Donald Carrow, MD was a medical maverick who pioneered therapies like chelation, energetic medicine, nutrition and homeopathy to help patients with heart disease, strokes, heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.

Donald Carrow, MD, The Medical Maverick, Alternative Medicine Hall Of Fame

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Presenting Signs & Symptoms of Diabetes Mellitus

The initial symptoms of Type I and Type II diabetes mellitus are very similar. There exist, however, very clear distinguishing characteristics, as follows:

Suspicion of Type I (IDDM) is suspect in any patient under age 40 years. Usually the patient will present to the physician with excessive thirst (polydipsia) and urination (polyuria). More often than not they also have significant weight loss. They are commonly of normal weight and have blood glucose levels of 140 mgs/dl (deciliter) or greater. As a rule, they will have ketoemia, ketouria or both (chemical byproducts from metabolism of proteins and fats, called 'ketones').

For the Type II (NIDDM) patient polydipsia, polyuria and fasting blood glucose levels of 140 mgs/dl are common presenting findings. Most are obese. Rarely do they present with weight loss or ketouria. Often, these patients have no symptoms and are discovered by an abnormally high fasting blood glucose level. It is not uncommon for the female patients present with vaginal yeast infections. More often, than not, these patients will be found to have hypertension, hyperlipidemia (high blood fat levels) and arteriosclerosis.

Definitive Diagnosis of Diabetes Mellitus

By definition diabetes mellitus implies dysregulation of metabolic systems, primarily with glucose metabolism, accompanied by long-term impairment of ones vascular and neurologic systems. The process of diagnosis is based on the patients symptoms, age, blood and urine findings and ones ability to respond to an oral glucose challenge of 75 to 100 gms.

This does not, however, address the sequel of long-term micro-vascular complication known to be associated with impaired glucose metabolism. Therefore, the simple use of glucose tolerance testing is suggestive of the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. It in no way addresses its long-term complications which ravage both the patient and our society.

One could argue that the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus must consider one or all of its associated blood and urine abnormalities such as the absence of insulin, hyperglycemia (elevation of blood glucose), hyperlipidemia (elevation of blood fats or triglycerides), increased blood levels of glycosylated hemoglobin (Alc) (a form of hemoglobin that carries glucose) and glucosouria (glucose in the urine).

As you might expect, all of these contribute to the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. Most of us, however, still rely on the old tried and supported glucose tolerance test. This is, as stated above, how does the patient metabolic system functions when challenged by the consumption of a predetermined amount of glucose under fasting conditions.

An abnormal glucose tolerance test is uniformly accepted by most of the medical community as presumptive of the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. With this in mind, please understand that there still remains disagreement among many physicians as to the parameters of just how to perform a standard glucose tolerance test. Presently, traditional medicine feels that the patient should be challenged with 75 gms of pure glucose, followed by measurements of blood and urine glucose levels over the a three hour period.

Those of us in alternative or functional medicine still feel that the challenge dose of glucose should be 100 gms and that the patient's blood and urine glucose should be followed for six hours with sampling taken every thirty minutes. We feel the need to known if the patients glucose curve drops into the hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) range.

As you might expect, many physicians also test for blood insulin and glycosylated hemoglobin (A1c) to confirm their diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. Many of us skip the glucose tolerance test and perform an abbreviated assessment. This would include a fasting blood glucose, insulin and glycosylated hemoglobin (A1c) along with a repeat of the same studies two hours following the consumption of glucose A' enriched meal.

For the Type I (IDDM) patient we frequently find Human Lymphocyte Antigens (HLA) such as HLA-DR-3 or HLA-DR-4; their absence does not discount the diagnosis. These antibodies are not present in the Type II (NIDDM) patient.

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