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Why I’ll be eating chocolate and cake this Christmas – and sod the diabetes

It’s bad enough facing 180 extra decisions every day without the lecturing and the hectoring when we indulge the occasional treat, writes defiant (and hungry) type 1 diabetic James Moore

Sunday 24 December 2023 16:18 GMT
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People with diabetes aren’t banned from eating sugar
People with diabetes aren’t banned from eating sugar (Ocado)

Life with type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune condition that knocks out your insulin-producing cells usually during childhood) is complicated.

Research by Stanford University suggests we have to make up to 180 more decisions a day than the average person. At Christmas, that number could easily be doubled. All that “bad” food loaded up with a diabetic’s No 1 enemy: sugar. (Not to mention booze, of course – which contains carbs, but can also lower one’s blood sugar in a manner that isn’t always easy to predict.)

As if all that isn’t complicated enough, there is the constant pressure from the “sugar police” and their allies in the medical profession.

That dessert looking appetising? Plateful of chocolates on the table take your fancy? Not only do you have to work out how much extra insulin you might need, depending on your blood glucose level, you also have to weigh up whether there is a family member working undercover, ready to pounce with a fearsome lecture and a threat to haul you off to the local hospital.

Watch out: you’re facing a spell in sugar jail if you don’t behave!

This is something that can affect anyone with the condition – type 1, type 2 (the biggest group by some distance) and people with other, rarer forms.

I imagine it’s particularly bad for those with gestational diabetes, which affects pregnant women. They already have to put up with the world thinking it’s OK to police what they eat and drink and otherwise do with their bodies. Try having diabetes, on top of all that.

You may well have read about an “epidemic” of T2 and seen all sorts of projections about the cost of treating it. T2 can be influenced by lifestyle factors, so your weight, physical fitness or the lack of it and so on. But it’s also important to remember that no one asked for this. None of us did, regardless of type. That tends to get forgotten in the rush to judgement.

And there really is no shortage of the latter. There is the healthcare professional looking at your blood test results with a jaundiced eye; the aunt or uncle who watches as you put a slice of your favourite festive dessert on your plate and then says: “Should you be eating that?”

As if 180 extra decisions weren’t enough to cope with! I’ve heard that loaded question asked so many times, it feels as if my head might explode.

What it makes me determined to do is this: load up with a second slice, followed by a: “I don’t know, should I? Well I’m going to. Now, I have a question. What has that got to do with you?”

And here’s another: “What is all this lecturing and hectoring supposed to achieve?”

A volunteer for one of the diabetic charities told me of their first experience of an adult diabetic clinic. The doctor looked at their blood-testing book – you were supposed to log the result of each finger prick so they could mark your homework before tech took over. They then hurled it at her and said: “Well that’s not good enough.”

How does that help? Because people don’t generally respond well to that sort of behaviour. It messes with your head. It can cause great pain, even depression. It can even cause you to rebel.

Many T1s, who tend to get the condition when they’re relatively young, are so fed up by the time they leave home that they burn out, choosing to ignore their condition, heedless of the potentially disastrous consequences. I got away with my rebellion. Many don’t.

The hectoring is no better for T2s, grappling with a life-changing condition later in life, having repeatedly read about how awful it is and how awful they are for succumbing to it and what terrible people they are for being responsible for destroying the NHS.

According to Diabetes UK, there are 4.3 million people living with diabetes, 90 per cent of them with type 2, 8 per cent with type 1 like me and 2 per cent with the other forms of the condition. You may very well have one in your life.

The first step towards helping them to live longer, healthier lives free from nasty complications – I’ve had warnings of blindness, amputation, heart and kidney problems repeatedly thrown at me – is to dial back on the judgement and instead focus on support.

It also means not greeting that slice of cake or piece of chocolate we indulge in with judgemental questions and statements. We are “allowed” to eat sugar. There’s no law anywhere that says we can’t. In fact, we can eat exactly what you eat. Our lives are just a little more complicated when it comes to managing the intake, and our diet generally. We really don’t need a lecture.

PS, Happy Christmas. Now, where did I put that fancy chocolate?

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