Welcome to the Type A Diabetic Manifesto.
First, I want to acknowledge the term manifesto has a bit of a negative connotation thanks primarily to the Unabomber and his manifesto. But that’s not going to stop me from describing this for what it is. A manifesto is a document designed to “…promote a new idea with prescriptive notions for carrying out changes the author believes should be made.” [source]
So why did I draft this manifesto? After being (incorrectly) diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic in 2019, two things happened simultaneously:
- I found it all too easy to be a standard patient and simply follow doctor’s orders (i.e., follow the American Diabetes Association Diet, take metformin, test glucose levels 2x/day, cut out alcohol, etc.). Based on the information I’ve been exposed to in the U.S., the majority of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes follow a similar path. After all, diabetes is a mainstream condition, and the medical community has a pretty straight-forward approach and process to diagnosis and treatment, and they execute this approach with supreme confidence.
- For a number of reasons, including uncommon symptoms, I didn’t completely agree with my diagnosis. Which changed my trajectory from accepting the conventional wisdom to digging into research to figure out what was happening to me, why it was happening, and ultimately, to figure out what was really going on.
Long story short, I appear to have a less common form of diabetes called LADA – Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults. However, the initial incorrect diagnosis and uncertainty led me to a ton of data, research, and insights that transformed my perspective on diabetes: what it is (and isn’t), how we think about it, and why we think about this condition so differently from other conditions.
My objectives for this manifesto are three-fold:
- Share what I’ve learned so that I can perhaps help people with this condition, those who care for someone with this condition, and those whose job it is to support people with this condition.
- Improve the state-of-the-art of conventional wisdom that is currently, in my estimation, not serving those with insulin disorders as well as it could.
- Challenge the medical community in how it thinks about, talks about, and treats insulin disorders.
Note: This manifesto contains some bold and provocative assertions and ideas. I recommend checking out the Is This For You? page (available in the footer) to ensure that you understand who I am and where I’m coming from to help you understand who and what is behind these ideas.