Syndrome X

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falcon123

falcon123

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I am not a big fan of TV chefs, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall is my favourite, but I have just been reading an interview with Antony Worral Thompson. He talks about having Syndrome X or ?borderline? diabetes. This if ignored can lead to full blown Type II diabetes! At the time he was obese with blood glucose levels of the scale. He has now lost a stone, going from obese to fat, changed his diet and started exercising. In my view he is a diet controlled Type II diabetic ? no more, no less. "Borderline" diabetes sounds as ridiculous to me as the ?elderly? diabetes I was told an old lady was suffering from a few weeks ago. Or am I missing something?
 
falcon123 said:
I am not a big fan of TV chefs, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall is my favourite, but I have just been reading an interview with Antony Worral Thompson. He talks about having Syndrome X or ?borderline? diabetes. This if ignored can lead to full blown Type II diabetes! At the time he was obese with blood glucose levels of the scale. He has now lost a stone, going from obese to fat, changed his diet and started exercising. In my view he is a diet controlled Type II diabetic ? no more, no less. "Borderline" diabetes sounds as ridiculous to me as the ?elderly? diabetes I was told an old lady was suffering from a few weeks ago. Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Yes - "borderline diabetes" is as stupid a diagnosis as "borderline pregnant".
But Syndrome X, aka The Metabolic Syndrome aka Reavons Syndrome is very real. - or at least a very real hypothesis. Namely that visceral fat ( around the abdomen) hyperglycemia ( Type 2 diabetes ), hypertension ( high blood pressure) and dyslipidemia ( raised chols levels particularly "bad" chols) are all symptoms of a major underlying cause ( perhaps Insulin Resistance). The four items come together as a group. More advanced medics suggest anyone turning up with hypertension or dyslipidemia should be tested for Type 2 diabetes and should certainly sort the problem and lifestyle to avoid later t2 diabetes. Even more advanced thinkers suggest anyone ( middle aged basically ) showing up with visceral fat, hypertension or dyslipidemia should start on Insulin injections ( !) in order to rest the pancreas and prevent it "burning out" and thus avoid Type 2 Diabetes.
Worrall Thompson has half the story, he was "at high risk " of Type 2 diabetes. He wasn't really "Pre-diabetic", that's a term reserved for a definite diagnosis of IGT ( Impaired Glucose Tolerance) following an OGTT.
 
He had a test for insulin resistance.
He describes it in his book Healthy Eating fo Diabetes.
He was on a programme about sugar and was given a test that involved glucose and insulin being put into one arm, the other arm in an 'oven' at 65C, blood taken every 10 minutes for 2 hour and then tested (no I've not heard of this test elsewhere either)
This showed that he had insulin resistance, so coupled with the other symptoms was at risk of developing type 2.
'Shock horror' he writes '-I had Syndrome X: I was on my way to type 2 diabetes unless that is, I took steps to change my lifestyle'
 
HelenM said:
He had a test for insulin resistance.
He describes it in his book Healthy Eating fo Diabetes.
He was on a programme about sugar and was given a test that involved glucose and insulin being put into one arm, the other arm in an 'oven' at 65C, blood taken every 10 minutes for 2 hour and then tested (no I've not heard of this test elsewhere either)
This showed that he had insulin resistance, so coupled with the other symptoms was at risk of developing type 2.
'Shock horror' he writes '-I had Syndrome X: I was on my way to type 2 diabetes unless that is, I took steps to change my lifestyle'
Click to expand...

The article I read suggested he presented himself at the GP's obese and with a BG of the scale. Definately a typical Type II. I imagine the journo called Syndrome X "borderline" diabetes. Not helpful, AWT was probably promoting his Essential Diabetes Cookbook mentioned at the end.
 
If you have a fasting blood glucose level just under what is the cut off for a diabetes diagnosis, what's wrong with saying it's borderline? It is.

My blood glucose level was 6-point-something and I was told I was on the verge of becoming diabetic, borderline, prediabetic - whatever - it's just words.

It creeps up on you. People with PCOS (like myself) often are insulin resistant - doesn't mean all will be diabetic, but clearly there is a curve to this - presumably you dont just go from healthy one day to diabetic the next, at some point you will be "borderline" 🙄

I do wonder if it's just that some people cant admit they saw this coming. I'd love to pretend I was struck down with a "disease", would take all the blame off my shoulders for eating like a fat pig most of my life and ignoring the warnings!
 
LisaLQ said:
If you have a fasting blood glucose level just under what is the cut off for a diabetes diagnosis, what's wrong with saying it's borderline? It is.
Click to expand...

The markers dxing T2 diabetes can look like pegs hammered into the ground at basically arbritrary places but in reality they are surrogate measures of an important point on the Starling Curve of the Pancreas - the point at which Insulin Resistance has over-mastered Beta Cell Mass. If Beta Cell Mass is still in charge you are not diabetic - no borderline about it.
And telling people they have "borderline diabetes", "mild diabetes" or "a touch of sugar" breeds comaplacency and people who ARE diabetic doing nothing about it for years.
 
I'm debabting on how to put this without sounding too stroppy or feeling sorry for myself.....

Ok, i'm a tad confused about the whole pre-diabetes/ metabolic syndrome/ insulin resistance/glucose intollerance/ type two diabetes, business...
I've assumed i'm insulin resistant because i'm overweight and metformin works well for me. Ok, here's the story:
About 3 years ago, when i was at college studying for my BTEC in Pharmacy Services (which allows me to practice as a pharmacy technician), i took a glucose blood test. We were supposed to be practicing on each other so we could test customers in community pharmacies. This freaked me out somewhat, jabbing your finger is unpleasent enough, but doing this to another person....Wehhuhuh! Anyway, my friend did this to me and i got a reading of somewhere in the lower 7s. I panicked, coz we'd all just been told that having a level much above 5 meant we were probably diabetic. On the other hand , i'd just had a liquid breakfast of a bottle of full everything coke (oh, those were the days....) and nothing else. I went and hid in the toilets for the rest of that lesson. My teacher reassured me that this was probably the coke talking and i probably wasn't diabetic. (Huhuhuh) Looking back, i guess this should have sent me to a GP (not that i had one then) who might have told me i was pre-diabetic or syndrome X or whatever. This did convince me that i was going to me diabetic someday, probably when i got older, like i dunno, 60 or 70...like my grandparents were. Also bear in mind that what i knew about diabetes back then could be written on the back of a postage stamp...I thought it was something you were either born with or got when you were old. Sorry, but that's the truth, i'm obviously better informed now.
No symptoms until 2008, when in spring i developed an embarassing itch, which i assumed was cystitis and promptly ignored until autumn, when my eyes suddenly went blurry and this scared me enough to see a doctor. My blood sugar was somewhere around 19. Doctor asked me how long i'd been diabetic for....😱
Did i see it coming? Yes and no. I figured i'd get it someday, but not before retirement age. Sure, i ate a terrible diet, majoring on chocolate, but i'm not all that huge. I'm probably no more disproportional than many members of my family, most of whom arn't diabetic. Even my diabetes nurse agreed that my diet wasn't actually that much worse than in other people my age. I've got friends who are big and eat junk food and they're not diabetic. Did i just end up with the dodgy genes? Who knows....would i go back in time in my imaginary TARDIS and tell my twenty-something self not to eat so many snickers? No. ( besides, i'd be better off using the thing to fix my 14 year old self....🙂)
Lisa, i'd like to pass on Gretchen Becker's first, best piece of advice from her book. Diabetes isn't your fault. It's not retribution for eating junk food. After all, the world is full of people who eat terrible diets and have the cheek not to be diabetic...the gits. It's not fair, but that's life for you.

There, i did that without getting too self-pitying. I was wondering if i could demand a re-count and be re-classified....but then i'd have to pay for my prescriptions...

Rachel
 
thank you Rachel for that...Ive been suspected since i was 16...tested a few times then diagnosed at 44 ....so all that time when they said i wasnt was i prediabetic ?? or in those days they may not have considered T2 but one thing my wonderful gp has said is to try to stop looking at the past and looking for answers..you've got it now and that is waht matters...the rest just causes Brain ache...or as i usually say Brian ache...whose brian???
 
am64 said:
thank you Rachel for that...Ive been suspected since i was 16...tested a few times then diagnosed at 44 ....so all that time when they said i wasnt was i prediabetic ?? or in those days they may not have considered T2 but one thing my wonderful gp has said is to try to stop looking at the past and looking for answers..you've got it now and that is waht matters...the rest just causes Brain ache...or as i usually say Brian ache...whose brian???
Click to expand...

of course the diagnostic markers for what we call T2 have been changing over the decades The term Type 2 Diabetes wasn't suggested by the WHO until 1985 and only officially adopted worldwide in 1991.
Up to 1999 an FBg of 7.8 or over was dxed as T2 diabetes. In 1999 that was reduced to 7.0 ( FBgs of over 7.0 on at least two occasions) because using FBg was cheaper than proper OGTTs and research in Australia showed that an FBG over 7 correleated best with the 11.1 at two hours on the OGTT ( which is the definitive measure of T2 diabetes).
Some researchers now want to move the goal posts again - they want any FBG over 6 dxed as T2 diabetes. The vast majority of non-diabetics are going to be in the 4s and 5s.
 
Peter C said:
And telling people they have "borderline diabetes", "mild diabetes" or "a touch of sugar" breeds comaplacency and people who ARE diabetic doing nothing about it for years.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with you there Peter, I was diagnosed with a fasting bg of 7.2 and a 2 hr test (OGTT) of 13.4 and was told that I was "mildly diabetic". This was very confusing for me, as was the advice from my practice nurse that went along with the diet sheets: "if you have a chocolate biscuit with every cup of tea, try to cut it down to one every second cup".... seriously?!!

How long would it take to get this under control with this attitude?

Karina
 
Peter C said:
of course the diagnostic markers for what we call T2 have been changing over the decades The term Type 2 Diabetes wasn't suggested by the WHO until 1985 and only officially adopted worldwide in 1991.
Up to 1999 an FBg of 7.8 or over was dxed as T2 diabetes. In 1999 that was reduced to 7.0 ( FBgs of over 7.0 on at least two occasions) because using FBg was cheaper than proper OGTTs and research in Australia showed that an FBG over 7 correleated best with the 11.1 at two hours on the OGTT ( which is the definitive measure of T2 diabetes).
Some researchers now want to move the goal posts again - they want any FBG over 6 dxed as T2 diabetes. The vast majority of non-diabetics are going to be in the 4s and 5s.
Click to expand...

thats for the stats peter you have confirmed what i have been thinking...i was first tested in 1979/80 then in 1993 then in 2008 diagnosed my bs rarely go above 8 and lower than 5 so in those days i wouldnt have been diagnosed but showed symtoms...i dont know the results for the early years but might ask my brill GP if i could find out....I was diagnosed with BS 7.9 ...as i suspected they have moved all the goal posts....thank you
 
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