My husband and I have type 2 diabetes, both his parents had type 2 and my father had type 2. Will my children?
Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at
10:00 am
grandma asked:
I have a daughter who is telling me that she will lose her weight, get into shape and never get diabetes. My husband and I were both told that because we both have it. It is not if our children will get it, it is when. I would like to know, if I was told correctly or if my daughter knows it all.
I have a daughter who is telling me that she will lose her weight, get into shape and never get diabetes. My husband and I were both told that because we both have it. It is not if our children will get it, it is when. I would like to know, if I was told correctly or if my daughter knows it all.
Tagged with: Diabetes 2 • Lose Weight • Shape
Filed under: Diabetes
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Your daughter is at risk, for sure. But if she eats healthy and exercises, she probably will not get it. Thin, healthy, active adults rarely ever get Type 2 diabetes. And if you and your husband are overweight, it is also entirely likely that yours could become easier to control or regulate itself without medications if you switch to a healthy, active lifestyle.
I think there’s a very real risk of your children developing Type 2. So it would be a good idea for them to control their weight now, and also to never smoke, and to keep alcohol consumption to a minimum. Have you spoken to a doctor about this?
Your daughter knows. If she loses weight, exercises daily and eats a low Glycemic Diet , she can stave off diabetes.Heres the best website for Glycemic Index. It should be a eating bible for all type two diabetics.http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm
The glycemic index (GI) is a numerical system of measuring how much of a rise in circulating blood sugar a carbohydrate triggers–the higher the number, the greater the blood sugar response. So a low GI food will cause a small rise, while a high GI food will trigger a dramatic spike. A list of carbohydrates with their glycemic values is shown below. A GI is 70 or more is high, a GI of 56 to 69 inclusive is medium, and a GI of 55 or less is low.
The glycemic load (GL) is a relatively new way to assess the impact of carbohydrate consumption that takes the glycemic index into account, but gives a fuller picture than does glycemic index alone. A GI value tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar. It doesn’t tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food. You need to know both things to understand a food’s effect on blood sugar. That is where glycemic load comes in. The carbohydrate in watermelon, for example, has a high GI. But there isn’t a lot of it, so watermelon’s glycemic load is relatively low. A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19 inclusive is medium, and a GL of 10 or less is low.
Foods that have a low GL almost always have a low GI. Foods with an intermediate or high GL range from very low to very high GI.
Both GI and GL are listed here. The GI is of foods based on the glucose index–where glucose is set to equal 100. The other is the glycemic load, which is the glycemic index divided by 100 multiplied by its available carbohydrate content (i.e. carbohydrates minus fiber) in grams. (The “Serve size (g)” column is the serving size in grams for calculating the glycemic load; for simplicity of presentation I have left out an intermediate column that shows the available carbohydrates in the stated serving sizes.) Take, watermelon as an example of calculating glycemic load. Its glycemic index is pretty high, about 72. According to the calculations by the people at the University of Sydney’s Human Nutrition Unit, in a serving of 120 grams it has 6 grams of available carbohydrate per serving, so its glycemic load is pretty low, 72/100*6=4.32, rounded to 4.
This is the way to control blood sugars and also prevent diabetes.
Good luck my friend, Hope you take my advice.
Your daughter is certainly at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but she does have some idea on how best to prevent it. Losing weight, and taking up more exercise will certainly lessen her chances of developing it, but that’s not the be all and end all. She still carries the genes for developing diabetes so there’s every chance that she will, at some point in the future, go on to develop it. Sorry.
Further to the site that’s offered by Tin S, your daughter could take a look at the following site too. This offeres advice on 50 low glycemic index foods.
With that family history, I would be VERY concerned that your children will get it too.
But what is passed through genetics is a TENDENCY to become diabetic. The outcome is NOT a certainty, and diabetes CAN be prevented.
Like your daughter says, if she gets into shape, adopts a properly nutritious diet, gets a decent exercise plan, and STICKS TO IT for the rest of her life, she may not get diabetes.
In this case, your daughter seems to be the wise one. Diabetes CAN be prevented by a proper lifestyle. Since she KNOWS that she has a family history, she is smart to start NOW, in order to prevent the disease later.
The problem is, your question indicates that she is already approaching overweight. That means that she already has bad habits that have to first be overcome before she can start living correctly.
That is hard to do — but she needs to start NOW. Type 2 Diabetes is now becoming prevalent in children as young as 9 or 10 years old! Type 2 Diabetes is NOT a disease for adults only — Anyone of any age can get it!
Frankly, if you and your husband were to take her advice, and make the necessary changes to your lifestyle, it is quite possible that you could reduced, maybe even eliminate all your medications. In return for your efforts, you will live longer and have a higher quality of life, free from all the side effects of diabetes.
Sounds like a great family project.
Support your daughter on this one.
Genetics are an important component in the development of Type 2 diabetes, but your daughter can delay or possibly avoid becoming diabetic in her lifetime by maintaining her normal weight and sticking to a diet that reduces her carbohydrate intake. There’s evidence that suggests that people with mild insulin resistance, but no diabetes, can delay the onset of Type 2 diabetes by not eating foods that cause rapid and drastic rises in blood sugar. Since she is already overweight and carries the diabetes gene, she might have some form of insulin resistance already. So, if she really wants to get down to her normal weight and prevent diabetes, I would strongly recommend a sensible low-carbohydrate diet.
Here’s the thing, though: if she manages to lose weight and keep a healthy diet, she still might become diabetic because of her genetic propensity. There ARE thin Type 2s. That being said, if she can stay healthy, what’s more likely is that she’ll never develop diabetes or will develop diabetes in her old age, when many elderly people do. So, maybe she will eventually become diabetic, but that could be when she’s quite old.