia. I’m not aware of hyperglycemia occurring in untreated diabetes.
(I am not a doctor, just someone who has to come up to speed on diabetes in the past few years.)
Apparently, in order to maintain our blood sugar at a minimal level, we do not need to take anything with sugar. A healthy liver continuously produces glucose out of amino acids – so eating a little protein should be sufficient.
Trouble is that any snacks we buy today are based on sugars or wheat.
For our pre-agricultural ancestors the snack would probably be a grub, bug, root or nut. But there weren’t as many of them as there are of us.
(Is this where I put in the disclaimer that I’m not a doctor?)
Apparently, in order to maintain our blood sugar at a minimal level, we do not need to take anything with sugar. A healthy liver continuously produces glucose out of amino acids – so eating a little protein should be sufficient.
Trouble is that any snacks we buy today are based on sugars or wheat.
For our pre-agricultural ancestors the snack would probably be a grub, bug, root or nut. But there weren’t as many of them as there are of us.
(Is this where I put in the disclaimer that I’m not a doctor?)
Thanks for this great information.
I appreciate it, thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for this great information.
I appreciate it, thanks for sharing it.
diabetes is of the most major factor to have complication to other condition.
diabetes is of the most major factor to have complication to other condition.
Heart disease can be also diabetes if the one that cause you heart disease may lead to complications.
-sm
Heart disease can be also diabetes if the one that cause you heart disease may lead to complications.
-sm
The fact that you ‘needed’ sugar only means that you are addicted to it, not that sugar in itself is beneficial to the body. In fact, refined sugar (the 99% people actually eat) takes more energy to eventually break down than it gives in the ‘rush’.
Get informed instead of playing doctor.
The fact that you ‘needed’ sugar only means that you are addicted to it, not that sugar in itself is beneficial to the body. In fact, refined sugar (the 99% people actually eat) takes more energy to eventually break down than it gives in the ‘rush’.
Get informed instead of playing doctor.
There must be some connection between the two…because I hear most of the patients starting with one and then getting into both.
There must be some connection between the two…because I hear most of the patients starting with one and then getting into both.
Diabtes often leads to heart disease. The reverse is not always true.
Let me tell you about my friend Pat. I met her as an active, vital, wonderful woman in the 1980s. She showed up again in the 2000s, as a diabetic stick-in-the-mud living in an electronic wheelchair. She passed away a month ago, and I was glad her suffering was over.
But I miss her terribly. Pat was a force of nature, filled with an incredible enjoyment of life, of food, of drink, of good times, of her independence and the chance life gave her to remain unmarried, unattached, and alive to possibility.
I would much rather enjoy the Pat I first met than remember Pat in her wheelchair, one leg chopped off at the knee, shriveled, bitter, angry. Yet I must.
Amazing they were the same woman. But had the first Pat just taken better care of herself, the second would never have entered my life and made me feel so sad, still.
I have to add here that I have heart disease. Like Pat's it's inherited, high cholesterol. My dad had his first heart attack at 47. I was with him when it happened. He died at 78, after many heart operations.
I have yet to have my first heart attack because I heeded the lessons of my genes, and moderated my behavior accordingly.
Pat didn't. And now she's gone. I miss her.
You stay well, y'hear?
All the best….
Dana
Diabtes often leads to heart disease. The reverse is not always true.
Let me tell you about my friend Pat. I met her as an active, vital, wonderful woman in the 1980s. She showed up again in the 2000s, as a diabetic stick-in-the-mud living in an electronic wheelchair. She passed away a month ago, and I was glad her suffering was over.
But I miss her terribly. Pat was a force of nature, filled with an incredible enjoyment of life, of food, of drink, of good times, of her independence and the chance life gave her to remain unmarried, unattached, and alive to possibility.
I would much rather enjoy the Pat I first met than remember Pat in her wheelchair, one leg chopped off at the knee, shriveled, bitter, angry. Yet I must.
Amazing they were the same woman. But had the first Pat just taken better care of herself, the second would never have entered my life and made me feel so sad, still.
I have to add here that I have heart disease. Like Pat's it's inherited, high cholesterol. My dad had his first heart attack at 47. I was with him when it happened. He died at 78, after many heart operations.
I have yet to have my first heart attack because I heeded the lessons of my genes, and moderated my behavior accordingly.
Pat didn't. And now she's gone. I miss her.
You stay well, y'hear?
All the best….
Dana
Obesity is definately linked to the rise of diabetes in the USA. Fast food is one of the reasons. Don’t eat it!This post makes it crystal clear that diabetes is linked to obesity.
Obesity is definately linked to the rise of diabetes in the USA. Fast food is one of the reasons. Don’t eat it!This post makes it crystal clear that diabetes is linked to obesity.