I started my Breast Cancer, Alzheimer's, and Type 2 Diabetes blog thirteen years ago. While many people are happy to talk about their experiences with diabetes, I WASN’T comfortable with talking about diabetes. My wife is Type 2, as are several friends of ours. The “other Type” of diabetes was what caused the death of my Best Man a year after my wife and I got married. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a kid. It was called Juvenile Diabetes then. Today it’s Type 1. Since then, I haven’t WANTED to talk about diabetes at all. But…for my own education and maybe helping someone else, and not one to shut up for any known reason, I reopened my blog rather than starting a new one. I have taken pauses to write about Breast Cancer or Alzheimer’s as medical headlines dictated; but this time I’m going to drag anyone along who wants to join my HIGHLY RELUCTANT journey toward better understanding of my life with Type 2 Diabetes. You’re Welcome to join me!I’m sure you’ve got all of your “hacks” for surviving the holiday Food Onslaught! I’m aware of it this year because my wife and I had our FIRST big party – making and decorating sugar cookies, Russian teacakes, with tacos afterward…
Haven’t taken my blood sugars yet, but I’m sure they won’t be great! My stomach is rumbling as well, so it inspired me to do a bit of work for myself, and I’ll share with you:
The A-1 thing to do during the holidays is to PLAN AHEAD! Your eleven-year-old granddaughter can eat six cookies and burn it off the next day. My 67-year-old metabolism DON’T WORK THAT WAY ANYMORE!
Make fruits and veggies a BIGGER part of our holidays than usual; and I CAN make them good so OTHERS will join me in eating healthier.
I need to pay Attention to how MUCH I’m eating.
I’ve tried the “fast-and-binge” method and it doesn’t work well for me – ON THE OTHER HAND, the “ignore-what-I’m-eating-and-it-will-all-go-away” hasn’t been particularly helpful, either.
I need to make sure I DRINK WATER! In our place, with three grandchildren, six kids and their spouses – we lay on the cases of soda. I should be drinking SOME water, at least!
I SHOULD test the blood sugars regularly – the problem with it is that I only get so many test strips each cycle (that insurance pays for), so I have to stick (no pun intended) with taking it once a day. My wife’s got a constant glucose monitor, so that’s one thing she can do regularly!
If I work to spread out the KINDS of carbs I'm indulging in and MAYBE avoid eating 18 sugar cookies with frosting or two bowls of chocolate-dipped pretzels, it's safe to say I might survive the days with only mild sugar rushes. Steer toward oatmeal-raisin cookies, maybe broccoli instead of corn, and bring a lentil stew for everyone to enjoy.
When I toast in the New Year – I can work hard to control the amount. I don’t NEED a bottle of champagne when a fluted glass will do just fine!
One thing about youngsters during the holidays, they WANT to be out in the snow! I'm planning to join them this time (if we have more than a dusting) But we don't have to PLAY in it! It doesn't have to be a LONG walk, but even 10 minutes after a big meal helps. Invite EVERYONE to join you when you're staying active around the holidays.
If the holidays bring sadness with them – and they often do – I need to be aware of that and make a plan for doing something thoughtful that reminds me of happier days. The holidays are SUPPOSED to be a celebration of the things we hold dear. What can WE do or ask others to HELP US DO that will add a spark of peace to the holidays?
Finally, from THE STRAWBERRY POST: Here to Entertain, Educate & Inspire!
“Diabetes isn’t meant to stop you enjoying Christmas, but it’s good to be aware of what can happen during this time. So please be aware in the lead up to Christmas and make sure that you know what could occur and how to fix it so you can enjoy the day as much as possible.”
"Colorful holiday plate on a table: put a new emphasis on DECORATION instead of solely on FOOD."
"Some fairly easy things to try, is to ask your significant others to eat close to your usual times to keep your blood sugar steady.
"Eat a small snack at your usual mealtime if needed and have a little less when dinner is served.
"NO FOOD IS ON THE NAUGHTY LIST! Act like you want to STAY healthy, happy, and wise!
"Hosting? Introduce a tasty NEW and healthy dish.
"Plan your carb choices in advance. For example, if you're going to have sweets, cut back on other carbs like potatoes, bread, or pasta dishes, and take one cookie at a time, circulate, then go BACK for another. I RARELY need to eat a bowl of eight or nine sugar cookies!
"Don't skip meals to save up for a feast. (When you're really hungry you might overeat.)
"When you face a spread of delicious holiday food, make healthy choices easier:
First: fill half your plate with vegetables, then be reasonable with the other half!
Eat slowly. It takes at least 20 minutes for your brain to realize you're full, so set your phone to vibrate and stop.
Drink water!
LASTLY: YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ALL OF THESE AT THE SAME TIME!!!!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL!
Resources During The Holidays: https://our.today/wellness-watch-how-to-maintain-your-diet-as-a-diabetic-during-the-christmas-season/ ; https://www.bannerhealth.com/healthcareblog/better-me/how-can-i-manage-my-diabetes-and-still-enjoy-the-holidays
Image: https://thestrawberrypost.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/table-with-christmas-decoration-and-food.jpg
From the first moment I discovered I had been diagnosed with DIABETES, I joined a HUGE “club” that has been rapidly expanding since it stopped being a death sentence in the early 20th Century. Currently, there are about HALF A BILLION PEOPLE who have Type 2 Diabetes. For the past 3500 years – dating back to Ancient Egypt – people have suffered from diabetes. Well, I’m one of them now… Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this blog…
Every month, I’ll be highlighting Diabetes research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: What’s NEW in Type 2 Research?
Diabetes Rates Skyrocket Globally With millions left untreated (November 18)
“The total number of adults living with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes in the world has surpassed 800 million - over four times the total number in 1990, according to findings from a global analysis...”
“Additionally, 445 million adults aged 30 years and older with diabetes (59%) did not receive treatment in 2022…”
They found that “…widening global inequalities in diabetes…treatment rates stagnating in many low- and middle-income countries where numbers of adults with diabetes are drastically increasing…people with diabetes tend to be younger in low-income countries and, in the absence of effective treatment, are at risk of life-long complications…like amputation, heart disease, kidney damage or vision loss - or in some cases, premature death.”
While the conclusion of the article is aimed specifically at Type 2 diabetes among a younger population in India, the recommendation CERTAINLY applies to us here in the US: “…preventing diabetes through healthy diet and exercise is essential for better health throughout the world. Our findings highlight the need to see more ambitious policies, especially in lower-income regions of the world, that restrict unhealthy foods, make healthy foods affordable and improve opportunities to exercise through measures such as subsidies for healthy foods and free healthy school meals as well as promoting safe places for walking and exercising including free entrance to public parks and fitness centers.”
Anti-Obesity Drugs Increase Food Waste In Some Users (November 22, 2024)
“Taking anti-obesity drugs has led some U.S. adults to throw away more food than they tossed before starting the medications, a new study has found.
“In a survey of people currently on treatments like Ozempic, 25% of respondents agreed they had wasted more food since taking the drugs, compared to 61% who disagreed.”
“The fact that food waste appears to decrease as patients acclimate to the medication suggests there may be a fairly simple remedy, may find themselves discarding food as their diets change, which could reduce food waste and lower their spending.”
I found this to be true when I started taking Rybelsus (I detailed what happened here: https://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2024/08/guys-gotta-talk-abouttype-2-diabetes-23.html
This site has LOTS of links to current Type 2 research, and it’s written in an easy-reading style. While I’ll be pulling articles from here from now on, check it out for yourself! I really like it! The link is below:
Links: https://www.news-medical.net/condition/Type-2-Diabetes
Image: https://asploro.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Diabetes-Research_Open-Access.jpg
For the first time since I started this blog eleven years ago, it’s going to be about me. I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes two weeks ago. While people are happy to talk about their experiences with diabetes, I WASN’T comfortable with talking about diabetes. My wife is Type 2, as are several friends of ours. The “other Type” of diabetes was what caused the death of my Best Man a year after my wife and I got married. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a kid. It was called Juvenile Diabetes then. Today it’s Type 1. Since then, I haven’t WANTED to talk about diabetes at all. But…for my own education and maybe helping someone else, and not one to shut up for any known reason, I’m reopening my blog rather than starting a new one. I MAY take a pause and write about Breast Cancer or Alzheimer’s as medical headlines dictate; but this time I’m going to drag anyone along who wants to join my HIGHLY RELUCTANT journey toward better understanding of my life with Type 2 Diabetes. You’re Welcome to join me!
Every one of us who has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes has seen this Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aES9XjAg09U
Every one of you who, like me, would like something MAGIC to happen if I do something simple like drinking lemon water after I get up in the morning.
And just like me, you have a healthy aversion to being conned.
But, maybe like me, I sometime wonder if the Medical Establishment IS conning me to sell Metformin; and in my case…well, it was one of the biggest shocks of my life.
My doctor suggested I start taking the solid form of Ozempic; it’s called Rybelsus. I talked about my adventures with it in this entry: Guy's Gotta Talk -- About DIABETES; breast cancer, Azheimer's: GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…TYPE 2 DIABETES #23: Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Me
So, he increased it a couple times, and at this last checkup, I A1c had dropped from 7.7 to 6.8!!! I was thrilled. He upped it one more time, I suppose thinking that “more is better”. I had the prescription for 14 mg (double my most recent prescription) of Rybelsus filled. I went to pick it up, and when the pharmacist tendered it, in addition to my cheaper meds, I had to pay over $535 for the new prescription! I about fainted!
I was even more stunned, when I read on the receipt that the RETAIL price for my three-month prescription of Rybelsus was… $3420.99! (I’d add about thirty exclamation points here, but I don’t feel like wasting perfectly good ranting space!
So, it makes sense that I (who have really good health insurance) was stunned to find out what anyone who does NOT have access to good insurance would have to face. IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO ACCES THE MEDICATION. Possibly a medication that would save or extent their lives.
That explains then, the “confidence schemes” set up by people without scruples of any kind that claim to want to “help” others cheaply. Others like me, only with lesser (or even NO) insurance.
It explains the FEAR we have a claims of “amazing stuff” like an artificial pancreas, regrowing our own pancreas, diabetes-damaged cells being regenerated, I react like “I get suspicious that gobbledygook is being written to cover up a lack of facts with absurdly used terms substituted for straightforward language.” I am a suspicious kind of person when it comes to medicine: especially when young doctors – or physicians assistants (whose training, while different from mine in the INTENT, is no more than the education I got my Masters of Science in School Counseling for – both are Masters degrees. A PA cannot practice in the US WITHOUT a MD supervising them.
So, when something DOES come along that sounds FAKE, we shout FAKE and run the opposite direction.
While I am NOT a PA or an MD, I am a reasonably intelligent person who has a Bachelor of Science in Biology, and who reads constantly (journals, biology summary sites, science research, and am in contact with some of my former students who ARE researchers in medical biology or are doctors themselves) in my field as it has advanced since I graduated (when I took an Immunology class in 1977, the textbook had NO MENTION OF AIDS!))
I can only state to you that when I DO report on some new advancement, I’m not getting my information from whacky sites, but from SCIENCE sites. Check the links below each article. I always link to the source of my information.
So, while I am SKEPTICAL BY NATURE, I delight when I am convinced through data that something NEW is coming out to help us with Type 2 diabetes live longer and healthier lives.
EVIDENCE THAT PEOPLE AVOID RESEARCH THAT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. So, from my own blog:
Articles on CURES for Type 2 diabetes: 5
Number of hits: 166
NEARBY Articles NOT about CURES for Type 2 diabetes: 5
Number of hits: 314
The numbers speak for themselves -- maybe we're giving up HOPE because of the TRASH out there. But not ALL of it is trash.
From the first moment I discovered I had been diagnosed with DIABETES, I joined a HUGE “club” that has been rapidly expanding since it stopped being a death sentence in the early 20th Century. Currently, there are about HALF A BILLION PEOPLE who have Type 2 Diabetes. For the past 3500 years – dating back to Ancient Egypt – people have suffered from diabetes. Well, I’m one of them now… Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this blog…
Every month, I’ll be highlighting Diabetes research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: “Diabetes Breakthrough: New Treatment Eliminates Insulin for 86% of Patients”
OK, I read the SECOND article at the link below after I ran into the last few sentences from the SciTechDaily website report by something calling itself “United European Gastroenterology.
“Looking ahead, the researchers plan to conduct larger randomized controlled trials to further validate these findings. Dr. Busch added, ‘We are currently conducting the EMINENT-2 trial with the same inclusion and exclusion criteria and administration of semaglutide, but with either a sham procedure or ReCET. This study will also include mechanistic assessments to evaluate the underlying mechanism of ReCET.’ Reference: ‘Durable effects of duodenal ablation using electroporation combined with semaglutide to eliminate insulin therapy in patients with type-2 diabetes; the 24-month results.’” C.B.E Busch et al., 14 October 2024, UEG Week 2024.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I see phrases like “the same inclusion and exclusion criteria” and “mechanistic assessments to evaluate the underlying mechanism”…I get suspicious that the gobbledygook is being written to cover up a dearth of facts with absurdly used terms substituted for straightforward language.
I could translate the above into something more understandable, but I needed to check this whole article out.
So, I went to my “go to” reliability monitor: the Mayo Clinic. I live in the birth state of the Mayo brothers and like most Minnesotans, know how the clinic came about – and because of its immense reach, also know someone who has either worked there or who has been treated for some mysterious ailment there. That’s their reputation: if it’s a challenge, let’s go to the Mayo.
It has worked with sports heroes, rulers of nations, religious leaders, and writers: Lou Gehrig, Muhammad Ali, Former King Hussein of Jordan, George HW Bush and his wife Barbara, Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, and Helen Keller, and Ernest Hemingway.
The article from the Mayo Clinic reports in February of 2024 on the process. “This novel procedure could potentially transform the treatment landscape for type 2 diabetes, offering a more efficient and less burdensome alternative to current pharmacotherapies for some individuals. The procedure's potential to reduce the daily burden associated with diabetes management, coupled with the significant preliminary results of the REGENT-1-US trial, positions ReCET as a promising alternative in the diabetes care arsenal.”
I’ve run on long enough. Next time, I’ll come back to a far-more detailed description of what the two trials – one in the US (REGENT-1-US) and one in Europe (Re-Cellularization via Electroporation Therapy (ReCET) with semaglutide) – discovered.
Links: https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/digestive-diseases/news/researchers-study-novel-endoscopic-therapy-for-type-2-diabetes/mqc-20563134#:~:text=ReCET%20is%20nonthermal%20procedure%20that,delivers%20PEF%20to%20the%20duodenum. https://scitechdaily.com/diabetes-breakthrough-new-treatment-eliminates-insulin-for-86-of-patients/
Image: https://asploro.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Diabetes-Research_Open-Access.jpg
For the first time since I started this blog eleven years ago, it’s going to be about me. I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes two weeks ago. While people are happy to talk about their experiences with diabetes, I WASN’T comfortable with talking about diabetes. My wife is Type 2, as are several friends of ours. The “other Type” of diabetes was what caused the death of my Best Man a year after my wife and I got married. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a kid. It was called Juvenile Diabetes then. Today it’s Type 1. Since then, I haven’t WANTED to talk about diabetes at all. But…for my own education and maybe helping someone else, and not one to shut up for any known reason, I’m reopening my blog rather than starting a new one. I MAY take a pause and write about Breast Cancer or Alzheimer’s as medical headlines dictate; but this time I’m going to drag anyone along who wants to join my HIGHLY RELUCTANT journey toward better understanding of my life with Type 2 Diabetes. You’re Welcome to join me!
Did you know that there are medical standards of care that doctors can refer to when they’re working with seniors with Type 2 diabetes?
Neither did I.
Also, while the document was JUST revised in December of 2023, there’s an entire section that applies to seniors. One of the early sections had an interesting statement, and I’ll go through the part that applies to me and wife a bit later.
I was startled to find this: “The recommendations and text of Section 5 were adjusted to place focus on guiding the behavior of health care professionals rather than people with diabetes, thus aligning with the purpose of the Standards of Care as guidance for health care professionals.” (13. Older Adults: Standards of Care in Diabetes—2024)
One of the reasons for greater involvement and expected reliance on a person’s health care professional is something I’m SURE all of you are familiar with (if not with the fancy-pants name), “polypharmacy”. Never heard of it ‘til I read this document: “noun: polypharmacy; the simultaneous use of multiple drugs to treat a single ailment or condition; the simultaneous use of multiple drugs by a single patient, for one or more conditions.” I see it as “make sure you put the right pills in the right box so you can take them at the right time!”
I can see that – even though when I was trying to help my mother self-manage the numerous pills she had to take, the freakin’ condition didn’t have a NAME!) Of COURSE I need the advice of my doctor (who isn’t actually a DOCTOR per se, but a Physicians Assistant) to know when to take what I need to take and HOW to take it! Now the American Diabetes Association has made an official recommendation.
Another thing I’ll be talking to my PA about is this: “Notably, the Life Expectancy Estimator for Older Adults with Diabetes (LEAD) tool was developed and validated among older adults with diabetes, and a high-risk score was strongly associated with having a life expectancy of less-than five years.”
The heck is THIS????
Here’s what I found out: “A tool based on data from the electronic health record (EHR) may help clinicians estimate life expectancy in older adults with diabetes, a recent study found. The tool uses gender, body mass index, serum creatinine level, dementia, metastatic cancer, peripheral vascular disease, albuminuria, home oxygen use, wheelchair use, current smoking, and the interaction between age and heart failure to generate a risk score.”
They noted, “The authors noted that their tool…was not validated in patients younger than age 65 years and was less accurate over longer periods (among other limitations.) They also cautioned that the tool's results should be considered in a broader context along with other factors that influence individualized care, such as patient preferences.”
So…why would I get this test if it offers such limited amount of information? (The “conspiracy theorist in me would say, “So insurance companies can deny MORE seniors health care coverage…”) But, I’m CERTAIN that’s not what it would be used for! It’s a tool to…what?
I suppose looking at ALL of those things, would give a doctor or other caregiver different things to both watch for and begin to work on. For example: body mass index – if I knew my BMI was too high, I could certainly start to work to lose weight. Nothing STUPID, but certainly change the fact that I eat a package of OREO Cookie DoubleStufs before bed once a week! I could stop smoking (if I did, but I didn’t, so let’s just go back to eating Oreos); I could get screened for Alzheimer’s (which I do twice a year); I could make sure I exercise regularly to keep my heart strong (I ride about 12-15 miles a week during the summer; and stationary bike 2-5 hours a week in the winter in addition to walking a couple of miles every other day.)
I could have my PA give me the LEAD: Life Expectancy Estimator for Older Adults with Diabetes (LEAD)…which I will when I go in for my shots in a week or so…I’ll report then!
Source: https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/47/Supplement_1/S244/153944/13-Older-Adults-Standards-of-Care-in-Diabetes-2024; https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/47/Supplement_1/S5/153943/Summary-of-Revisions-Standards-of-Care-in-Diabetes; 13. Older Adults: Standards of Care in Diabetes—2024 | Diabetes Care | American Diabetes Association (diabetesjournals.org) Image: https://www.hcd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/living-well-with-diabetes.jpg
From the first moment I discovered I had been diagnosed with DIABETES, I joined a HUGE “club” that has been rapidly expanding since it stopped being a death sentence in the early 20th Century. Currently, there are about HALF A BILLION PEOPLE who have Type 2 Diabetes. For the past 3500 years – dating back to Ancient Egypt – people have suffered from diabetes. Well, I’m one of them now… Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this blog…
Every month, I’ll be highlighting Diabetes research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: Repairing the Pancreas!
While the headline is from a report from China published this past May, the DREAM of restarting a pancreas damaged enough to initiate Type 2 diabetes has been around at least since 2011.
Today, there is not only hope that this might happen, but AT LEAST ONE person whose Type 2 diabetes was reversed using his own treated stem cells to regrow pancreas cells in large enough numbers to reinitiate his body’s production of the correct amount of insulin.
In the September 2011 issue of Genome Medicine, the author wrote: “Stem cells hold great promise for pancreatic beta cell replacement therapy for diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, beta cells are mostly destroyed, and in type 2 diabetes beta cell numbers are reduced by 40% to 60%. The proof-of-principle that cellular transplants of pancreatic islets, which contain insulin-secreting beta cells, can reverse the hyperglycemia of type 1 diabetes has been established, and there is now a need to find an adequate source of islet cells.” At this time, the only real hope was using human embryonic stem cells.
Ten years later, in Amsterdam, the research team discovered that, “all acinar and ductal cells – cells that produce digestive enzymes and transport them to the gut – actually contribute to [the] process [of repairing pancreatic cells]. All cells in the pancreas that produce digestive enzymes and transport them to the gut can contribute to its regenerative capacity.”
The initial study was fifteen YEARS ago, and in genetic research, that’s like decades. The work in Amsterdam took place in 2021. Today, researchers in Shanghai, China, “Utilizing the patient’s own endoderm stem cells (EnSCs), they were able to differentiate these stem cells into functional pancreatic islet cells – cells in the pancreas that secrete hormones, including insulin and glucagon, that help regulate blood sugar levels.”
What does this mean? It means the team in China found that they could use…the patient’s own “undifferentiated cells, found throughout the body after development, that multiply by cell division to normally replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues...” All of us have them, they’re what heals the skin or any kind of internal damage we suffer during routine surgery. These stem cells do not depend on the use of fetal tissue. “[researchers] were able to differentiate [the patient’s own] stem cells into functional pancreatic islet cells – cells in the pancreas that secrete hormones, including insulin and glucagon, that help regulate blood sugar levels then transplant them into the patient’s pancreas.”
What happened? “Following a kidney transplant in 2017, the patient experienced a decline in pancreatic islet function, necessitating daily multi-dose insulin injection.” His stem cells were removed and grown, and after they injected them in the pancreas…”the patient achieved insulin independence within a mere 11 weeks post-transplantation. Oral medication for diabetes management was gradually reduced and ultimately discontinued a year later. Follow-up examinations conducted over a prolonged period revealed restored pancreatic function, with the patient no longer requiring insulin or oral or injectable medications that had become in short supply due to their use as weight-reduction drugs. Additionally, normal kidney function was maintained, suggesting a potential long-term cure for both type 2 diabetes and the underlying complications associated with the initial kidney transplant.”
NOTE! The procedure had been successfully attempted on this single patient at the time of the publication of the article in May of 2024. There may be others in the pipeline; but there’s no further evidence of any wide-spread study or a call for volunteers.
What it SHOULD inspire is HOPE. If not for me, then for anyone else in the future who finds themselves facing Type 2 diabetes for a real cure in our lifetime!
Links: https://cells4life.com/2024/05/stem-cell-therapy-achieves-cure-for-type-2-diabetes/, https://nyscf.org/resources/uncovering-the-unique-way-the-pancreas-regenerates/, https://genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gm277; https://nyscf.org/resources/uncovering-the-unique-way-the-pancreas-regenerates/ Image: https://asploro.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Diabetes-Research_Open-Access.jpg
For the first time since I started this blog eleven years ago, it’s going to be about me. I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes two weeks ago. While people are happy to talk about their experiences with diabetes, I WASN’T comfortable with talking about diabetes. My wife is Type 2, as are several friends of ours. The “other Type” of diabetes was what caused the death of my Best Man a year after my wife and I got married. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a kid. It was called Juvenile Diabetes then. Today it’s Type 1. Since then, I haven’t WANTED to talk about diabetes at all. But…for my own education and maybe helping someone else, and not one to shut up for any known reason, I’m reopening my blog rather than starting a new one. I MAY take a pause and write about Breast Cancer or Alzheimer’s as medical headlines dictate; but this time I’m going to drag anyone along who wants to join my HIGHLY RELUCTANT journey toward better understanding of my life with Type 2 Diabetes. You’re Welcome to join me!
Dr. Elbert Huang, director of the UChicago Center for Chronic Disease Research and Policy, wrote in April of 2024: “The exclusion of older adults from early [Type 2 diabetes] trials stems in part from the complexity of aging, which can include multiple diseases and medical conditions occurring simultaneously. However, their absence meant the studies essentially did not represent how diabetes presents in the real world. “The majority of people with diabetes are over 65, so our evidence was not based [on data from those people].”
Startlingly, I now find myself in the class of people who have not appeared to matter to the medical establishment. We’ve lost perhaps a decade of time in looking for treatments for older adults who have Type 2 diabetes. How many people – I ask this sarcastically, because what do people who are more familiar with paper letters than cellphones and are usually over 65 REALLY matter in this 5G world [which is, I read, how FAST we get our internet information. (3G was born in 2008 and let us get our data at a rate of 3 megabytes per second. 4G boosted that to 14 megabytes pers second (MBPS). 5G boosted that to 100 MBPS to its SIX AND A HALF BILLION USERS.]
Clearly, not worth talking about.
That appears to be changing. Dr. Huang was of the opinion that “…[to the medical world] the sickest patients should get less medication because they're [un]likely to…benefit from [them]…it goes back to insulin: the original trial comparing moderate and intensive glucose control…was conducted during a time when the number of available drug classes were very limited [ie: no Glipizide, Metformin, Ozempic, or any of the other modern treatments]...that trial showed that people do better with lower blood sugar, but you had to live for at least 10 years to see the benefit.” The subtext there of course, is “and all these old people won’t make it that long, so why bother studying them because NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE.
Huang goes on to say, “…cancer and heart disease can disqualify people from participating in [drug treatment] trials. Yet…patients with such conditions are representative of average geriatric diabetes patients, and physicians must be able to treat them.”
Huang concludes: “For many years people have talked quite vaguely about older patients, saying, ‘This older patient is complex,’ ‘This older patient is frail. Now we have tools that are much more specific and reproducible,” Huang said. “And now we can with greater specificity say who is missing from the trials, which could help us reexamine trial data and reshape how we design trials in the future.”
A recent result of this changed attitude led to Mounjaro and Zepbound: “A key study of [tirzepatide, the main ingredient of those two “Brand Name” drugs, discovered that there was] a significant reduction in the risk of progression to type 2 diabetes in adults with pre-diabetes and obesity or overweight…[which] achieved significant results, demonstrating a 93-94% reduction in risk of progression to type 2 diabetes [compared to placebo].”
The implication is that testing the drug on people 65+ discovered that not only could we TREAT Type 2 diabetes, we can now PREVENT it altogether – and avoid the concurrent drain on the cash-payout of the massive profit-driven insurance companies that are required by law to cover us “Golden-Agers”!
Source: https://biologicalsciences.uchicago.edu/news/new-diabetes-drugs-prompt-reassessment-care-strategies-older-patients; https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tirzepatide-reduced-risk-developing-type-2-diabetes-94-adults Image: https://www.hcd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/living-well-with-diabetes.jpg
