The most popular post I did at ZDNet Healthcare last year had the provocative title "Diabetes is also Heart Disease."
The story was based on studies showing how diabetes ravages the heart. Doctors recommend that diabetics recognize this damage and treat themselves as heart patients.
Today I'm asking, without a lot of studies to back me up, whether the reverse might also be true. I'm asking the question here, rather than at my paid job, because all I have to go on is my own example.
Let's start with the fact I didn't post here yesterday.
The reason, I think, was simple. Hypoglycemia. My blood has never shown me to have it, but I am now convinced that I do, and that it's a normal part of aging.
What has been happening over the last several months is that, worried about my blood pressure, I was avoiding coffee and coffee's little friend, something sweet. Instead, I had switched my morning routine to green tea, along with snappy rice crackers, which go great with it.
So I do this Sunday, then head to the market, and while I'm there I feel weak. My vision start to close in on me. I start to shake. I drive home and have lunch, feel better.
But that night my mind starts working. I recall how a month earlier I covered the Predictive Health Institute conference here in Atlanta, worried over whether I could get through the morning, and how they had out these little jars of hard candies. I had a few and came through great -- I felt better when I got home than I had in months.
Yesterday I had another spell of weakness, before noon, but this time I said "to heck with blood pressure" and drank a half-cup of coffee, and had a little piece of brownie. Surprisingly, I felt much better. I was still weak, I still had the headache, and I still lacked the mental clarity to write all afternoon and evening. But I had a Clue.
So today I conducted an experiment. Instead of having salt with my tea, I had a small pecan sandie. Later, I had another one. And now, some hours later, in mid-afternoon, I'm feeling great. There's no headache, no feeling of exhaustion. For the first time in ages I'm getting through the day.
It has to be hypoglycemia. I'd gone without sugar for 16 hours before both my failures, and sugar got me going again. Sugar with some protein, today, got me going even better.
What's depressing is that, because I was treating these incidents with sleep instead of snacks, I've done some serious damage to my body over the last few months. I've noticed it -- an acceleration of aging in my hair, in my skin, in my energy level. I don't think I'm going to get that back. At 54 you don't -- you just try to maintain.
But I can maintain better now. And when a diabetic friend comes by soon, if I'm feeling weak, I'm going to borrow their glucose meter and get me some hard data.
The question, however, remains. Is this just me, is this just part of the aging process (you should live so long) or is the association between heart disease and sugar problems closer than we think?
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