So, now that it looks like I may still have Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), and I definitely have hypertension (aka – high blood pressure), I started looking into the link between these diseases.
It’s pretty stark.
Hypertension is twice as frequent in patients with diabetes compared with those who do not have diabetes. Moreover, patients with hypertension often exhibit insulin resistance and are at greater risk of diabetes developing than are normotensive individuals. The major cause of morbidity and mortality in diabetes is cardiovascular disease, which is exacerbated by hypertension. Accordingly, diabetes and hypertension are closely interlinked because of similar risk factors
Diabetes, Hypertension, and Cardiovascular Disease: Clinical Insights and Vascular Mechanisms
So this really seems to confirm my initial diagnosis of T2D from the MyHealthCheck service. Since hypertension and T2D are so often co-morbid with each other and I clearly have one, the presence of the other should be no surprise given my recent weight/diet, falling back into self medicating with alcohol, overuse of caffeine, etc.
It should also be no surprise that these two diseases, when co-morbid, greatly increase the risk of all kinds of complications, such as eye diseases, kidney diseases, brain problems, and peripheral blood vessel problems.
All in all – it really doesn’t sound that great at all.
And it’s frustrating because I really have no excuse. I was warned about my diet, weight and alcohol use when I had cancer just over a decade ago. OK, it’s true I did spend some significant amount of time getting fit through triathlons back then, at least for a good few years, and worked hard to lose weight a few times.
From 2012-2016 I’d had some pretty good successes with weight loss efforts that meant my weight was more often than not under 17 stone (239lbs / 108.63kgs), with just a few spikes over 18 stone. My last big success was in the pages of this very blog when I lost almost 50lbs in just 6 months.
While I never achieved my original goal of losing 100lbs, I managed to maintain my weight for almost 2 years between 2018 and 2020, hovering between 16 and 17.5 stone (between 225lbs / 102kgs and 245lbs / 111.36kgs), but then it started to gradually creep back up again towards the tail end of 2020.
Unlike the previous two years where I’d fought it back off in summer, instead, it leveled off through late 2021, and then through March/April 2022 climbed again, peaking in autumn 2022 at 19 stone 10lbs (276lbs / 125.45kgs).
So I’d like to think that the T2D / hypertension is relatively new and covers that period, maybe the last year or so.
I know through the last few years I’ve had some major stresses in my personal life with bereavement and personal relationships, major stresses at work, injuries and health issues from Covid and other flu bugs which severely impacted my ability to exercise, etc. All of those are risk factors for both conditions so I guess it’s a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I guess I’ll never know for sure. All I can do is try and fix the damage from here, and ensure that I don’t slide back again – because at the moment unless I make radical lifestyle changes I’m going to seriously shorten my life expectancy!
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