Preventing Type II Diabetes If It Runs In Your Family

Type II can run in families, and it runs in mine. Of the generation ahead of me, the family members who remained slender never developed Type II Diabetes. Of those who had some extra weight (and none of them were "all that" overweight - just kind of the usual "middle-aged overweight" kind of thing a lot of people get) many developed Type II.  Having one person in your family who has been diagnosed as Diabetic is, of course, reason for concern.  After all, other family members may eventually be diagnosed as having blood sugar that is too high.  More than one Diabetic in your family should really set off "alarm bells".

My children's' father and his mother both developed it after putting on some extra weight (again, not a "horrible" amount of weight, but enough to make them look "chunky"). My mother-in-law went in on the right diet, lost the weight, and was able to "live normally" for the rest of her life (as long as she didn't go wild and pack on the pounds again). My kids' father did the same thing, and he was in his forties when it was diagnosed. He went on the right diet, lost the extra weight he'd gained, and got things under control. (My mother-in-law was in his seventies when it was diagnosed and when she lost the weight and was able to live normally again.)

The way to avoid is to stay thin and/or lose any extra weight. Exercise is said to be linked with helping to avoid it too. Heading it off before it happens prevents a lot of the damage that can occur to organs and systems before someone is even diagnosed with it (because people can be symptom-free and have it without knowing it).

What I saw in some of my mother's family was a few of them couldn't seem to really stick to the diet and lose the extra weight. I didn't understand why they didn't "just eat right". The ones who had trouble sticking to the diet enough to lose the extra weight were people who lived with a lot of stress. I've since learned that stress causes people to have such fierce cravings for high-energy foods, they get to feel as if they can't function if they don't give into the cravings. Now I understand why those people had such trouble doing what they knew they needed to do. Doctors involved in studies on food cravings actually recommended people give into the cravings in times of high stress, because they said it's healthier to get the body out of a stress mode. The trouble is, if the stress is long-term, giving into those cravings amounts to packing on the pounds and ending up with health problems anyway. "Lose/lose" situation.

I think people who are concerned with Diabetes (whether it's your family members or you) should learn what there is to know about food cravings and stress, because staying with the eating habits recommended for Diabetics pretty much means habits that everyone should have anyway. Unless people are awfully heavy when they're younger, the problem with middle-aged and older people is that a lot of people tend to eat (and get away with eating) what they did when they were 25 and had a metabolism that could handle it at that time. Metabolism slows with each decade, so even the person who doesn't really over-eat all that much can end up expecting his own body to metabolize more carbohydrates than a less-than-young person can metabolize.

Of course, over recent years there has been a rise in seeing Type II Diabetes in children and and adults who haven't yet reached middle age. This is associated with the rise in obesity seen across the general population. While Type II Diabetes was once seen most often among people middle aged and older, it's now a problem for many children and adults as well. Although, for middle-aged and older people, the natural tendency for metabolism rates to slow down, combined with extra weight, are generally the reason people develop Type II Diabetes; with younger people the problem is primarily associated with obesity that's often more extreme than it is in middle-aged and older people who develop Type II. In other words, younger people can sometimes get away with a little extra weight longer than someone with a slower metabolism may; but too much extra or extra weight that puts a strain on the body for too long leads to developing problems with metabolizing carbohydrates.

Extra weight/obesity and lack of exercise actually change how the body metabolizes foods, so while the middle-aged person may not have been putting quite such a strain on a slightly overweight body; and while it may have taken him until his metabolism slowed down with age before he developed Diabetes, the younger but more extremely overweight person will more dramatically challenge his own metabolism by putting that many more demands on it.

Exercise generally helps metabolism; so besides any other beneficial effects of exercise, just that, alone, is one easy and small step to "fortifying" a metabolism that "wants" to slow down with age. It has often been said by doctors and others in the health field that if there were one prescription that could eliminate so many medical conditions (usually) associated with age, that prescription would be for exercise. One reason Type II Diabetes may be so common among middle-aged and older people may be that adults over a certain age often have trouble finding the time and/or energy to exercise; and the older people get, the more likely it is they will have physical problems (like Arthritis) that makes exercising too challenging.

Another problem for many middle-aged (and relatively young) adults may be living under enough stress that it leads to exhaustion, while people in this age group often still have children or elderly parents to care for/worry about and/or jobs that are demanding. The stress factor may be the thing that makes so many middle-aged people take enough extra calories to put on those "few extra pounds". Enough stress or demands can lead people who would otherwise be energetic to have physical or mental tiredness or exhaustion, and it can lead to the body's essentially "running out of steam" and making exercise too depleting (rather than invigorating) . Again, the stress factor is something people concerned with Type II Diabetes should keep in mind, learn about, and try to reduce or eliminate (if at all possible). Doing that should make eating right far less of a challenge.

Most people can't eliminate a lot of the stress in their lives, but finding some way to give the mind and body a long enough break from it is something that can help.

Stress, by itself, can cause a rise in blood glucose levels even before someone eats that candy bar for energy. This starts a whole stress-response cycle that can "throw the whole body off", making it difficult for a body to get back to normal. An increased appetite is another side-effect of too much stress, and one thing that contributes to that increased appetite is that stress-response cycle that includes that rise in glucose levels. In other words, at least in some cases of Type II Diabetes, it makes one wonder if there's a chicken/egg type of thing that takes place; and if the over-eating that leads to obesity is actually the result of that cycle of changes that take place under stress first, with the resulting over-eating that leads to Type II Diabetes making the problem worse.

As someone who grew up with family members who had Type II Diabetes (and different outcomes, depending on the person), I've often wondered if, when we hear that Type II Diabetes "runs in families", what that means may be simply that in some families people don't have the kind of metabolism that seems to "run on high-speed", no matter how much someone eats or how little he exercises. Something else I've wondered is whether those "naturally high-speed-metabolism people" are either "naturally fortunate" or else whether such a naturally high metabolism may, in some way we don't often hear about, be a medical disadvantage of some other kind. Either way, and more sobering, I've often wondered if the people who don't seem to be "immune to" Type II Diabetes may actually be "the average person", rather than the person who "inherited some off-ness" with his metabolism. In other words, might those of us who have family members who had Type II Diabetes not have really "inherited something off", but instead, might we simply not have "inherited" resistance to the condition?

I had an aunt who was on the taller side, had gained those "few extra pounds" by middle-age (forties), lost them, and never re-gained that weight. She lived to be 89 without ever developing Diabetes. Not eating as much as she would have liked to was a challenge for her, because she had a good-sized frame. Frame-size is another thing I think people need to consider, because, as a very small-framed person with a lot of other small-framed, women, relatives; I've noticed that small women often don't have very big appetites. The problem with being small, though, is that small women are also often don't have very muscular builds (at least without working out to try to build muscles). Having better developed muscles is often the thing that helps a lot of men lose weight easily or not gain it as quickly.

It stands to reason that a small, non-muscular, build/frame that requires less food would have a "lower bar" when it comes to how many carbohydrates are too many. In other words, one question I have about inheriting a tendency to develop Type II Diabetes (and one I may be able to find the answer for later, but I haven't yet seen this answer anywhere yet), is whether what people who inherit that tendency to develop Type II Diabetes may, at least in some cases, have inherited nothing more than the tendency to have a small frame that predisposes them to Type II indirectly, by virtue of a frame that requires fewer calories than a larger frame would. (My mother-in-law was an even smaller woman than all those small-framed women in my family. Her problem, unlike the problem of some other people I've known, was primarly that she had gotten into the habit of enjoying a few too many muffins each week (not each day), so stopping eating those was easy enough for her to do.) (Not all consumption of too many calories is associated with stress, of course. Sometimes it's just a matter of discovering a great local bakery, and going there a little too often.)

In any case, although people with Type II Diabetes, of course, must monitor their eating and blood sugar carefully; with that exception, the eating habits recommended for Diabetics are very much the eating habits everyone would benefit from - Eating several small meals a day, eating fresh vegetables pretty freely, including lean protein, limiting starches (in number of servings and in serving size), and eliminating refined sugar. The main difference between eating habits aimed at people with Type II Diabetes and those aimed at people without it (or not predisposed to it) is that people with concerns about Diabetes need to keep in mind that fruit and fruit juices are high in their own kind of sugar, so Diabetics need to watch how much fruit or fruit juice they take in. One of the most difficult things for some of the Diabetics I've known wasn't stopping eating things like candy or desserts. It was having to pay attention to how much orange juice or how many grapes they could have each day.

Children and Type II Diabetes

With regard to the rise in Type II Diabetes among children, children usually have the advantage of a growing child's metabolism. Most children are normally active if given the opportunity and encouragement to be as active as children usually are. Being "active" and being "athletic" aren't always the same thing, though; so if your child isn't "the naturally athletic type" encourage him to do things that are "active" (even if not particularly athletic). Bike-riding, roller-skating, dancing, ice-skating, martial arts, swimming, and just running around the way healthy children usually do are the kinds of things that should be a part of every child's day. The occasional rainy afternoon in front of a video game won't cause obesity and Type II Diabetes, and neither will a half hour or occasional hour of sedentary activity here or there. Other than that (and for reasons not always associated only with the sedentary aspect of "screen activity"), children shouldn't be "parked in front of" any screen too often, or too long. It's that simple, and it isn't hard to help children develop better habits isn't difficult. When kids are given the chance to experience how much fun they can away from any screens they aren't so interested in screens any longer.

Healthy meals and snacks, combined with the kind of activity to which most kids will naturally gravitate are what leads to fitness and better health in children. Unless there's some reason to completely keep all sweets away from a child, sweets at birthdays, on holidays, or on the occasional shopping trip with Grandma won't lead to obesity and Type II Diabetes. When it comes to not allowing a child to develop Type II Diabetes in childhood, all it takes it a little common sense and a little paying attention.

Keep in mind, too, that children who live with too much stress may start craving foods and drinks high in sugar or fat, the same way adults do. If children over-eat even when their parents generally try to encourage good habits and physical activity, something to get to the bottom of is whether someone or something (or several "someone's" or "something's") are making a child particularly stressed. Whether or not a child craves the wrong foods because of any stress-response his body has, or simply because he's looking for something that may make him feel happier/better, almost isn't the point. The point is that children whose parents haven't "taught them" terrible eating habits and/or utter disregard for nutrition usually have some other reason for "needing" the wrong foods.

A boy I babysat as a teen was an adorable little boy. He grew up to be someone who, before even reaching forty, could barely walk because of Diabetes, and he remains at risk of losing his legs. He lost his eyesight as a result of Diabetes years ago. This was a little boy who lost his mother to breast cancer young, so maybe it shouldn't be surprising that he developed an over-eating problem and gained too much weight as a child. Type II Diabetes is a monster that doesn't care if your mother died when you were little. The good news is that it's a monster that usually won't find anyone who has the kind of eating habits that don't lead to too much weight gain. The encouraging news is that even if people in your family have had Type II Diabetes, that doesn't mean you have to develop it. It's probably worth mention that for people who do develop Type II Diabetes, require insulin injections or medication, but eventually get back to where they don't need those, there will always be the need to continue to eat right and keep extra weight off. It's also worth mentioning that the damageType II Diabetes can cause can be permanent, although, depending on the person and the situation, there are times some damage may be reversed if Diabetes is diagnosed, and the individual gets and keeps his Diabetes under control.

The easiest and most certain way to head off Type II Diabetes is to stay thin or get thin, and eat right. It may be easier to say than do (particularly for people who live with a lot of long-term stress); but even if it isn't always easy for some people, it's not complicated. Things get complicated once a person has developed Type II Diabetes and, as my mother used to say, can't "just eat like everyone else does".

Type II Diabetes and extra weight aside, exercise remains one of the most effective things anyone can do to head off a number of medical conditions; so unless there's a medical problem that prevents this, find a few different types of exercise you most enjoy and make them part of your daily life.

Type II Diabetes may be a monster, but it's a monster that's often given an invitation to come on in to its victims' lives. Don't send it that invitation; and if it's knocking on your door because it found you through your family, it's particularly important you don't open that door.