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Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

martin.janiczek.cz

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Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#251

Post by sizzle »

jklinger410 wrote: post #137

What I've learned that, as an adult in 2024 in the United States, you cannot take for granted: - That your medical professionals are acting in your best interest - That your insurance company is acting in your best interest - That your medical professional knows what they are talking about - That things that are legal to put in your body will not cause irreparable harm to you - That the legal level of pollutants in t…

Any idea how to remove the most common pollutants we run into everyday? I try to avoid high VOC materials and use charcoal filters for water. Kinda lazy to set up reverse osmosis system right now.

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#252

Post by photon_lines »

supertofu wrote: post #145

I'm prediabetic with two T2 parents and a T2 grandparent and my primary care doctor is entirely unconcerned about it. My lowish tech solution to delay (and hopefully prevent!) the onset of T2 is to use a glucose monitor every 2 hours, every day, and create a database of foods with my postprandial blood sugar reaponse at 1.5 and 2 hours. I also keep track of how exercise affects my blood sugar. Over the last couple ye…

I already mentioned some of this in another response, but I'll include it here as well: you can take measures to not have to take medication / insulin if you have type 2 diabetes. The number one thing to avoid it is to stay lean and not be over-weight, but some other things which can greatly help out:

- Exercise: 'Exercise plays a major role in the prevention and control of insulin resistance, prediabetes, GDM, type 2 diabetes, and diabetes-related health complications. Both aerobic and resistance training improve insulin action, at least acutely, and can assist with the management of BG levels, lipids, BP, CV risk, mortality, and QOL, but exercise must be undertaken regularly to have continued benefits and likely include regular training of varying types. ' - Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2992225/

- Intermittent fasting: there's great evidence that IF (intermittent fasting) can put it in remission: https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2022/i...

- Minimally processed and ketogenic diet: avoid foods which have sugar or high-fructose corn-syrup and mostly stick to low-glycemic index minimally processed foods. 'Diets with a high glycaemic index and a high glycaemic load were associated with a higher risk of incident type 2 diabetes in a multinational cohort spanning five continents. Our findings suggest that consuming low glycaemic index and low glycaemic load diets might prevent the development of type 2 diabetes.' - Source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8...

- Take a teaspoon with turmeric + black-pepper daily: 'Clinical trials and preclinical research have recently produced compelling data to demonstrate the crucial functions of curcumin against T2DM via several routes. Accordingly, this review systematically summarizes the antidiabetic activity of curcumin, along with various mechanisms. Results showed that effectiveness of curcumin on T2DM is due to it being anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-hyperglycemic, anti-apoptotic, anti-hyperlipidemia and other activities. In light of these results, curcumin may be a promising prevention/treatment choice for T2DM.' - Source: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202404.1926/v1

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#253

Post by reaperman »

sizzle wrote: post #251
jklinger410 wrote: post #137

What I've learned that, as an adult in 2024 in the United States, you cannot take for granted: - That your medical professionals are acting in your best interest - That your insurance company is acting in your best interest - That your medical professional knows what they are talking about - That things that are legal to put in your body will not cause irreparable harm to you - That the legal level of pollutants in t…

Any idea how to remove the most common pollutants we run into everyday? I try to avoid high VOC materials and use charcoal filters for water. Kinda lazy to set up reverse osmosis system right now.

1) You're pretty much just screwed unless you're both very wealthy and make this topic your primary hobby/past-time. To really answer this you'd need to do an incredible amount of testing. Like buy 10 of everything you're considering and send off to labs for $100,000 of tests. Or install a million dollars of chemical air quality monitors in and around your home.

2) Large activated carbon air scrubbers. For air filtration you really need not just HEPA particulate filters, but robust VOC capture. The tiny bit of activated carbon in things like a Winix C535 or Coway Mega/AirMega really don't clean much. Instead, consider something like buying two 10"-12" carbon scrubbers from https://terra-bloom.com and get a matching size of their in-line "Silenced Ultra Quiet EC Fan". You can just stack these three items together and it forms a tall but not horribly ugly appliance that doesn't take up much floor space. You'd probably need to replace the filters once a year, and have quite a few around a normal-sized house, just like standalone HEPA filters (which you'd also probably still want as well).

3) Wash everything often - bedding, clothes, carpets, floors, walls, appliances, etc. Obviously, attempt to use a soap that won't add additional pollutants. Wash them twice, once with soap then again without soap.

4) Time. Assuming similar materials, something that is 5 years old should have already leeched out a lot of the chemicals which are going to off-gas/transfer/leech from it. So the polluting rate of something 5 years old that's been washed 50 times and already worn and broken in should be assumed to be lower than an identical, new, version of the same thing.

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#254

Post by reaperman »

jklinger410 wrote: post #242
Jun8 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having experienced healthcare in multiple countries I can say most of the items on your list are pretty much universal, unfortunately. Skipping over the capitalistic and legal issues, which people more or less expect, I'd like to zoom in on your item #3. The fact that doctors are (often) clueless for complex diagnostics (not talking about a broken arm, etc.) is shocking to many people. I think the two main factors dr…

I don't mind point one, and it can be improved in many ways. AI being a huge one. Point two, though, is just an example of how preventive medicine is forgone due to its cost. The system doctor's use to share data could also stand massive improvements.

If you think doctors can be overly stubborn to change once they've made an initial diagnosis .... you're going to be very unhappy with an AI diagnosis model. As one of many tools, I can see some value. But I'd hate if there was no way to at least try to convince an actual doctor that my issue might be something less expected.

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#255

Post by seb1204 »

HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #205
mapt wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are decades deep into an ideologically propelled plan to "Starve the beast" by denying the NHS funding so that care quality declines, and use that as justification to privatize the NHS entirely. The starting salary for a first-year doctor is below the national median income, and for a nurse significantly below. Their inability to requisition funds & time for care is something there is repeated labor action a…

> You guys are decades deep into an ideologically propelled plan to "Starve the beast" by denying the NHS funding so that care quality declines, and use that as justification to privatize the NHS entirely. Mind providing some sources for this? Rather tired of hearing this unfounded conspiracy theory from people > Maybe more funding will fix it? Where does the money come from?

Tax the rich? Close to 100 billionaires live in London I've read.

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#256

Post by mjaniczek »

mft_ wrote: post #232
KittenInABox wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a response to the constant frustration of feeling limited, especially by something arbitrary. If I got told randomly that now every single family gathering, social event, date, drink with the boys, exercise routine, and road trip must circle around a chronic health condition that I must make conscious decisions around every day all day for the rest of my life, it makes total sense for me to occasionally go…

I understand (as much as I can) that it must be very frustrating, as you outline. However, the post I was asking the question of sounded a step or two beyond occasionally saying "fuck it" (which we all do, I suspect, whatever out motivation for health conscious behavior): > I have stubbornly refused to accept that it's not a smart idea to eat anything I want . I am not going to give up hash browns until I lose a leg.…

Eat anything I want, as in not limit myself to keto / low-sugar?

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#257

Post by lisper »

I had a very similar experience with eosenophilic esophogitis (EoE). It's an allergic reaction that causes your esophagus to constrict resulting in acute dysphagia (difficulty swallowing). It can get extremely unpleasant for me as well as anyone around me when an attack happens. The problem is that the latency between eating the food that triggers it and actual symptoms is many many hours, and the symptoms only appear if you happen to swallow something that's just a little too big, and by then it's too late. It was only by sheer luck that I managed to figure out what my trigger is (scallops). In order to be diagnosed you have to get an endoscopy, which is also the only indicated treatment (other than avoiding the trigger food if you can figure out what it is).

I had this idea of using gel caps to get a better read on my internal state because you can feel them going down but they don't actually get stuck (and even if they do they dissolve pretty quickly and don't cause too much discomfort). The idea is to have them in a variety of sizes, and to start with small ones and get bigger until you can feel one. That gives you much more fine-grained data which you can then correlate with what you've eaten the day before. Trick is, I can't find a source of placebo gel caps in assorted sizes anywhere. I can't even find a manufacturer to make them for me. Every manufacturer I've approach about this insists on having some active ingredient, and they also want minimum orders in the thousands of units.

The irony is that I would have no problem getting these on the market as homeopathic remedies of some sort.

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#258

Post by reaperman »

0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #224
stonethrowaway wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time I would emphasize that people who offer any kind of advice online around life-threatening ailments do put down if they have a related degree, are currently practicing and are licensed in that or a very related field, or if they are conducting self experiments and sharing their results (with YMMV caveat to go along with it). Reasons why should be obvious, but listening to podcasts, or reading pop-scie…

> with YMMV caveat to go along with it Isn't it suspicious to offer YMMV caveats in a situation that is obviously dripping with caveats?

I find communities that constantly add gratuitous "YMMV may vary - everyone's body is different and no one really knows anything" tend to have less groupthink and are generally more adaptable both to new research and old research. The "YMMV" should be obvious in any discussion about individual humans, but when communities don't emphasize it constantly, people start thinking that "90% of patients benefit from $INTERVENTION" somehow means that they should just shut down discussion around the other 10%.

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#259

Post by nradov »

kshacker wrote: post #216
nradov wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other researchers have also achieved T2D remission in many patients through nutritional ketosis (carbohydrate restriction). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13300-018-0373-9

And here I am following a WFPB diet with high carbs and reversing my A1C + some other markers. My philosophy is that many diets work, you just can not have a cocktail. Our body is not a hybrid car. It takes time to switch/ Choose what you can live with - high carb, low carb, keto - and stay focused.

There is of course substantial variability in individual patient response to treatments. But a high-carb diet is unlikely to work out well for someone who is already insulin resistant. If that's the only diet that they can live with then their life is likely to be drastically shortened.

As for plant based versus animal based diets, we don't have any high quality RCTs to indicate that one or the other has a different impact on insulin resistance (assuming the same macros). So that's unlikely to be directly relevant for most patients, except to the extent that it impacts ease of living permanently maintaining carb restriction.

Re: Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands

#260

Post by apwell23 »

dleink wrote: post #234
MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s only true if it’s actually a cancer that’s going to spread. Certain things like benign prostate cancer are often not worth treating. Testing everyone for everything leads to overtreatment and anxiety and worse quality of life.

I see the distinction. Thank you for clarifying. I think generally speaking I would prefer to have more data on my health. I don't like the idea that this information might be held back because it would make me "paranoid". That is my decision. I can see that in the general case, it can lead to increased spending and worse outcomes.

> I don't like the idea that this information might be held back because it would make me "paranoid". That is my decision.

Yea you can get prenuvo or a psa test by paying out of pocket. No one is holding anything back from anyone. I got a PSA test out of pocket for $60 at quest ( family history of PC) .

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