Hearing voices is common and can be distressing. Virtual reality might help us meet and ‘treat’ them
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Have you ever heard something that others cannot – such as your name being called? Hearing voices or other noises that aren’t there is very common. About 10% of people report experiencing auditory hallucinations at some point in their life.
The experience of hearing voices can be very different from person to person, and can change over time. They might be the voice of someone familiar or unknown. There might be many voices, or just one or two. They can be loud or quiet like a whisper.
For some people these experiences are positive. They might represent a spiritual or supernatural experience they welcome or a comforting presence. But for others these experiences are distressing. Voices can be intrusive, negative, critical or threatening. Difficult voices can make a person feel worried, frightened, embarrassed or frustrated. They can also make it hard to concentrate, be around other people and get in the way of day-to-day activities.
Although not everyone who hears voices has a mental health problem, these experiences are much more common in people who do. They have been considered a hallmark symptom of schizophrenia, which affects about 24 million people worldwide.
However, such experiences are also common in other mental health problems, particularly in mood- and trauma-related disorders (such as bipolar disorder or depression and post-traumatic stress disorder) where as many as half of people may experience them.
Why do people hear voices?
It is unclear exactly why people hear voices but exposure to prolonged stress, trauma or depression can increase the chances.
Some research suggests people who hear voices might have brains that are “wired” differently, particularly between the hearing and speaking parts of the brain. This may mean parts of our inner speech can be experienced as external voices. So, having the thought “you are useless” when something goes wrong might be experienced as an external person speaking the words.
Other research suggests it may relate to how our brains use past experiences as a template to make sense of and make predictions about the world. Sometimes those templates can be so strong they lead to errors in how we experience what is going on around us, including hearing things our brain is “expecting” rather than what is really happening.
What is clear is that when people tell us they are hearing voices, they really are! Their brain perceives voice experiences as if someone were talking in the room. We could think of this “mistake” as working a bit like being susceptible to common optical tricks or visual illusions.
Coping with hearing voices
When hearing voices is getting in the way of life, treatment guidelines recommend the use of medications. But roughly a third of people will experience ongoing distress. As such, treatment guidelines also recommend the use of psychological therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy.
The next generation of psychological therapies are beginning to use digital technologies and virtual reality offers a promising new medium.
Avatar therapy allows a person to create a virtual representation of the voice or voices, which looks and sounds like what they are experiencing. This can help people regain power in the “relationship” as they interact with the voice character, supported by a therapist.
Jason’s experience
Aged 53, Jason (not his real name) had struggled with persistent voices since his early 20s. Antipsychotic medication had helped him to some extent over the years, but he was still living with distressing voices. Jason tried out avatar therapy as part of a research trial.
He was initially unable to stand up to the voices, but he slowly gained confidence and tested out different ways of responding to the avatar and voices with his therapist’s support.
Jason became more able to set boundaries, such as not listening to them for periods throughout the day. He also felt more able to challenge what they said and make his own choices.
Over a couple of months, Jason started to experience some breaks from the voices each day and his relationship with them started to change. They were no longer like bullies, but more like critical friends pointing out things he could consider or be aware of.
Gaining recognition
Following promising results overseas and its recommendation by the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, our team has begun adapting the therapy for an Australian context.
We are trialling delivering avatar therapy from our specialist voices clinic via telehealth. We are also testing whether avatar therapy is more effective than the current standard therapy for hearing voices, based on cognitive behavioural therapy.
As only a minority of people with psychosis receive specialist psychological therapy for hearing voices, we hope our trial will support scaling up these new treatments to be available more routinely across the country.
We would like to acknowledge the advice and input of Dr Nadine Keen (consultant clinical psychologist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, UK) on this article.
Leila Jameel, Trial Co-ordinator and Research Therapist, Swinburne University of Technology; Imogen Bell, Senior Research Fellow and Psychologist, The University of Melbourne; Neil Thomas, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Swinburne University of Technology, and Rachel Brand, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, University of the Sunshine Coast
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Triphala Against Cognitive Decline, Obesity, & More
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Triphala is not just one thing, it is a combination of three plants being used together as one medicine:
- Alma (Emblica officinalis)
- Bibhitaki (Terminalia bellirica)
- Haritaki (Terminalia chebula)
…generally prepared in a 1:1:1 ratio.
This is a traditional preparation from ayurveda, and has enjoyed thousands of years of use in India. In and of itself, ayurveda is classified as a pseudoscience (literally: it doesn’t adhere to scientific method; instead, it merely makes suppositions that seem reasonable and acts on them), but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still have a lot to offer—because, simply put, a lot of ayurvedic medicines work (and a lot don’t).
So, ayurveda’s unintended job has often been finding things for modern science to test.
For more on ayurveda: Ayurveda’s Contributions To Science (Without Being Itself Rooted in Scientific Method)
So, under the scrutiny of modern science, how does triphala stand up?
Against cognitive decline
It has most recently come to attention because one of its ingredients, the T. chebula, has been highlighted as effective against mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by several mechanisms of action, via its…
❝171 chemical constituents and 11 active constituents targeting MCI, such as flavonoids, which can alleviate MCI, primarily through its antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective properties. T. Chebula shows potential as a natural medicine for the treatment and prevention of MCI.❞
Read in full: The potential of Terminalia chebula in alleviating mild cognitive impairment: a review
The review was quite groundbreaking, to the extent that it got a pop-science article written about it:
We’d like to talk about those 11 active constituents in particular, but we don’t have room for all of them, so we’ll mention that one of them is quercetin, which we’ve written about before:
Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
For gut health
It’s also been found to improve gut health by increasing transit time, that is to say, how slowly things move through your gut. Counterintuitively, this reduces constipation (without being a laxative), by giving your gut more time to absorb everything it needs to, and more time for your gut bacteria to break down the things we can’t otherwise digest:
For weight management
Triphala can also aid with weight reduction, particularly in the belly area, by modulating our insulin responses to improve insulin sensitivity:
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Enjoy!
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The Kitchen Doctor
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Dr. Rupy Aujla: The Kitchen Doctor
This is Dr. Rupy Aujla, and he’s a medical doctor. He didn’t set out to become a “health influencer”.
But then, a significant heart condition changed his life. Having a stronger motivation to learn more about nutritional medicine, he did a deep dive into the scientific literature, because that’s what you do when your life is on the line, especially if you’re a doctor!
Using what he learned, he was able to reverse his condition using a food and lifestyle approach. Now, he devotes himself to sharing what he learned—and what he continues to learn as he goes along.
One important thing he learned because of what happened to him, was that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to what his body was trying to tell him.
He wants us to know about interoception—which isn’t a Chris Nolan movie. Rather, interoception is the sense of what is going on inside one’s own body.
The counterpart of this is exteroception: our ability to perceive the outside world by means of our various senses.
Interoception is still using the senses, but is sensing internal body sensations. Effectively, the brain interprets and integrates what happens in our organs.
When interoception goes wrong, researchers found, it can lead to a greater likelihood of mental health problems. Having an anxiety disorder, depression, mood disorder, or an eating disorder often comes with difficulties in sensing what is going on inside the body.
Improving our awareness of body cues
Those same researchers suggested therapies and strategies aimed at improving awareness of mind-body connections. For example, mindfulness-based stress reduction, yoga, meditation and movement-based treatments. They could improve awareness of body cues by attending to sensations of breathing, cognitions and other body states.
But where Dr. Aujla puts his focus is “the heart of the home”, the kitchen.
The pleasure of food
❝Eating is not simply ingesting a mixture of nutrients. Otherwise, we would all be eating astronaut food. But food is not only a tool for health. It’s also an important pleasure in life, allowing us to connect to others, the present moment and nature.❞
Dr. Rupy Aujla
Dr. Aujla wants to help shift any idea of a separation between health and pleasure, because he believes in food as a positive route to well-being, joy and health. For him, it starts with self-awareness and acceptance of the sensory pleasures of eating and nourishing our bodies, instead of focusing externally on avoiding perceived temptations.
Most importantly:
We can use the pleasure of food as an ally to healthy eating.
Instead of spending our time and energy fighting the urge to eat unhealthy things that may present a “quick fix” to some cravings but aren’t what our body actually wants, needs, Dr. Aujla advises us to pay just a little more attention, to make sure the body’s real needs are met.
His top tips for such are:
- Create an enjoyable relaxing eating environment
To help cultivate positive emotions around food and signal to the nervous system a shift to food-processing time. Try setting the table with nothing else on it beyond what’s relevant to the dinner, putting away distractions, using your favorite plates, tablecloth, etc.
- Take 3 deep abdominal breaths before eating
To help you relax and ground yourself in the present moment, which in turn is to prepare your digestive system to receive and digest food.
- Pay attention to the way you sit
Take some time to sit comfortably with your feet grounded on the floor, not slouching, to give your stomach space to digest the food.
- Appreciate what it took to bring this food to your plate
Who was involved in the growing process and production, the weather and soil it took to grow the food, and where in the world it came from.
- Enjoy the sensations
When you’re cooking, serving, and eating your food, be attentive to color, texture, aroma and even sound. Taste the individual ingredients and seasonings along the way, when safe and convenient to do so.
- Journal
If you like journaling, you can try adding a mindful eating section to that. Ask questions such as: “how did I feel before, during, and after the meal?”
In closing…
Remember that this is a process, not only on an individual level but as a society too.
Oftentimes it’s hard to eat healthily… We can be given to wonder even “what is healthy, after all?”, and we can be limited by what is available, what is affordable, and what we have time to prepare.
But if we make a conscious commitment to make the best choices we reasonably can as we go along, then small changes can soon add up.
Interested in what kind of recipes Dr. Aujla goes for?
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The Sun Exposure Dilemma
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The Sun Exposure Dilemma
Yesterday, we asked you about your policy on sun exposure, and got the above-pictured, below-described, set of answers:
- A little over a third of respondents chose “I recognize the risks, but I think the benefits outweigh them”
- A quarter of respondents chose “I am a creature of the shadows and I avoid the sun at all costs”
- A little over a fifth of respondents chose “I recognize the benefits, but I think the risks outweigh them”
- A little under a fifth of respondents chose “I’m a sun-lover! Give me that vitamin D and other benefits!”
All in all, this is perhaps the most even spread of answers we’ve had for Friday mythbuster polls—though the sample size was smaller than it often is.
Of those who added comments, common themes were to mention your local climate, and the importance of sunscreen and/or taking vitamin D supplements.
One subscriber mentioned having lupus and living in Florida, which is a particularly unfortunate combination:
Lupus Foundation | Lupus & UV exposure: What you need to know
Another subscriber wrote:
❝Use a very good sunscreen with a high SPF all the time. Reapply after swimming or as needed! I also wear polarized sunglasses anytime I’m outside.❞
…which are important things to note too, and a lot of people forget!
See also: Who Screens The Sunscreens? (on fearing chemical dangers, vs the protection given)
But, onto today’s science for the topic at hand…
We need to get plenty of sun to get plenty of vitamin D: True or False?
True or False, depending on so many factors—to the point that many people get it wildly wrong in either direction.
Whether we are getting enough vitamin D depends on many circumstances, including:
- The climate (and depending on latitude, time of year) where we live
- Our genes, and especially (but not only) our skintone
- The clothes we wear (or don’t)
- Our diet (and not just “how much vitamin D do we consume”)
- Chronic diseases that affect vitamin D metabolism and/or requirements and/or sensitivity to the sun
For a rundown on these factors and more, check out:
Should I be getting my vitamin D levels checked?
Notably, on the topic of whether you should stay in the sun for longer to get more vitamin D…
❝The body can only produce a certain amount of vitamin D at the time, so staying in the sun any longer than needed (which could be just a few minutes, in a sunny climate) is not going to help increase your vitamin D levels, while it will increase your risk of skin cancer.❞
In contrast, she does also note:
❝During winter, catching enough sun can be difficult, especially if you spend your days confined indoors. Typically, the required exposure increases to two to three hours per week in winter. This is because sunlight exposure can only help produce vitamin D if the UVB rays reach us at the correct angle. So in winter we should regularly spend time outside in the middle of the day to get our dose of vitamin D.❞
See also: Vitamin D & Calcium: Too Much Of A Good Thing?
We can skip the sun and get our vitamin D from diet/supplements: True or False?
True! However, vitamin D is not the only health benefit of sun exposure.
Not only is sunlight-induced serotonin production important for many things ranging from mood to circadian rhythm (which in turn affects many other aspects of health), but also…
While too much sun can cause skin cancer, too little sun could cause other kinds of cancer:
Benefits of Sunlight: A Bright Spot for Human Health
Additionally, according to new research, the circadian rhythm benefits we mentioned above may also have an impact on type 2 diabetes:
Can catching some rays help you fight off type 2 diabetes?
Which way to jump?
A lot of it depends on who you are, ranging from the factors we mentioned earlier, to even such things as “having many moles” or “having blonde hair”.
This latter item, blonde hair, is a dual thing: it’s a matter of genetic factors that align with being prone to being more sensitive to the sun, as well as being a lesser physical barrier to the sun’s rays than dark hair (that can block some UV rays).
So for example, if two people have comparably gray hair now, but one of them used to have dark hair and the other blonde, there will still be a difference in how they suffer damage, or don’t—and yes, even if their skin is visually of the same approximate skintone.
You probably already know for yourself whether you are more likely to burn or tan in the sun, and the former group are less resistant to the sun’s damage… But the latter group are more likely to spend longer in the sun, and accumulate more damage that way.
If you’d like a very comprehensive downloadable, here are the guidelines issued by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence:
NICE Guidelines | Sunlight exposure: risks and benefits
…and skip to “At risk groups”, if you don’t want to read the whole thing; “Skin type” is also an important subsection, which also uses your hair and eye color as indicators.
Writer’s note: genetics are complicated and not everyone will fall neatly into categories, which is why it’s important to know the individual factors.
For example, I am quite light-skinned with slightly graying dark hair and gray-blue eyes, and/but also have an obscure Sámi gene that means my skin makes vitamin D easily, while simultaneously being unusually resistant to burning (I just tan). Basically: built for the midnight sun of the Arctic circle.
And yet! My hobbies include not getting skin cancer, so I tend to still be quite mindful of UV levels in different weathers and times of day, and make choices (schedule, clothing, sunscreen or not) accordingly.
Bottom line:
That big self-perpetuating nuclear explosion in the sky is responsible for many things, good and bad for our health, so be aware of your own risk factors, especially for vitamin D deficiency, and skin cancer.
- If you have a predisposition to both, that’s unfortunate, but diet and supplementation at least can help with the vitamin D while getting modest amounts of sun at most.
- Remember that you can only make so much vitamin D at once, so sunbathing for health benefits need only take a few minutes
- Remember that sunlight is important for our circadian rhythm, which is important for many things.
- That’s governed by specific photoreceptor cells, though, so we don’t need our skin to be exposed for that; we just need to be able to see sunlight.
- If you’re going to be out in the sun, and not covered up, sunscreen is your friend, and yes, that goes for clear cold days under the winter sun too.
- Most phone weather apps these days have a UV index score as part of the data they give. Get used to checking it as often as you’d check for rain.
Stay safe, both ways around!
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Fat’s Real Barriers To Health
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Fat Justice In Healthcare
This is Aubrey Gordon, an author, podcaster, and fat justice activist. What does that mean?
When it comes to healthcare, we previously covered some ideas very similar to her work, such as how…
There’s a lot of discrimination in healthcare settings
In this case, it often happens that a thin person goes in with a medical problem and gets treated for that, while a fat person can go in with the same medical problem and be told “you should try losing some weight”.
Top tip if this happens to you… Ask: “what would you advise/prescribe to a thin person with my same symptoms?”
Other things may be more systemic, for example:
When a thin person goes to get their blood pressure taken, and that goes smoothly, while a fat person goes to get their blood pressure taken, and there’s not a blood pressure cuff to fit them, is the problem the size of the person or the size of the cuff? It all depends on perspective, in a world built around thin people.
That’s a trivial-seeming example, but the same principle has far-reaching (and harmful) implications in healthcare in general, e.g:
- Surgeons being untrained (and/or unwilling) to operate on fat people
- Getting a one-size-fits-all dose that was calculated using average weight, and now doesn’t work
- MRI machines are famously claustrophobia-inducing for thin people; now try not fitting in it in the first place
…and so forth. So oftentimes, obesity will be correlated with a poor healthcare outcome, where the problem is not actually the obesity itself, but rather the system having been set up with thin people in mind.
It would be like saying “Having O- blood type results in higher risks when receiving blood transfusions”, while omitting to add “…because we didn’t stock O- blood”.
Read more on this topic: Shedding Some Obesity Myths
Does she have practical advice about this?
If she could have you understand one thing, it would be:
You deserve better.
Or if you are not fat: your fat friends deserve better.
How this becomes useful is: do not accept being treated as the problem!
Demand better!
If you meekly accept that you “just need to lose weight” and that thus you are the problem, you take away any responsibility from your healthcare provider(s) to actually do their jobs and provide healthcare.
See also Gordon’s book, which we’ve not reviewed yet but probably will one of these days:
“You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People – by Aubrey Gordon
Are you saying fat people don’t need to lose weight?
That’s a little like asking “would you say office workers don’t need to exercise more?”; there are implicit assumptions built into the question that are going unaddressed.
Rather: some people might benefit healthwise from losing weight, some might not.
In fact, over the age of 65, being what is nominally considered “overweight” reduces all-cause mortality risk.
For details of that and more, see: When BMI Doesn’t Measure Up
But what if I do want/need to lose weight?
Gordon’s not interested in helping with that, but we at 10almonds are, so…
Check out: Lose Weight, But Healthily
Where can I find more from Aubrey Gordon?
You might enjoy her blog:
Aubrey Gordon | Your Fat Friend
Or her other book, which we reviewed previously:
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat – by Aubrey Gordon
Enjoy!
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Drug Metabolism (When You’re Not Average!)
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When Your Medications Run Out… Of You
Everybody knows that alcohol can affect medications’ effects, but what of smoking, and what of obesity? And how does the alcohol thing work anyway?
It’s all about the enzymes
Medicines that are processed by the liver (which is: most medicines) are metabolized there by specialist enzymes, and the things we do can increase or decrease the quantity of those enzymes—and/or how active they are.
Dr. Kata Wolff Pederson and her team of researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark examined the livers of recently deceased donors in ways that can’t (ethically) be done with live patients, and were able to find the associations between various lifestyle factors and different levels of enzymes responsible for drug metabolism.
And it’s not always how you might think!
Some key things they found:
- Smokers have twice as high levels of enzyme CYP1A2 than non-smokers, which results in the faster metabolism of a lot of drugs.
- Drinkers have 30% higher levels of enzyme CYP2E1, which also results in a faster metabolism of a lot of drugs.
- Patients with obesity have 50% lower levels of enzyme CYP3A4, resulting in slower metabolism of many drugs
This gets particularly relevant when we take into account the next fact:
- Of the individuals in the study, 40% died from poisoning from a mixture of drugs (usually: prescription and otherwise)
Read in full: Sex- and Lifestyle-Related Factors are Associated with Altered Hepatic CYP Protein Levels
Read a pop-sci article about it: Your lifestyle can determine how well your medicine will work
How much does the metabolism speed matter?
It can matter a lot! If you’re taking drugs and carefully abiding by the dosage instructions, those instructions were assuming they know your speed of metabolism, and this is based on an average.
- If your metabolism is faster, you can get too much of a drug too quickly, and it can harm you
- If your metabolism is faster, it also means that while yes it’ll start working sooner, it’ll also stop working sooner
- If it’s a painkiller, that’s inconvenient. If it’s a drug that keeps you alive, then well, that’s especially unfortunate.
- If your metabolism is slower, it can mean your body is still processing the previous dose(s) when you take the next one, and you can overdose (and potentially die)
We touched on this previously when we talked about obesity in health care settings, and how people can end up getting worse care:
As for alcohol and drugs? Obviously we do not recommend, but here’s some of the science of it with many examples:
Why it’s a bad idea to mix alcohol with some medications
Take care!
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What is type 1.5 diabetes? It’s a bit like type 1 and a bit like type 2 – but it’s often misdiagnosed
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While you’re likely familiar with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, you’ve probably heard less about type 1.5 diabetes.
Also known as latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), type 1.5 diabetes has features of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
More people became aware of this condition after Lance Bass, best known for his role in the iconic American pop band NSYNC, recently revealed he has it.
So, what is type 1.5 diabetes? And how is it diagnosed and treated?
Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock There are several types of diabetes
Diabetes mellitus is a group of conditions that arise when the levels of glucose (sugar) in our blood are higher than normal. There are actually more than ten types of diabetes, but the most common are type 1 and type 2.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that make the hormone insulin. This leads to very little or no insulin production.
Insulin is important for moving glucose from the blood into our cells to be used for energy, which is why people with type 1 diabetes need insulin medication daily. Type 1 diabetes usually appears in children or young adults.
Type 2 diabetes is not an autoimmune condition. Rather, it happens when the body’s cells become resistant to insulin over time, and the pancreas is no longer able to make enough insulin to overcome this resistance. Unlike type 1 diabetes, people with type 2 diabetes still produce some insulin.
Type 2 is more common in adults but is increasingly seen in children and young people. Management can include behavioural changes such as nutrition and physical activity, as well as oral medications and insulin therapy.
People with diabetes may need to regularly monitor their blood sugar levels. Dragana Gordic/Shutterstock How does type 1.5 diabetes differ from types 1 and 2?
Like type 1 diabetes, type 1.5 occurs when the immune system attacks the pancreas cells that make insulin. But people with type 1.5 often don’t need insulin immediately because their condition develops more slowly. Most people with type 1.5 diabetes will need to use insulin within five years of diagnosis, while those with type 1 typically require it from diagnosis.
Type 1.5 diabetes is usually diagnosed in people over 30, likely due to the slow progressing nature of the condition. This is older than the typical age for type 1 diabetes but younger than the usual diagnosis age for type 2.
Type 1.5 diabetes shares genetic and autoimmune risk factors with type 1 diabetes such as specific gene variants. However, evidence has also shown it may be influenced by lifestyle factors such as obesity and physical inactivity which are more commonly associated with type 2 diabetes.
What are the symptoms, and how is it treated?
The symptoms of type 1.5 diabetes are highly variable between people. Some have no symptoms at all. But generally, people may experience the following symptoms:
- increased thirst
- frequent urination
- fatigue
- blurred vision
- unintentional weight loss.
Typically, type 1.5 diabetes is initially treated with oral medications to keep blood glucose levels in normal range. Depending on their glucose control and the medication they are using, people with type 1.5 diabetes may need to monitor their blood glucose levels regularly throughout the day.
When average blood glucose levels increase beyond normal range even with oral medications, treatment may progress to insulin. However, there are no universally accepted management or treatment strategies for type 1.5 diabetes.
Type 1.5 diabetes might be managed with oral medications, at least initially. Dragana Gordic/Shutterstock Type 1.5 diabetes is often misdiagnosed
Lance Bass said he was initially diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, but later learned he actually has type 1.5 diabetes. This is not entirely uncommon. Estimates suggest type 1.5 diabetes is misdiagnosed as type 2 diabetes 5–10% of the time.
There are a few possible reasons for this.
First, accurately diagnosing type 1.5 diabetes, and distinguishing it from other types of diabetes, requires special antibody tests (a type of blood test) to detect autoimmune markers. Not all health-care professionals necessarily order these tests routinely, either due to cost concerns or because they may not consider them.
Second, type 1.5 diabetes is commonly found in adults, so doctors might wrongly assume a person has developed type 2 diabetes, which is more common in this age group (whereas type 1 diabetes usually affects children and young adults).
Third, people with type 1.5 diabetes often initially make enough insulin in the body to manage their blood glucose levels without needing to start insulin medication. This can make their condition appear like type 2 diabetes, where people also produce some insulin.
Finally, because type 1.5 diabetes has symptoms that are similar to type 2 diabetes, it may initially be treated as type 2.
We’re still learning about type 1.5
Compared with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, there has been much less research on how common type 1.5 diabetes is, especially in non-European populations. In 2023, it was estimated type 1.5 diabetes represented 8.9% of all diabetes cases, which is similar to type 1. However, we need more research to get accurate numbers.
Overall, there has been a limited awareness of type 1.5 diabetes and unclear diagnostic criteria which have slowed down our understanding of this condition.
A misdiagnosis can be stressful and confusing. For people with type 1.5 diabetes, being misdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes might mean they don’t get the insulin they need in a timely manner. This can lead to worsening health and a greater likelihood of complications down the road.
Getting the right diagnosis helps people receive the most appropriate treatment, save money, and reduce diabetes distress. If you’re experiencing symptoms you think may indicate diabetes, or feel unsure about a diagnosis you’ve already received, monitor your symptoms and chat with your doctor.
Emily Burch, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Lecturer, Southern Cross University and Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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