Sugar Turned On Me

Anyone who was a kid remembers that when adults attempted to make something fun, it usually came out lame if not embarrassing. It’s not that their hearts weren’t in the right place, it’s just they weren’t connecting to the actual interests of their youthful audience. Trying to make medical stuff fun? Even worse.

It usually involved a musical number.

However, today someone pointed me towards a trailer for a video game targeting kids with Type 1 diabetes. It’s called The Magi and The Sleeping Star . It involves a character who is the chosen one, has to save his homeland, yadda yadda. He also is diabetic and has to periodically take care of himself.

The trailer shows a third person shooter gaming environment  similar to the Ratchet and Clank series or later Jak and Daxter games. There’s things to shoot and puzzles to solve, but mostly we see the shooting.

My fear is that someone tacked on a Blood Glucose mini-game to an existing property.  That said, it looks like it might have some entertainment value and I’m certainly not going to begrude a kid growing up with diabetes a video game that speaks directly to them. Also, all we’ve seen is one trailer and that’s not enough to form anything resembling a solid opinion.

So if you have a kid with Type 1 and you let them blow things up, keep an eye out for this one.

I went to visit some friends the other night for their weekly social gathering, which apparently involves snacks. When they put out two bowls of cookies, the host rattled off some numbers: the amount of carbs, the amount of calories and the serving size. He also pointed out that one bowl was wheat and gluten free, which would be more important for one of the guests with allergies than me.

I was struck by the consideration. I bring up that I’m diabetic to friends, but it’s not exactly featured in every conversation. It’s not even featured in every conversation about food. That someone would remember and give me a heads up was huge not to mention very gracious.

Most people with chronic illness don’t want to be the center of attention. Having a problem that doesn’t go away already makes one feel abnormal. Drawing attention to it raises it to sideshow freak levels. The desire to stay out of the conversational spotlight does make the desire to do things like share food a little complicated.

I do think that if you’re going to have people over for food, having a working knowledge of their allergies and restrictions is a good idea. That way you avoid serving the vegetarians meat or having to learn the fast and hard way how to administer an epipen. But the trick is making allowances without pointing a sign at the person you’re making the allowances for and shouting “this is the defective one!”

My friend did it right and I’m grateful for that. I hope that when I host my next soiree (well, when my wife hosts it and I stand there and look all host-y) that I can match the level of graciousness as well as the level of discreetion. Because the whole point is to make those you welcome into your home feel included, not singled out. After all, awkwardness is never a welcome guest.

I don’t know the actual statistics, but I’m betting that choclatiers find this one of their busiest times. It’s really hard to separate thoughts of Valentine’s day from heart shaped boxes full of decadent goodness. Being diabetic, though, can make said boxes of chocolate seem less than desireable.

As I’ve discussed before here, candies are not completely off the menu if you’ve got diabetes and a little chocolate daily may even be good for you. It does mean you need to watch your intake, pay attention to the serving size listed on the package and be sensible about it.

It’s best, also, to keep in mind that good chocolate is better for you that cheap chocolate. Chocolate with a higher percentage of cocoa solids tends to cost a bit more, but more cocoa solids mean less other stuff, including sugar.  Your opinion may very, but well made dark chocolate I find to be a more pleasurable experience for the tongue as well, at least until we get up to around 85%+, at which point I find it better for baking and hot chocolate than simple nibbling.

At Target the other day, I saw a box of chocolates, a metallic heart shaped tin, that starteed at 60% chocolates and went up: The Ghiradelli Intense Love Heart Box .  I won’t say that this is exactly what every diabetic needs, but if chocolate is an option for your diabetic valentine, then I’ d recommend something like this over a box of random nougats. Lindt also makes a good collection of dark chocolate delights, including a 60% truffle.

No matter the quality of the chocolate though, know your limits. One square or truffle between meals may be okay for you. A stack is likely not to be.

Chocolate is one of the great joys in life and I was very happy when I found out that I could still have it in moderation. If you have the restraint to take it in a bite at a time, I recommend looking into the darker side of cocoa confectionry. There are few other places you have to give the excuse of “no, medically I need the good stuff”. Make use of the one’s you have.

The phrase “gastric condom” sounds like the name of a punk band, but in fact is a real device being tested to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes. The concept is that there’s a device that is inserted through the digestive tract and that puts a membrane around the first 60 centimeters of the small intestine. The membrane’s presence causes the stomach and intestines to react in such a way that reduces the absorption of nutrients and causes rapid weight loss, equivalent to gastric band surgery. The process promises to be cheaper than gastric bypass or gastric band surgery, is more easily reversible and would require little change in eating habits.

Somehow, I’m still wary of it.

I have known people who have gotten gastric band surgery and had some dramatic results with it.  I understand their decision and won’t fault them for it, but I’m a little hesitant to consider surgical alteration to lose weight. I’m only slightly less iffy on the idea of doing it to reverse my diabetes.

The criteria for recommending bariatric surgery revolves around Body Mass Index (BMI) which is a measure of your weight vs. your height. At my weight prior to my diagnosis, I might have been a candidate as I had a BMI of over 35 and I had a complication (hyperglycemia). While I wasn’t very happy with my body at the time, I hardly considered myself in a condition where the best option was to surgically alter myself and I’d never trusted the BMI, knowing that it would count a body builder who weighed the same as I did as being just as obese as my sedentary butt.

If you are at a point where diabetes and weight is a critical issue for you, if your weight is due to overeating, if you can’t find another way to lose weight and if you’re doctor recommends it is safe, I can see getting the surgery and the gastric condom being a viable alternative to having your stomach stapled to itself. But it seems that nature of the device offers a quick fix to a complex problem, perhaps a little too quick.

Link: Gastric ‘condoms’ could help obese avoid surgery.

From time to time, I need to give credit where credit is due and to let people know where I misspoke. This is one of those times.

Error the First:

In discussing Disney pulling the Hannah Montana diabetes episode , I speculated that they pulled it over not wanting to offend their sponsors as I found it more likely than they were being responsible. Turns out I should have given them more credit. One of the people who read the post (thanks, AC) advised me that the episode was pulled because:

1. Saying that Type 1 diabetics could not have sugar at all, when they can with appropriate care and doses of meds.
2.  Misrepresented Type 1 Diabetes as being caused by too much sugar, when it’s a condition that develops at birth.
3. Called the diabetic character “sugar boy” which is kinda a jerk move.
4. Also, never showing the kid take his blood sugar or take insulin or referencing that he might, which kind of cut down on the educational value of the storyline.

So my apologies to the House of the Mouse for doubting them. You can call of the assassins dressed like Goofy now.

Error the second:

When describing the effects of High Fructose Corn Syrup, I said that sucrose was processed by every cell in the body. I got my sugars wrong: glucose is processed by every cell in the body .

Fructose, however, is still only processed by the liver. So while I got my facts wrong, it wasn’t about the part I was giving as a warning.

Though of a note, there’s apparently some concern of mercury levels in high fructose corn syrup due to a recent study. So if you needed another reason to shun the stuff, congratulations, you got one.

Thanks again for reading. New information to follow soon.

Dear Me,

There are a number of things I could write to you as you enter your 18th year that would be of great use to you by the time you hit your 37th. I could tell you which stocks to buy and when to sell them, but by doing so you’d likely negate the effect in the highly variable world of finance. I could tell you which relationships not to screw up and which not to get into, but each has taught you/me a lesson, and I wouldn’t be the person I am without it. What I will tell you about is how to avoid something that you’re doing to yourself.

Right now, you’re setting yourself up for Type 2 diabetes. No, you won’t be on insulin. Yes, it will still suck rocks.

If you wish to avoid this, start by drinking water. Straight. Without any caffiene, high fructose corn syrup or caramel coloring. At least one measure for every measure of that fizzy battery acid you push down your gullet. Start now and continue for the rest of your life.

Accept that two large orders of french fries do not constitute a meal. Yes, you can afford it now. No, you can’t afford it later.

For that matter, don’t rely on Burger King or McDonald’s too much for your food. When you get to be me, they will no longer taste good and in truth, probably don’t now.

Drink water. Yes I know I already said this one.

You like walking. Do that more. Everywhere. Never live somewhere you can’t walk to what you need. It will pay off, I promise.

Sleep regularly. Take off your clothes and brush your teeth beforehand.

Have you gotten a glass of water yet?

When you finally get around to taking martial arts, stretch before each session. It will keep you from injuring yourself and dropping the class. This will help you maintain the best health you will be in possibly ever.

Water helps with the stretching.

Do not fear salads. You will like them. Dressing is okay, but don’t overdo it. You will, but try to pull the amount back so that it doesn’t look like flakey soup in ranch broth.

With the salads, have water.

It does not make you more of a man or even more of yourself to kill a 2 Liter of soda in a sitting. Excess is excess, not a reward.

Follow these rules and maybe you won’t have to write this letter, which I realize will cause a time space paradox and such the universe into a singularity, but at least you won’t have diabetes.

So do this for yourself. Do it for your future self. And buy Google when it’s cheap oh god I can’t stop myself….

Sincerely,

Yourself

As I’ve said before in this blog, the good news about diabetes is that new treatments are being found every day, it seems. Old ones and new ones. Recently, the following three news stories caught my attention:

• Weekly Injections for Type 2 paitents: The prescription drug exenatide, sold under the brand name Byetta, requires twice daily injections. Currently, a once weekly dose of the medication, which boosts insulin production, is being tested and shows promise.
• Open Wide and Say “Ah”: Recent research revealed that diabetics have certain protiens in their saliva more commonly than people without. While still in the earliest stages of investigation, the reasearchers are hoping that this could be used to diagnose diabetes and maybe even replace blood tests, saving people from that delightful morning poke.
• Everything Old is New Again: In 1876, a drug called salsalate was being investigated as a treatment for diabeties. An anti-inflammatory, it’s used to treat arthritis today. A researcher believes that the people considering using it to help diabetics control blood sugar may have been on to something. Studies are being done and soon to be published that may give diabetics an additional and inexpensive (available as a generic, no less) medication.

Here’s hoping the above stories are not mere pipe-dreams, but something for us to look forward too.

I get updates from Google on every story that mentions the word diabetes. Some list a battle with diabetes as part of a biography; others mention it in crimes (Diabetes Monitors Stolen!). Then there’s the duplicates of press releases. But even considering all that, I get anywhere from 5 to 15 headlines about diabetes a day.

That is a lot of talk.

Much of the conversation is about how the disease is affecting the world. One will talk about the cost of diabetes. Others will point out the risks diabetics face to every part of their body: heart, limbs, brain, etc. There’s been a lot of words written about how diabetes has become an epidemic in India and southern Asia.

It’s not all bad, though. The negative has become so hard to ignore that there are signs of hope around the corner almost every day. New meds are being discovered and tested. Lifestyle advice comes at us in double handfuls. Coke is going to be making soda with a stevia derivitive.

There’s hope.

Every day, more people are talking about the disease. There’s focus and there’s interest. There’s the desire for a cure and the will to prevent. Diabetes isn’t just something your grandmother deals with anymore. It’s becoming a thought on everyone’s minds.

I’m hoping one day we’ll have nothing to talk about, that diabetes will be cast to the same pile as the black plague and leprocy, that was once a greatly feared killer will be reduced to a medical footnote. That day isn’t today, but if we keep talking about it. Maybe it will come.

So listen.

One of the glorious aspects of the internet is the ability to voice one’s outrage almost as soon as you have it to as wide an audience as you can find. While usually, I try to calm down a bit before I spew out my irritation upon an unsuspecting public, today I feel little remorse in dipping my virtual quill into a jar of bile and vitrol and scribbling upon the imaginary paper you see before you. The cause for this teeth grinding, stomach tightening irritation: The proposed NY soda tax .

The gist of it is this: New York state’s 2009 budget includes an 18% tax on sodas, sugary soft drinks and fruit drinks under 70% juice. This in theory would be used to fight obesity and raise awareness. It’s being likened to the higher taxes on cigarettes and Govenor David Paterson is saying this is a necessary step in the battle against childhood obesity and diabetes.

I won’t say that obesity isn’t a problem, even if I think the standard by which obesity is determined is arbitrary. There is a point where excess body fat has negative health impacts and that’s a serious problem. As this is a blog about diabetes, I obviously am not going to say that that isn’t an issue either. So why does this thought anger me? Because it’s a sin tax, and sin taxes are wrong.

Taxation is one of the big sticks a government can wield, on par with military force. “The power to tax is the power to destory” it has been said. In theory, taxation is to raise monies necessary for the government to do it’s job, but properly applied it can be a blunt instrument used to enforce the will of the state.

Sin taxes are mommy government cutting your allowance; it’s not the government’s job to be a parent to the populace.

Besides that, when a tax like this gets proposed, it usually gets defeated because of who it targets the most: the poor. Cheap food is made with a lot of sweeteners so that it will be palatable. I’m not saying this is a good plan and it’s one of the things that I feel is a shame upon the fast food and mass produced food markets. But raising taxes on the sweet stuff means raising taxes on the cheap stuff which means hurting poor people.

Does anyone need or have to drink soda? No. Do some people do it because it’s cheap? Yep.

Then there’s the standard by which they’re choosing drinks. Consider that 8oz of soda,  chocolate milk, unsweetened apple juice or orange juice all have about the same amount of carbs (within 5 grams). How many of those are going to get taxed again? Sure, the last three all have vitamins, but so does Glaceau Vitamin Water… which would be taxed and has less sugar per serving than any of these.

Most importantly, taxes like this  skirt the actual issue involved, that being the matter of personal responsibility. I got to be a type 2 diabetic by consuming about a gallon of soda every 48 hours for 15 years combined with not really supplementing my diet with much else of any nutritional value. I blame no one for this but myself.  The day I found out that I was diabetic, I stopped drinking soda.  I reject the idea that I or anyone else can’t avoid soda if they choose and have to be forced into a better choice.

Not to mention, we’re talking about childhood obesity here. The adults are the one’s supplying the soda most of the time, I imagine. Do you think that upping the cost is going to make them suddenly buy healthy drinks or simply serve the same thing and grumble about the price of groceries?

Be it a tax on cigarettes, a tax on booze or a tax on soda, you don’t get the result you want until you change the people. Until then, you’re merely profitting off of people’s bad behavior because as a society we’ve failed to teach ourselves moderation. I don’t doubt that we need to do something to make sure that the next genaration doesn’t all die of heart failure by the time they’re 40, but I find the idea that we should do that by poking the wallets of people an offensive and dangerous concept.

After all, what else do we think is a problem that we can tax? What does the government have to target before we see that such practices for the rude extortion that they are? Do we really have the right to say stay healthy or pay up?

Me, I don’t think so.

I feel lousy.

This isn’t a hangover from last night’s wing buffet. (Morning blood glucose reading, 111 by the way). It’s not just because I’m getting little sleep. I think I’m coming down with something.

Getting a cold or the flu or a stomach bug or what have you is irritating on a number of levels, aside from the usual inconvience and worry that I’ll infect my co-workers or my wife. It plays hell with my blood sugar.

I’ve gotten pretty good at reading my body. I can tell when I’m a little sugar crashy versus when I’m just tired or hungry. Being sick, especially at first when I’m not sure, throws that off.

Illness also throws off my ability to stay active, my appetite and therefore my ability to eat regularly and a number of other small things that meant the difference between me taking care of myself or not.

The people at John’s Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic   both suggest more or less the same precautions with diabetes and illness: stay hydrated, keep to your schedule and check your sugars more frequently.  Also, if you go to a doctor for you illness, make sure he knows about the diabetes too.

I doubt I’m going to the doctor or taking anything heavier than Vitamin C, but I’m still trying to pay attention. I don’t want a bad situation to get worse, because diabetes doesn’t just complicate things when I’m healthy. It’s also a royal pain when I’m experienceing, well… other royal pains.