Let's change the way we treat diabetes

In the spring of 2002, shortly after my husband Mike was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I heard him speak on the phone aloud. He was talking to the pizzeria where we had ordered dinner because our pizza had taken a long time to arrive, and when we finally got it, it was not what we ordered. So, Mike called and complained, which was fine, but then he complained, and complained, and complained. After several minutes, I tapped on his arm to get his attention. "I just ordered another pizza," I say. "It's not so bad."

I was very, very incorrect.

In anticipation of eating 3 to 4 slices of pizza, about 30 minutes after the order, Mike had taken 10 units of insulin. But the pizza arrived late. And then we sent it back because there were green peppers.

If you live with a person taking insulin, you have probably already had severe hypoglycaemia. It's a real physical and emotional collapse. The doctors told us about the physical symptoms to watch for, such as sweating and tremors. No one has ever said to pay attention to rage, inexplicable tears or extreme stubbornness. Nobody ever said that if you take too much insulin, you can shout at the pizza guy for 30 minutes and become completely irrational. And unfortunately, no one has ever told us the law of Bernstein's small numbers – low carbohydrate dose + low insulin dose = minimized risk of hypoglycemia. Intuitively, it's perfectly logical. But while Mike has always surfed the roller coaster of blood sugar, it took us years to realize that there was an easy solution to severe hypoglycemia: do not eat carbohydrates.

The same trick worked for hyperglycemia. It is difficult to reach a really high level when you cut the foods that cause the increase in blood sugar.

I would not call a low-carb diet a cure for diabetes, but it's a gamechanger. When I was diagnosed with LADA (or type 1.5 diabetes) in 2008, I was already about to understand that carbohydrates would not serve me well.

As I recently wrote in Diabetes Voice:

"Nearly 10 years after the diagnosis of LADA and almost as long with low carbohydrate, I do not use insulin or any other hypoglycemic drug. I have never had a hbA1c higher than 6%. Of course, these are just anecdotal evidence. The story of a woman with LADA who managed to prolong the life of too few remaining beta cells and avoid injecting insulin for a decade by eating few carbohydrates, n & rsquo; Is proof of nothing. But here is a simple truth. We do not need a long-term study to know what we should eat. People with diabetes have all the evidence they need about the best diet for their body. It's at our fingertips. All we have to do is check our blood sugar after eating. The number on the glucometer says it all. "

And that's the message I would like to spread to Diabetes Awareness Month: look what's in front of you. This week the British telegraph published an article entitled 500 diabetics die every week, many preventable complications. The article says, "The figure comes from the analysis of the NHS National Diabetes Audit, which shows that deaths have increased about 10% over the past three years" .

The audit found that:

1. People aged 35 to 64 living with type 1 diabetes are three to four times more likely to die prematurely than others.
2. People in the same age group with type 2 diabetes are up to twice as likely to die prematurely.

In August, the British medical journal The Lancet published a study stating: "Women who developed type 1 diabetes before the age of 10 die on average nearly 18 years earlier than women without diabetes. Men in the corresponding situation lose almost 14 years of life. The life of patients diagnosed between 26 and 30 years is reduced by 10 years on average. "

Look at these statistics. These are not the numbers of success. Something does not work in the way we treat diabetes and instead of treating it, we cover it with insulin. "There are more than 100 complications of diabetes and they are all caused by high blood sugar," says RD Dikeman, founder of the TypeOneGrit group, which advocates treating children with diabetes according to Dr. Bernstein's method. "We now know that high blood sugar levels lead to dementia and damage the developing brain. Chronic hyperglycemia will also result in a dramatic shortening of life. So, you have to ask yourself: Is this something I want to photograph?