The Silent Killer: Diabetes

Published Sunday, December 31, 2006

By Staff

June 21, 2006, was perhaps the scariest day of 8-year-old Ben Lunday’s life. It was the day he was diagnosed with type I diabetes mellitus.

“I asked my mom, ‘Am I going to die?’” Ben said.

Ben is one of the 20.8 million children and adults in the United States who has diabetes, a disease in which a person has high levels of blood glucose (sugar) resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action or both.

Often dubbed “the silent killer,” diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and the fourth leading cause of death by disease worldwide.

As the prevalence of diabetes increases globally each year, some of the common causes for developing the disease are an unhealthy diet, being overweight or obese, and living a sedentary lifestyle.

But Ben and two other Decatur children, Drew Edwards, 10, and Megan Kirkelie, 11, have a healthy diet, are not overweight and are very active.

Drew was diagnosed with diabetes on April 29, 2006. Drew had been losing weight and his parents took him to the doctor. The diagnosis was type I diabetes.

Megan was diagnosed after her mother talked to Ben’s mother and noticed that she was experiencing the same symptoms Ben had. She too was losing weight.

Megan was diagnosed with type I diabetes on July 3, 2006.

Scientists believe the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, according to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Ben, Drew and Megan are dependent on insulin injections. The disease is one they will never outgrow.

It is chronic and, currently, there is no cure.