Two of my doctors think that my type 2 diabetes is a result of a severe head injury I had in a car accident three years ago but state it may be hard to prove it. Before the accident that I had no problem, and I have no family members with diabetes, even though several of then are very overweight. Can you point me in the direction to find literature on head trauma and diabetes?

I not only was severely injured, but I was financially ruined form the accident (out of work most of a year, and the driver of the other car had not insurance (no uninsured motorist clauses in England, where I work for the US government).

If you search PubMed using ‘head trauma and diabetes’ you will find several relevant reports, most of which refer to pituitary injury. You will need to ask your doctors if they have found any evidence of this.

From your family history of being overweight, I would wonder if the stress of the accident and the attendant inactivity has affected appetite and led to you put on weight thereby inducing type 2 diabetes.

DOB
Additional comments from Dr. Stuart Brink:

Sorry, but it’s unlikely you will find literature supporting trauma as a cause of your diabetes. Unless there was very severe damage to your pancreas and the pancreas was removed, such trauma has not been associated with causing or starting up diabetes – to the best of my knowledge.

SB
Additional comments from Dr. David Schwartz:

Sorry but I can’t link your type 2 diabetes easily to head trauma. Certainly, Diabetes Insipidus, which has no defect in sugar metabolism, can be a result of head trauma, but of course it is significantly different than diabetes mellitus, other than the confusingly similar names.

DS