Diabetes: A Chemical Spectrum

The term diabetes is no stranger to the tongues of many Blacks. When I was a teenager, my mother joined the rank-and-file of those diagnosed with this hypo-, hyper-insulin condition. Following her diagnosis, everything on the menu changed in our household. Diet soda replaced regular soda. Regular sugar was replaced with Sweet 'n Low.

Around 2005, my mother began suffering horrible headaches, periods of confusion and agitation and bouts of insulin shock. All related to the natural progression of diabetes, changes to diet, too much insulin, too little insulin, etc., we were told by the doctors who attended her. They recommended extreme changes to her diet, which did little to alleviate her symptoms.

Months later, she was diagnosed with renal failure. Doctors said that kidney failure was a common occurrence among diabetics. The research geek that I am, I immediately began to conduct studies to find out what we could do to slow the progression.

Everything in the mainstream pointed to dietary changes, lowering of potassium levels--which is conflicting in itself considering that taking insulin can cause a condition called hypokalemia that can be dangerous--etc., but nothing informed me on how to go about reversing the damage, if at all possible. Then one day it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, there could be a drug correlation. Insulin + sustained, long-term usage = kidney failure.

I then began a new avenue of research. During that research, I stumbled on something that raised a number of red flags.  

While the patient literature folded neatly inside the little boxes containing the little bottles of insulin didn't say anything unusual--if you don't consider injecting "a special non-disease-producing laboratory strain of Escherichia coli bacteria that has been genetically altered by the addition of the gene for human insulin production" into your body every day for years unusual--a chemical preservative listed on the package did: the insulin contained a preservative called metacresol. 

I immediately typed the chemical in a search engine. I gasped out loud when I read the toxicity warnings on chemical manufacturer Spectrum Chemical's site. I also cringed knowingly when I got to the part where they stated in their own words that the chemical was highly toxic and could cause kidney failure, liver damage, cancer, etc. Don't believe me? See for yourself--I supplied you with the link right up above. 

I soon presented my mother with the information I'd gathered. Like a lot of us, she was skeptical of the information at first. But the more she read, especially what the manufacturer of the chemical had to say, the more she considered the idea that the preservative could very well have led to her kidney failure, not "her" Type-2 diabetes. I say that because my mother had developed a personal relationship with her diabetes. I mean, she had been told that this was life long, after all. 

I'd like to say that's where it all ended, but that wouldn't be true. She continued to take the insulin injections, feeling the benefits outweighed the risks and that, perhaps, the preservative might not have been the cause. By now, I should mention, she was performing dialysis at home and growing steadily ill. Months later, she ended up in the hospital, literally fighting for her life because the solution she used for the dialysis was infecting her system.

During her time in the hospital, the staff reduced her insulin injections, only giving them to her when her insulin levels dipped too low. Slowly, my mother grew stronger and she realized something--the less she took of the insulin, the better she felt.

Since that time, my mother has completely weaned herself from the insulin. In that time, her kidneys have returned to 100 percent normal functioning. We are now working to remove her completely from the dialysis--though the doctor in charge of it would wish her to stay until the day that it kills her--as the last few months that she has reported for dialysis there has been nothing to pull.

The challenge: I must reiterate the importance of finding out what chemicals and other ingredients are in the medicines we ingest and inject. Not knowing could be a matter of life and death. Something as simple as typing each ingredient, including preservatives, contained in medications into a search engine could save your life or the life of someone else. I know that from experience.

I would like to share that my mother feels as if she's been given a second chance at life. She's no longer overweight, eats better, exercises, stays away from artificial sweetners contained in diet sodas, sugarless gums, Nutrasweet, Splenda and other food and drink--which could have also served as a culprit in the kidney failure--and researches any and everything doctors recommend outside of eating right, getting enough rest, exercising and drinking enough fluids. 

Also, I'd like to note that Eli Lilly did not make it easy for me to obtain in-depth information about my mother's insulin. For in-depth "prescribing information," I would have needed to register at a special site requiring a medical license number, etc. To "hide" information of such importance says to me only one thing: it's all about the bottom line. Some of the ingredient listings, however, can be found at the FDA's site. Simply type "insulin" or the drug's name in the site's search engine.

*Also of note is the fact that the majority of insulin drugs I have researched since that time all contain metacresol. Phenol, another toxic chemical, is also found in many of these drugs.