Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:43 PM CDT
Rise in diabetes can be curbed via diet, exercise, experts say
More children being diagnosed with Type 2
By BONNIE CLARK, Features Writer
As he was leaving for college 51 years ago, David Bateman, now of Charleston, was told by his father, “You won’t make it through the first semester.”
While he was referring to his son’s mediocre high school scholastic performance and venting his frustration, the elder Bateman didn’t realize how prophetic his words might be.
Bateman did well in college, but during his second semester he realized he was having problems. He was slowing down, experiencing night cramps, losing weight, had unquenchable thirst, and frequent urination. His eyesight was also deteriorating.
Because he didn’t want to jeopardize his successful freshman year, Bateman didn’t seek medical advice and waited until after he wrote his final exams and returned home to Peoria for the summer.
“For weeks, I had been going around like I had molasses in my veins,” he said. “By waiting, I about killed myself.”
He was hospitalized and diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, now called Type 1 diabetes.
According to Cindy Foster, registered dietitian at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, in Type I diabetes, which usually affects children, the body’s pancreas doesn’t make any insulin-producing cells.
“Those who are Type 1 take insulin and they will always take insulin,” she said.
“It can happen when someone has had a cold, the flu, chicken pox, mono, or maybe something so mild they may not have known they had it,” Foster said. “But, when the body’s defense system kicks in to fight the illness, it attacks and damages the pancreas.”
Those who have Type 1 diabetes are treated with insulin because the pancreas is not functioning or is not producing enough insulin.
Foster and Paula Enstrom, a nurse and certified diabetic educator at the health center, said diabetes, particularly Type 2 diabetes, is epidemic, not just in the U.S., but worldwide.
“Unfortunately, as today’s children become heavier and become less active, we see Type 2 in children, which we never used to see,” Foster said, “and the numbers just keep going up.”
About five in every 100,000 children were reported with Type 2 diabetes from 2002 to 2003, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It has to do with the fact that kids are more sedentary. They have more screen time, play more computer games and spend less time out riding their bikes,” Foster said.
And, it has to do with people eating fewer meals at home and using little portion control, the women said.
The American Diabetes Association reports that 1 in 6 overweight adolescents ages 12-19 have pre-diabetes.
With Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas works, but doesn’t produce enough insulin. There is oral medication, however, and in some cases, Type 2 can be controlled by diet and exercise.
“But, it is progressive,” Enstrom said. “They may start out and be able to control it by diet, exercise and pills, and 15 years later, that may not be the case.”
Pre-diabetes is a diagnosis for people who have higher-than-normal blood sugar.
“Actually, by the time they’re diagnosed as pre-diabetic, they’ve had problems the way their bodies handle sugar for several years,” she said.
“If we could get the population to stay active and maintain a healthy weight, that’s how we’re really going to prevent diabetes.”
Enstrom said people who are pre-diabetic and who lose 5 to 10 percent of their weight can reduce their risk by about 58 percent.
“They don’t know how long-term that is,” she said, “but they do know they can at least delay it.”
In Bateman’s case, the key is “diet and exercise and discipline and taking the appropriate medicine,” he said.
“You follow the rules. Diabetes is one of the chronic diseases that can be controlled. And that’s what you strive to do.”
In 50 years, he has seen numerous changes in the way diabetes is treated.
“Insulin was developed in 1923, and since then, especially in the last 10 years, there has been tremendous change in the way we do things,” he said.
“We used to take insulin that came from cows and pigs, and today, we have human insulin.”
Bateman said he still takes insulin shots, but there is an insulin pump that many diabetics use.
“Many teenagers are on the pump,” he said, “especially athletes. And, it does give them a lot more flexibility, but while I would never have a piece of pie or a banana split, they sometimes think they can have it and just push a pump and take care of it.”
Still experimental, Bateman said, is the closed loop system, a pump tied into a meter that reads blood sugar levels and dispenses the correct amount of insulin.
Early on, blood sugar levels were detected through a urine test.
“All you could do was test your urine by putting some drops in a test tube; you carried a kit around with you. You’d drop in a tablet and the resulting color was a guesstimate of what your blood sugar was,” Bateman said.
“Today you can instantly determine what it is and the numbers don’t lie. The colors did.
“Another fascinating advance to get around the finger prick method of testing is still in the early stages,” he said. “They call it the tattoo; they put these little pellets under the skin and the blood goes through them. A scan of the ‘tattoo’ will tell you what your blood sugar is.”
Bateman has been recognized by Harvard Medical School and awarded the Joslin Medal for having lived on insulin for 50 years, “an uncommon occurrence,” he said. He was also awarded a Journey Award from Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Co.
He will be going to Harvard Medical School in Boston soon to participate in research for people who have been on insulin for 50 or more years.
For Bateman, diabetes has changed his life in “a positive way,” he said.
“I was a 19-year-old kid and I remember reading about diabetes and life expectancy and thinking ‘Oh jeez, I’m not going to live so long. I’ve got to get moving.’ Diabetes has brought discipline to my life.”
With a shortened life expectancy, Bateman pushed himself to graduate in less than three years and earned three graduate degrees: MA, MS, and Ph.D.
Now retired, he taught at Southern Illinois University and later was the Lumpkin distinguished professor in business at Eastern Illinois University.
“There has never been anything I wanted to do that diabetes has kept me from doing,” he said.
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randeg wrote on Jun 30, 2009 11:18 AM:
Evelyn Guzman
http://www.free-symptoms-of-diabetes-alert.com (If you want to visit, just click but if it doesnt work, copy and paste it onto your browser.) "