It was a wake up call for us both. In 2005 and fast approaching 50 my husband and I were enjoying life and had given up smoking. Then came the bombshell, Rob had diabetes. An ex rugby player he took this insult to his health badly. We had anger, bitterness, denial and finally a very grudging acceptance. I should say that neither of us have ever been skinny Minnys but giving up smoking had perhaps been a weight gain too far. Then I heard a piece on the radio about a place called Pritikin.

Pritikin, calling itself a Longevity Centre, is just that. I won’t bore you with the details of how we got there but suffice to say, some months later, filled with more hope then expectation we arrived in Miami Florida and the hallowed portals of the Pritikin Longevity Centre.
Every single blood value you have ever heard of and many you may not have are explored and explained in detail by your physician, so that even the smallest health problem you might have is identified and explained. I was lucky, I had none. The thoroughness of the medical examination and blood values are worth the money in themselves. Rob told me that he feared he was in such bad shape he would have a heart attack if he did any exercise. That had added to his particular weight gain. Then came the stress test that all Pritikin guests do when they arrive, With wires attached to your chest you are started on a treadmill, gently at frist and then increasing in speed and incline until you reach your limit. It is form this that your exercise routine is worked out. Nobody is ever pushed beyond their limnits and the variety of exercise equipment available ensures that everyone will be able to do exercise of some sort or another.

So it turns out it is very simple. Especially where the diabetic is concerned weight control is vital. Eat less and exercise more. So where’s the rocket science in that? I hear you ask. Well I think the rocket science or rocket up the rear end for me came in actually seeing day to day how eating no salt, no fat and no sugar along with exercise made dramatic changes in blood values as well as weight before my eyes.

Our morning started early with Rob going for a diabetic blood test. Then came breakfast, with plenty of fresh fruit, porridge, whites of eggs omelettes and bran muffins.

As well as being diabetic Rob was also hypertensive and was desperate to get off his medication. In the two weeks we were there, he lost 12 lbs and half his blood pressure mediation. His diabetes was so well controlled that on his medication his blood glucose was lower than mine, and I’m not diabetic. He was told that the diabetic medication could be stopped once he had lost another 20lb. He did and it was. About six months after he came back from Miami our GP took him off all his diabetic medication.

Our stay at Pritikin gave me time to take stock. Did I want to go all out to lose a ton of weight and then spend the rest of my life maintaining it? Well whether I did or not, I know that for me, it won’t happen. I love my life the way it is, I could and would improve my diet but then again I eat a lot of fruit and veg as well. Where Pritikin helped me was to give me a reference point, a way of balancing things, making the right choices, even if just some of the time. Knowing the consequences of overindulging in one thing or the other, having acceptable viable alternatives. And knowing that I was most definitely not alone.

I heard that Diabetes is also somehow related to high blood pressure. Is that true?

Diabetes itself is not caused by high blood pressure it is caused by pancreas that produces Insulin shutting down either partially or fully. If the shut down is partial then a patient is treated with oral medication, if the shut down is full then Insulin injections are required.

With diabetes, the amount of glucose in your blood is too high because the body cannot use it properly. This is because the pancreas is not working properly to help glucose enter your body’s cells – or because the insulin that is produced does not work properly (known as insulin resistance).
Insulin, the hormone produced by the pancreas allows glucose to enter the body’s cells, as fuel for energy so we can generally live our lives.

Glucose comes from digesting carbohydrate and is also produced by the liver. Carbohydrate comes from many different kinds of foods and drink, including starchy foods such as bread, potatoes and chapatis; fruit; some dairy products; sugar and other sweet foods.

With diabetes, the body cannot make proper use of this glucose so it builds up in the blood and isn’t able to be used as fuel.

With regard to the correlation between diabetes and high blood pressure (hypertension), this is an important risk factor for the development and worsening of many complications of diabetes, including diabetic eye disease and kidney disease. It affects up to 60% of people with diabetes.

Having diabetes increases your risk of developing high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, because diabetes adversely affects the arteries, predisposing them to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Atherosclerosis can cause high blood pressure, which if not treated, can lead to blood vessel damage, stroke, heart failure, heart attack, or kidney failure.

Compared to people with normal blood pressure readings, men and women with hypertension have an increased risk of:

Coronary artery disease (heart disease)
Strokes
Peripheral vascular disease (hardening of the arteries in the legs and feet)
Heart failure
Even high yet normal blood pressure or pre-hypertension (defined as 120-139/ 80-89) impacts your health. Studies show that people with normal yet high range blood pressure readings, over a 10 year period of follow up time, had a two to three fold increased risk of heart disease.

Blood pressure readings vary, but in general if you have diabetes in particular, your blood pressure should not go above 130/80. The first number is the "systolic pressure" or the pressure in the arteries when your heart beats and fills the arteries with blood. The second number is the "diastolic pressure" or the pressure in the arteries when your heart rests between beats, filling itself with blood for the next contraction.

Having a normal blood pressure is as important to managing diabetes as having good control of your blood sugars when it comes to preventing diabetes complications.


Hope that information is of some sue to you! I suppose you could say that the bottom line is that you need to look after all aspects of your health as everything is interlinked, (you remember the old song, "the knee bone's connected to the ankle bone etc.!!")

This report looks at diabetes in the UK today. It contains statistics about who is affected and how. The facts and figures were supplied by [url]www.diabetes.org.uk[/url] and make alarming reading.

Most health experts agree that the UK is facing a huge increase in the number of people with diabetes. Since 1996 the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has increased from 1.4 million to 2.6 million. By 2025 it is estimated that over four million people will have diabetes. Most of these cases will be Type 2 diabetes, because of our ageing population and rapidly rising numbers of overweight and obese people.

The figures are alarming and confirm that diabetes is one of the biggest health challenges facing the UK today. If we are to curb this growing health crisis and see a reduction in the number of people dying from diabetes and its complications, we need to increase awareness of the risks, bring about wholesale changes in lifestyle, improve self-management among people with diabetes and improve access to integrated diabetes care services.

As someone who had a raised blood sugar reading and has now been shocked into trying to do something about it, I think it is time that people took this disease more seriously. I remember once working for an Oncologist who said he would rather have Hodgkins disease (a curable cancer) than diabetes!!

It is true that diabetes is a scary disease and that there is not enough known about it. I think that people think that if it is not making them feel bad then it can't be doing them any harm. I really do urge anyone who might think that they have something niggling at them, like being tired all the time, feeling thirsty or experiencing bouts of double vision to get checked out. If it is kept under control the effects of diabetes can be substantially reduced and controlled.