#type 2 diabets

[fatliberation]

I saw a comment on your blog that says 'the way you eat does not cause diabetes'...are you able to expand on that or provide a source I could read? I've been told by doctors that my pre-diabetes was due to weight gain because I get more hungry on my anti psychotics and I'd like to fact check what they've told me! Thank you so much!

Pre-diabetes was rejected as a diagnosis by the World Health Organization (although it is used by the US and UK) - the correct term for the condition is impaired glucose tolerance. Approximately 2% of people with "pre-diabetes" go on to develop diabetes per year. You heard that right - TWO PERCENT. Most diabetics actually skip the pre-diabetic phase.

There are currently no treatments for pre-diabetes besides intentional weight loss. (Hmm, that's convenient, right?) There has yet to be evidence that losing weight prevents progression from pre-diabetes to T2DM beyond a year. Interestingly, drug companies are trying to persuade the medical world to start treating patients earlier and earlier. They are using the term “pre-diabetes” to sell their drugs (including Wegovy, a weight-loss drug). Surgeons are using it to sell weight loss surgery. Everyone’s a winner, right? Not patients. Especially fat patients.

Check out these articles:

Prediabetes: The epidemic that never was, and shouldn’t be

The war on ‘prediabetes' could be a boon for pharma—but is it good medicine?

Also - I love what Dr. Asher Larmie @fatdoctorUK has to say about T2DM and insulin resistance, so here's one of their threads I pulled from Twitter:

1️⃣ You can't prevent insulin resistance. It's coded in your DNA. It may be impacted by your environment. Studies have shown it has nothing to do with your BMI.

2️⃣ The term "pre-diabetes" is a PR stunt. The correct term is impaired glucose tolerance (or impaired fasting glucose) which is sometimes referred to as intermittent hyperglycemia. It does not predict T2DM. It is best ignored and tested for every 3-5yrs.

3️⃣ there is no evidence that losing weight prevents diabetes. That's because you can't reverse insulin resistance. You can possibly postpone it by 2yrs? Furthermore there is evidence that those who are fat at the time of diagnosis fair much better than those who are thin.

4️⃣ Weight loss does not reverse diabetes in the VAST majority of people. Those that do reverse it are usually thinner with recent onset T2DM and a low A1c. Only a tiny minority can sustain that over 2yrs. Weight loss does not improve A1c levels beyond 2 yrs either.

5️⃣ Weight loss in T2DM does not improve macrovascular or microvascular health outcomes beyond 2 years. In fact, weight loss in diabetics is associated with increased mortality and morbidity (although it is not clear why). Weight cycling is known to impacts A1c levels.

6️⃣ Weight GAIN does NOT increase the risk of cardiovascular OR all causes mortality in diabetics. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that it's better to be fat and diabetic than to be thin and diabetic.

Dr. Larmie cites 18 peer reviewed journal articles (most from the last decade) that are included in their webinar on the subject, linked below.

[reasonsforhope]

"People living with diabetes might have a new hope. Scientists have tested a new drug therapy in diabetic mice, and found that it boosted insulin-producing cells by 700% over three months, effectively reversing their disease.

Beta cells in the pancreas have the important job of producing insulin in response to blood sugar levels, but a hallmark of diabetes is that these cells are either destroyed or can’t produce enough insulin. The most common treatment is regular injections of insulin to manage blood sugar levels.

But a recent avenue of research has involved restoring the function of these beta cells. In some cases that’s started with stem cells being coaxed into new beta cells, which are then transplanted into patients with diabetes. Researchers behind this kind of work have described it as a “functional diabetes cure.”

Now, scientists at Mount Sinai and City of Hope have demonstrated a new breakthrough. Previous studies have mostly involved growing new beta cells in a lab dish, then transplanting them into mice or a small device in humans. But this new study has been able to grow the insulin-producing cells right there in the body, in a matter of months.

The therapy involved a combination of two drugs: one is harmine, a natural molecule found in certain plants, which works to inhibit an enzyme called DYRK1A found in beta cells. The second is a GLP1 receptor agonist. The latter is a class of diabetes drug that includes Ozempic, which is gaining attention lately for its side effect of weight loss.

The researchers tested the therapy in mouse models of type 1 and 2 diabetes. First they implanted a small amount of human beta cells into the mice, then treated them with harmine and GLP1 receptor agonists. Sure enough, the beta cells increased in number by 700% within three months of the treatment. The signs of the disease quickly reversed, and stayed that way even a month after stopping the treatment.

“This is the first time scientists have developed a drug treatment that is proven to increase adult human beta cell numbers in vivo,” said Dr. Adolfo Garcia-Ocaña, corresponding author of the study. “This research brings hope for the use of future regenerative therapies to potentially treat the hundreds of millions of people with diabetes.”

The results are intriguing, but of course being an animal study means there’s still much more work to be done before it could find clinical use. So far, harmine alone has recently undergone a phase 1 clinical trial in humans to test its safety and tolerability, while other DYRK1A inhibitors are planned for trials in humans next year.

Perhaps most importantly, the team will soon experiment with combining beta-cell-regenerating drugs with others that modulate the immune system. Ideally this should help overcome a major hurdle: the immune system will continue attacking new beta cells as they’re produced.

The research was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine."

-via New Atlas, July 14, 2024

[crippledpunks]

i love you so much if you are diabetic, or pre-diabetic. our society treats diabetes so poorly. it's such a readily mocked condition, people often times resort to blaming the individual for having it, even going so far as to pass judgment on the diabetic's character, regardless of what type of diabetes they have.

diabetics are wonderful and deserve to love themselves regardless of whether or not they 'gave' themselves their diabetes. whether or not the person is "unhealthy" whether or not the person eats "right" or knows how to eat in ways that are safer for their body doesn't matter, they still deserve love, respect, and compassion.

diabetes is not a fucking judge of character. diabetics deserve better. diabetics deserve respect. diabetics deserve to be recognized as disabled. diabetics deserve kindness, love, care, compassion, and support. no matter what.

[fatphobiabusters]

If your activism for diabetics stops as soon as you have to include type 2 diabetics, then not only is your "activism" ableist and almost certainly fatphobic, your efforts are also useless. You will never improve how society treats diabetic people if you only care about the diabetic people who are viewed more favorably in this fatphobic, ableist, and dieting-obsessed world.

-Mod Worthy

[genderflu]

hate hate HATE people's reaction to me being a type 1 diabetic being "oh so you didn't do this to yourself" essentially. Type 2 diabetics didn't do anything to themselves either + fuck off i hate you.

[championlaura222]

I'm sick of the moraliazation of illness/disability. I see it a lot when it comes to type 2 diabetes. I'm sick of the idea that it's just "fat person disease." Talk to pretty much any doctor and they'll tell you that the main factor in type 2 diabetes is genetics. My mom's side has a higher likelihood for type 2 diabetes, my dad's side does not. Despite my dad being extremely overweight for much of his life, not even a sign! My Nan had some weight gain in her 50s, not that much from how much she weighed, and she ended up with it. There's no "right" way to be ill, I'm tired of the stigma around the idea that a person "does it to themselves" and thus is okay to ridicule and not listen to. In fact, Weight in general has more to do with genetics than most other factors! Think about how many people live off redbull and fast food and don't gain weight from it! And even if someone did get sick because of their actions, you shouldn't go around ridiculing them over that!

[flowerishness]

Helianthus annuus (common sunflower)

Walking therapy

About a decade ago, I got some bad news in my Doctor's office. I'll leave it to you to guess the diagnosis, but he told me to stop eating sugar, lose forty pounds and go for a walk every day. And that's exactly what I did.

I didn't know it but my doctor had also given me permission to "stop and smell the flowers". I'd always been a gardener but now my feet took me out into my local environment, and I started to notice that flowers were everywhere. That's how @Flowerishness began.

Two of these photos have deliberately blurry 'selfies' of me reflected in a street sign. This is positive proof that I'm still alive and walking. To all you other couch potatoes out there, I have that same simple advice my doctor gave me: diet and exercise. So why not grab a camera and go for a walk? I did that and it changed my life.

[fetching-sketching]

begging on my hands and knees for medical articles to specify what type of diabetes they're talking about in the headline. please please please

[walterfartzroy]

i love you diabetics.

i love you type 1s, i love you type 1.5s, i love you type 2s, i love you prediabetics, i love you gestational diabetics, i love you diabetics who don't fit into a single type/have a specific type not mentioned here, i love you recently diagnosed diabetics, i love you diagnosed years ago diabetics, i love you diabetics who use CGMs, i love you diabetics who prick their fingers, i love you diabetics who do MDIs and fight with needles, i love you diabetics who use pods/pumps/infusion sets, i love you diabetics who use insulin inhalers, i love you diabetics who are sick and tired, i love you diabetics who went into DKA, i love you diabetics who have "bad" a1c, i love you diabetics that are struggling to stay motivated to care care of yourselves. i love you diabetics!!!!!!!!!

[lem0nademouth]

idk who needs to hear this but diabetics can have sugar. they can have as much sugar as they want as long as they take the appropriate amount of insulin. the only reason diabetics are ever told to lower their sugar intake is to reduce the amount of insulin they use. and almost every sugar free alternative sweetener is either a literal carcinogen or insanely expensive. not to mention the fact that sugar is naturally occurring in every. single. thing. you. eat.

[needlepokes]

diabetic nutrition is: avoid carbs :)) but also dont :) use healthy fat :))) but also don't because it makes your BG unpredictable :) eat protein :) but have some carbs otherwise it raises your BG :))) watch out for spikes after breakfast :)) but also you need to eat breakfast with carbs or your liver gets angy :) and floods you with sugar :))))))

[yurimage]

Now that it's Disability Pride Month, anyone who makes obnoxious diabetes jokes along the lines of "diabetes in a cup" or similar jokes personally owes me at least $10 okay thank you much love ^_^

Same goes for the people who immediately tell me about how much they would hate their life if they had to inject themselves with needles everyday like I do after I tell them I'm diabetic, your comment is not helpful or insightful! :3

Oh and people who ask me for the in depth medical definition on type 1 diabetes owe AT LEAST $30, I'm not your personal medical dictionary

[jamicha]

as a t1 diabetic, every time i eat something i dont particularly like to prevent my blood sugar from dropping, i feel like im in mother nature foraging for whatever foods are available to survive

[terriblepersongreatseamonster]

(Please bear with me through this forthcoming ramble, because I've had all of 6 hours of sleep in the last two days and I'm a bit all over the place. Hopefully this will be coherent 😅)

I don't watch Bridgerton (that's a whole other post that I don't feel like typing out write now), but I've been fascinated by what I've seen on here from this newest season.

I turn 40 this year, and depending on your age you either think that's getting old or you think that I'm still relatively young. I bring this up, because what I'm seeing about Penelope and Colin is honestly something that I never thought I'd see.

Since I was twelve, I've dealt with weight issues. (At this point in my life, I know it's due to PCOS and some other health issues). I am barely 5'0" and typically fit into the 18/20 size clothes.

Being a teen in the late 90s/early 00s meant I didn't see people who looked like me get to be the romantic lead. Girls who looked like me were relegated to being the funny, supportive friend in the background. We got bullied and reminded that we weren't worthy of love or success because of our size. We went to school dances alone and sat on the bleachers while our friends slow-danced with their dates. We didn't get the love story, we got to watch someone else have the love story.

For such a long time I believed that my value as a person was tied to my weight. No matter what I did the weight wouldn't budge. Hell, I'm on Ozempic for my diabetes and I'm starting to think I'm the only person on the planet it doesn't cause weight loss for (it does however do a marvelous job of controlling my blood sugar, and at this point a healthy A1C is the thing that matters most).

I went on a few dates in my 20s with men who used my size as their reason to not continue dating (and yes, they all knew my size when they asked me out). When I started dating my husband, I went into it fully anticipating that no matter how much fun we might have he wouldn't be able to see past my size. I was wrong, and am so grateful for that.

It was only about 2 years ago that I started learning to see that I was far more than my weight. That whether I was my current size or managed to somehow be 100 lbs lighter, I'd still be the same person on the inside. I'd still have the same talents and skills, the same personality and humor. And while I've grown to see & love myself for who I am, it's still a day-by-day thing that I struggle with.

So, seeing this:

And this:

It hits me in a way that is hard to explain. I never thought I'd get to see something like this. Never thought I'd get to see someone my size and shape shown as beautiful and desirable.

Look at this woman, she is absolutely lovely:

I don't really know how to end this because now I'm crying. I guess my main point is that I feel seen and it's been an emotional rollercoaster.

And I may have to turn Netflix back on so I can see this season 😅

[buttfrovski]

I HAVE TO DO RESEARCH ON THE PRIME ENERGY DRINK AND I KEEP ACCIDENTALLY CALLING IT CRED 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[theblackqueen-ofmyheart]

You know what we need @fiery-red-kryptonite? We need a diabetic convention.

A few days long where diabetics of all ages could all get together and just talk, share things. both type 1 and type 2 diabetics. I know where I live there were diabetes camps but like…those were for kids and that’s great but so many people who are older need the support.

Because honestly no one understands a diabetic like another diabetic, doctors don’t get me the way you do. Other friends may try to help (and they do an amazing job when I need them to help) but I can just message you and go “holy shit the low I had today” and you understand and share what helps you. I can say “my lord the dream I had today” and you respond with “how was your blood sugar?”.

Plus I know way too many type 2 diabetics who are sorely uneducated on type 1 diabetes and I feel like they would learn better in an open, friendly environment rather than a doctors office where the doctor might not even fully know.

New diabetics who are scared and worried being able to talk face to face with elder diabetics who’ve been dealing with this Illness for most of their lives and hearing from some who knows first hand how they handle it. Being able to go back to their doctors with informed ideas on how to better manage their diabetes.

Panels set up by diabetics for diabetics (and their families because let’s be honest families need more education than they get too)

Little sales booths where diabetics can sell little trinkets to decorate pump or pen pouches. Little bears to help little kids with diabetes brave the injections (I had one his name was poke, he was my second favourite bear)

Just something for diabetics to get together in person and be able to share. Make connections with each other and finally feel a little bit less alone.

I don’t know this idea struck me while I was changing my sensor and I felt like a post that other diabetics may see and share etc would be nice……at least we can have a diabetic Tumblr group or something 😂

Edit: the post has been reblogged and liked a few times so I went ahead and made a discord so diabetics can connect in some way at the very least. The invite shouldn’t expire but if it does please let me know and I’ll put a new one or invite you personally.