Sugary diets are being blamed for the diabetes epidemic. One sufferer tells Kate Holmquist how she ate herself sick
Lying in her hospital bed following surgery yesterday, Mary Reynolds has ample time to reflect on the lifestyle that contributed to her being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes eight years ago at the age of 41.
"I would eat an entire bowl of instant dessert, thinking that it was healthy because it was light and fluffy and I made it with low-fat milk. It made me sick, I'd throw it up, then I'd be ravenously hungry again and make a sandwich - or another bowl of instant dessert. I was as hungry as a dog with worms, yet didn't see anything wrong with this," she says.
If she didn't eat, she was lethargic, but if she tried to remedy this with a chocolate bar, she would experience an energy boost followed by extreme fatigue. She also smoked and drank tea constantly - each mug laced with three teaspoons of sugar.
Disliking fruit and vegetables, Mary's habit was to nibble at small, frequent meals, such as "a few chips and a bit of chicken". Chocolate bars and pints of lager (a beverage that she didn't realise was full of sugar) helped her reached 18 stone - 11 stone more than she was at age 18.
"In the diabetic clinic at St Vincent's, which I attend, 99 per cent of people are overweight," Mary estimates.
Her obesity was also a consequence of a life-changing motorbike accident, when she was 18, which put her into a three-week coma and caused memory loss.
"Before the accident I was a seven-stone tomboy; I played camogie and badminton, I had long, glossy hair, lovely clothes and I wanted to become an electrician. When I left hospital, I was 12 stone. I haven't been able to look in a mirror since," she says.
The accident caused paralysis in one wrist and one lower limb. Able to get around with a stick, she was more sedentary than she was inclined to be. Meanwhile her mother was so glad to have her back from the dead that she treated her to fatty, sugary foods such as pancakes.
"I feel my spirit no longer belongs to my body. My spirit is crying out to do the things I should be doing," Mary says.
Her diabetes went undiagnosed until she developed a large boil on her thigh, prompting her partner, Bernie, to bring her to A&E. Unaware that the infected boil was a sign of diabetes, Mary was surprised to be admitted to hospital, diagnosed with diabetes and told that she was at risk of blindness and amputation.
"Bernie's saved my life. She's everything to me - the air that I breathe," says Mary.
Mary is just one of the estimated 250,000 Irish people who have diabetes - 100,000 of them undiagnosed. The diabetes epidemic in Europe is expected to increase by 50 per cent in the next four years, due to poor diets of convenience foods. People are developing diabetes younger, so that the average age at which diagnosis is made has dropped from age 60 to 52.
Undiagnosed type 2 diabetes is the primary cause of heart disease, kidney disease, lower limb amputations and blindness in the under-65s. Yet the average delay between onset and diagnosis is 12 years, up from seven years, resulting in amputations and blindness that could have been prevented, according to the Diabetes Federation of Ireland.
A DELEGATION REPRESENTING the federation met this week with the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, to press home the urgent need for a national diabetes strategy. In addition to the 250,000 people in Ireland with diabetes, a further 100,000 people have pre-diabetes, which, if detected, can be stabilised by diet, exercise and weight loss to prevent progression to diabetes.
"I really want to help by letting people know that they must look after themselves and seek early diagnosis. Irish people don't realise how serious this is," Mary says.
The clinic dietician has advised Mary to eat using the food pyramid, but while Mary quit smoking eight years ago, she remains partial to a chocolate bar, especially when emotionally upset. Several times a day, she monitors her blood-sugar levels, using a simple skin-prick test. A healthy reading is between four and eight - Mary's sometimes soars into the 20s. She takes drugs to stabilise her blood sugar and when the level is low, boosts it with an apple.
Like many diabetics, Mary's health problems are complex since diabetes affects several body systems. Her partial paralysis raises her risk, as a diabetic, of losing circulation in her feet, so a chiropodist visits her at home regularly to prevent complications that could lead to amputation.
Tragically, the State has higher levels of diabetes-related amputation than in most of the EU due to a lack of sufficient feet services in diabetes clinics.
Mary suffers intense back pain and last year had a spinal stimulator implanted, but her difficulty in healing - another symptom of diabetes - has been problematic. Yesterday's surgery will, she hopes, help her to become more active, and thus healthier.
"The most important thing in my life is being close to the people who care about me. There's worse off than me," she adds. "You have to keep your chin up - both chins, in my case. Nobody likes a moaning Minnie."