Recently, my mother, who has been going through chemotherapy for stage IV sarcoma, had a blood sugar of 427 mg/dl [23.7 mmol/L], was told she now has type 1 diabetes and is getting a lot of insulin. What does this level really mean? She never had diabetes before.

It is important to check with her physician. It may be that your mother has been taking steroids which will elevate blood sugars in patients susceptible to developing diabetes. Because of high sugars, the doctors are using insulin to treat her. This scenario is very common in clinical medicine. The important thing is to get the blood sugars down to help her get better.

JTL

[Editor’s comment: Not only will steroids cause this phenomenon, so will several other chemotherapeutic agents. This condition is not type�1 diabetes, it is called secondary diabetes, and will often quickly resolve once the chemotherapeutic agents are tapered off.

SS]