September 23, 2002
Behavior
Question from Greenwich, London, United Kingdom:
My mentally handicapped overweight sister has type 2 diabetes, and even though our father died last year of diabetes and she has first-hand experience of what it can do to you, lately she doesn’t care. She is eating anything she wants, her blood sugar level is dangerously high, and she will not listen to anyone. What will happen to her? Can she slip into a coma or worse?
Answer:
Very high blood sugars have many consequences. First, we think of them as predisposing to long-term complications, such as retinopathy, neuropathy, and nephropathy. People who have type 2 diabetes are also at very high risk of developing a heart attack at an early age. Finally, high blood sugars lead to a poor quality of life with frequent urination, wasting weight loss, acute and chronic infections, and generally don’t feel well.
I hope your sister can get control of her eating and her blood sugars. It sounds like this will be difficult.
JTL
