Beta Cell Burn Out.

One guy that often brings a smile to my face is Patch. Whatever gets thrown at him he keeps his great sense of humour. His posts are not always appreciated at d.co.uk, and his work is often deleted. Patch sent in a post today on d.co.uk, and as a foot note wrote, “Delete as appropriate” I love his sense of humour.

Another poster on another thread stated today.

“I have not had to change my diet a lot since diagnoses, just reduce the amount of carbs. This allowed me to still be able to eat foods like bread, rice, potatoes and pasta (I'm not a pasta fan but I do eat it sometimes). By reducing the amount I eat, of everything not just carbs, I have lost 2 stones and am now around 11 stones. I have 6 slices of bread a day, one cooked meal (chips, rice or potatoes included), a piece of cake once or twice a week or a bar of snickers. My last A1c was 6.2mmol, I have been very lucky.”

My first thought was, yes you are very lucky. My second thought was, good grief, the “we are all different” and “one size does not fit all mob” will be all over that post. My third thought, well, Patch got it spot on !

“Have you considered that some people believe that a pancreas only has a limited productive life? (Google beta cell burn out) Eating all those carbs may be overworking your pancreas, and that little organ may not be able to keep up that rate of work forever…”

As posted on this blog, beta cells are not replaced over the age of thirty. It makes sense to me to do whatever you can to keep them, once gone, they stay gone. Type two’s are very often suffering from beta cell burn out. Some sources state they can be depleted at diagnosis to around 50%. Add to that high Insulin resistance for many type two’s, well you see my point. By losing weight and taking care of our diabetes we can reduce Insulin resistance, but there is nothing we can do to replace burnt out beta cells.

Keep making us laugh Patch and keep up the good work. You seem very adept at annoying all the right people.

Eddie