GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…DIABETES #11: Where’d Type 2 Diabetes Come From?

For the first times since I started this column 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!

So, I grew up totally ignorant of diabetes.

My family didn’t talk about it. My high school health class didn’t talk about it. My college biology classes didn’t talk about it.

So, when first my wife, then myself were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, we were startled…

When did this whole Type 2 diabetes thing start?

Funny you should ask: “A disease characterised by the ‘too great emptying of urine’ finds its place in antiquity through Egyptian manuscripts dating back to 1500 B.C.1 Indian physicians called it madhumeha (‘honey urine’) because it attracted ants. The ancient Indian physician, Sushruta, and the surgeon Charaka (400–500 A.D.) were able to identify the two types, later to be named Type I and Type II diabetes…”

Besides my pee smelling sweet and attracting ants, what ELSE gave it away? (I’m staying away from Type 1 because that’s serious business and the man I asked to be best in my wedding, died a bit over a year later from complications due to his Type 1 (then called juvenile onset) diabetes, leaving a wife with a young child as well as a second child on-the-way…and while no death is pretty, his was pretty hideous…)

Type 2 has an interesting history that is pretty much hand-in-hand with the discovery and treatment of Type 1. “The ancient Roman doctor Galen mentioned diabetes but noted that he had only ever seen two people with it, which suggests that it was relatively rare in those days. By the fifth century C.E., people in India and China had worked out that there was a difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

“They noted that type 2 diabetes was more common in heavy, wealthy people than in other people. At that time, this might have implied that these individuals ate more than other people and were less active. Nowadays, [with] the ready supply of processed food [that] has weakened the association between wealth and eating more…obesity, diet, and a lack of exercise are still risk factors for type 2 diabetes.”

So, it was identified – who figured out what the real problem was? Where did “insulin resistance” come into the picture? Discovered by the British scientist Harold Percival Himsworth, he found that with insulin resistance, a person’s body cells lose their sensitivity to insulin and are not able to take in glucose. ALL cells need to use insulin to work and divide to make new cells. Because of that, the pancreas increases its output of insulin to “force” the cells to take enough glucose to run well. As this continues to happen, it puts stress on the pancreas, damaging it. But, more than seven decades after that discovery, our knowledge of insulin action at whole-body, tissue, cellular, and intracellular levels remain far from complete. We DO know that Type 2 diabetic insulin resistance is involved with polycystic ovary syndrome, a very common hormone problem for women of childbearing age. Causing loss of ovulation, high levels of androgens, and small cysts on the ovaries; missed or irregular menstrual periods, excess hair growth, acne, infertility, and weight gain. ALL people with Type 2 diabetes can experience sleep disturbances, and pathological brain ageing.

So, the Type 2 diabetes is serious, but we CAN deal with it – typically using metformin (a first line response), as well as the dreaded E’s: Eat right and Exercise…

While I love writing, my primary purpose for all three conditions I’ve written on: breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Type 2 diabetes – is to teach myself what the HECK is going on around me, and now with Type 2, what’s going on inside of ME.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3749019/#b2-squmj1303-368-370; https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317484#early-science ; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1464-5491.2011.03488.x
Image: https://www.hcd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/living-well-with-diabetes.jpg