In 2008, my mom had her diabetes. It was an out-of-blue diagnosis when we don't have diabetes in the family genealogy. It started with a week of fever that develops to almost typhoid one, and after a blood test, we get the diagnosis that it was diabetes. Her sugar level was about 400. I was in high school at the time, and I don't know how she gets diabetes. However, I knew that diabetes is either passed through or based on lifestyle. My mom is not a fan of sweets, and she eats nutritious foods.
Diabetes affects approximately 422 million people worldwide and directly responsible for 1.6 million deaths per year. The majority living in low- and middle-income countries prone to it. Diabetes gradually growing in several cases and the prevalence over the last few decades. We knew diabetes has two classifications, type 1 and type 2. People with type 1 inherited it through their genealogy, which 10% of all diagnosed cases.
My mom has diabetes type 2, which is 80% of diagnoses for diabetes. We associate type 2 with a person's lifestyle. People eating too many sweets and poor diets may contribute to it. In my mom's case, we are still confused about how she ended up getting diabetes; hence she does not consume those sweets. Besides, she doesn't drink soda that often too. As I mentioned, it is not on our genealogy, and my father is skeptical as to what causes it.
In 2018, we had to run to the emergency room due to a sudden elevation in her sugar level. When we meet her doctor, an internist, the doctor asked us when she first has diabetes and some details. Surprisingly, the doctor shook when we revealed that we don't have any other diabetics in the family. As the talks went on, my father shared with the doctor what happens a decade ago.
The blood transfusion in 1995 changed my mon's life.
My aunt, a cousin of my father, had emergency childbirth in 1995. She had a delicate pregnancy. When she labored, she was in a critical condition. My aunt needed a blood transfusion the soonest. Her husband went to the blood bank, but all blood is on reserve that evening. The time is ticking, and the blood is nowhere. The obstetrician, who happens to be a cousin of my father, pinched in an idea to do a direct blood transfusion; hence it is the only option that they have. It was an or-else scenario.
A blood transfusion is a procedure in which we give donated blood to a patient through an intravenous line. Doctors do blood transfusions to recover blood and plasma lost in patients with severe bleeding, burns, or trauma. In direct blood transfusion, we necessitate the donor to be near the recipient. It rapidly transfers blood to prevent clotting. Transfusion from a donor artery to a recipient's vein happens naturally upon touch. We need to energize it by gravity or pumping to prompt infusion when doing vein-to-vein direct transfusion.
In our current healthcare, direct blood transmission is not the best option. We can't measure how much blood passed from the donor to the patient. To some extent, we may inflict the donor with injury. Their radial artery will be stress due to the extended length of transmission. In the worst case, doctors will ligature when the process commences. Direct blood transfusion is a delicate task with high difficulty that doctors need to have the donor and receipt side by side with their arms close together.
My mom did the direct transfusion that night, but supposedly she won't be the one to do it. My aunt's husband, who has the same blood time, fainted, and they only have my mom with the same blood type. My father opposed the idea, but he was not there. My father was at another blood bank. To cut the story short, my mom donated her blood. She saves my aunt's life that evening. My aunt had diabetes 2 or 3 years before my mom's diagnosis. It is the reason why my father is skeptical about what caused my mom's diabetes. I know that diabetes is a non-communicable disease, but there is a possibility that my mom gets it from the event in 1995, especially with new research findings.
Is her blood transfusion in 1995 caused her diabetes?
While type 2 diabetes affects over 422 million people worldwide, we don't know what causes it. Novel research led by Claudio Soto of the University of Texas Health Science Center has a preliminary finding that type 2 diabetes may be transmissible, similar to prion disorders such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Doctors observed an aggregation of IAPP in the pancreatic islets in 80% of all type 2 diabetes patients. IAPP is a peptide hormone that the pancreatic beta cells secretes together with insulin.
Doctors are not fully aware of what effects excessive IAPP in type 2 diabetes can bring to our bodies. The damages in the beta cells stopped the production of insulin that we need to lower down blood sugar level. Ongoing researches suggest that misfolding of IAPP may be the cause of beta cells stopping producing insulins. We can also observe these protein misfolding in neurodegenerative disorders, including prion diseases.
Prion diseases resulted in the excessive accumulation of prion proteins, a cellular protein in our body. Misfolding generates the irregular shape of the prion protein. These proteins acquire their functional form through folding. When these proteins misfold, it clumps together to form aggregates that we can found on the Alzheimers and Parkinson's disease. These proteins can trigger other proteins to misfold too.
Soto shared that when they injected misfolded IAPP into mice, they found protein deposits in the mice's pancreases. Within weeks, the mice get type 2 diabetes symptoms after having IAPP injected, including beta-cell loss and high blood sugar levels. Besides, they injected misfolded IAPP against pancreatic islet cultures from a healthy human. It triggers misfolding and causes large IAPP aggregates. Some patients develop type 2 diabetes after transplant too.
When my mom did the direct blood transfusion in 1995, my aunt maybe shared some of the proteins when their blood mixes during the blood transfusion. The studies are at their early stage, and jumping to the conclusion will not help us better understand diabetes. I first heard the research findings when we talked with my mom's doctor during her medical emergency in 2018. My mom is doing well to date, and I am too glad about it. Our understanding of diabetes may not be comprehensive, but recent studies are shading light to it. I am not sure if the night of 1995 caused my mom's diabetes, but science says that my skepticism of her diabetes has a valid point to believe.
Author's Note:
My mom's life changed after she donated blood and save a life in 1995. Our moms are superheroes. We should be proud of our moms and dads. They have brought us to where we are today. Happy Mother's Day to all moms and mom-to-be.
Reading on Diabetes, Blood Transfusion, and Prion Proteins
- Can Blood Transfusion Be Not Only Ineffective, But Also Injurious?
- Banting Memorial Lecture 2010†. Type 2 diabetes as an ‘infectious’ disease: is this the Black Death of the 21st century?
- Could type 2 diabetes be transmissible?
- nduction of IAPP amyloid deposition and associated diabetic abnormalities by a prion-like mechanism
- Transmissible Proteins: Expanding the Prion Heresy
- Prion-Like Protein Aggregates and Type 2 Diabetes
- Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and blood transfusion: results of the UK Transfusion Medicine Epidemiological Review study
- New Study Finds Type 2 Diabetes May be Transmissible
- Direct blood transfusions
Image Credit: The cover image is created by the author in Canva.