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> Insulin is the Miracle-Gro for your fat cells. A child with new onset type 1 diabetes — unable to make enough insulin — will invariable lose weight until rece

• wutbrodo 9y ago
  I think the main mechanism is that it doesn't get absorbed. For example, sugary urine is a well-understood side effect of diabetes that isn't well-managed, caused by your kidney draining excess sugar from your bloodstream into your urine. Interestingly enough, your body also raises its level of activity in order to burn calories and maintain weight levels. I believe they've measured a surprising amount of excess calories burned from extra fidgeting when overfeeding people relative to their usual diet.
  • hycaria 9y ago
    No, its the other way round : Kidneys let glucose through into the filtrate, but have a limited capacity of glucose reabsorption. In case of diabetes melleitus you "saturate" the pumps, hence the resulting glycosuria.
  • maxerickson 9y ago
    Yeah, the name "diabetes mellitus" comes from passing large volumes of sweet urine.
• jimrandomh 9y ago
  They turn into glucose and hang out in the blood causing problems until the kidneys filter it out and excrete it.
  • acchow 9y ago
    And if the diet is very high in fat? The body will convert the fat to glucose?
    • tzahola 9y ago
      To ketones.
      • randomThoughts9 9y ago
        True is you manage to get into keto. But what happens if you get close, but not quite?
        • tzahola 9y ago
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism TL;DR: dietary fatty acids are disassembled and then reassembled into triglycerides which are stored in adipocytes (fat cells) until needed.
• memsom 9y ago
  My stepson is type 1, so saw this first hand. Slowly the child loses weight. It's initially not very noticeable, but for example - in our case he stayed with his father over the summer and when he came back he was noticeably thin. The child begins drinking a lot. It starts off with an excessive thirst. Can't go more than an hour without drinking. But ends up with them not being able to do anything, peeing constantly and never being able to quench their thirst. When he came back to us, he was close to this stage. He was constantly eating ice cubes as they melted slowly enough so that he felt like he was constantly moistening his mouth. After about 3 days we took him to the doctors office, where by he went to Hospital. Fatigue - the child has zero energy and when they are not drinking they can barely move. This was rapid. He came home on a Sunday evening, and by Wednesday morning he looked like pure death. Ketones in the blood skyrocket. This is incredibly dangerous. When blood sugar rises above about 15 mmol/L (270 mg/dl) things start getting quite nasty. Health is put in jeopardy. Quite often the child will go in to a coma if they get too high. All of the sugars are peed out. The child's pee will smell very strongly and be a very dark colour if they are anything like my stepson. It was basically horrific. But as soon as we got him treatment, he bounced back quickly. We now use a carb counting system supported by a device that tracks is blood sugar and insulin intake. Regulating his insulin is a constant battle as he still thinks he is indestructible, and convincing a 14 year old boy that skipping "a few" shots every day or injecting a guesstimate as he is "too busy to do it properly" is a bad idea is not easy.
  • cellularmitosis 9y ago
    I wonder if there is an idea for a service here? If over-reporting of e.g. violence on the news can alter people’s perception, maybe we can use that vulnerability to our advantage? If your son received a text everyday about someone going blind or having limbs amputated, maybe you can bias his perception by over-reporting bad outcomes?
    • johnchristopher 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_messages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_mess...