September comment contest

After such a somber post yesterday, let’s lighten things up a bit and award some great prizes! Shall we?

I have nothing to give away, but remember: the greatest prize is the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve done well.

Based on your comments this month, I’ve learned some interesting things: that everyone wants to have a baby (the A1C post), and not to invest in the sugar-free syrup business (the sticky math post). There have certainly been some interesting discussions.

But there can only be three winners. And here we go…

In response to “My CGM’s new name is Nixon“, Christel wrote:

OK, I got nothing, seeing as Watergate is a common occurrence over here, too. Just a nod of agreement and a promise to call you if Deep Throat ever contacts me.

Thanks for reminding me of Watergate! I kept thinking of the Zapruder films, or of the murder mysteries where the lights go out – and when they come back on someone is missing or dead. But I couldn’t think of the name of the Nixon scandal. Oh, and the promise to call is much appreciated, but I think we’ve got a better chance of discovering the missing tapes than we do of retrieving the missing CGM data.

* * *

After spending paragraphs upon paragraphs explaining the reason Behind the A1C secrecy, Lovely Liz shared a short anecdote that was even more poignant than my ramblings:

I had never shared my A1c results before. Mostly because I was never very proud of them, and because I had no one to share them with. No one who really understood the importance of them anyway. Then I found the DOC and thought, well, this group would really get why this number means so much to me.

When I recently let out my newest results I had gotten such wonderful feedback, it felt great. Then a conversation I had with a friend put a damper on my personal joy. They said that they had gotten a “decent” number..something closer to 7.0 and how that was such a terrible number. They had wanted something much lower. They went on and on about how horrible they felt for getting a 7 and all that..

I know they meant no harm in their remark but I reconsidered my excitement. I had received a 7.0. My doctor had congratulated me and everything. So now, I am feeling like you.. maybe this particular thing is not for sharing. Just for my own personal state of mind.

Exactly.

* * *

While the rest of us stomped our feet and shouted LIARS!! after reading “Say it ain’t so”, Krissy McMomma explained just how ludicrous some of these conclusions that people draw can be.

“The researchers tracked the physical activity of 62 autoantibody-positive children and 50 study participants without autoantibodies. The kids with autoantibodies exercised an average of 70 minutes less and were inactive for 110 minutes per week more than those with no autoantibodies”

This doesn’t indicate that active kids are at lower risk – all this tells me is that kids who have autoabtibodies, for some reason or another, exercise less than kids who don’t. Why? Who knows, but I’d like to see if this research included accounting for bias such as demographic differences.

Show me a study where they take autoantibody-negative kids, track them for physical activity, stratify for demographics, and then prove that inactivity increases the odds of a child turning from negative-to-positive. Now THAT would be diabetes-forecast worthy.

And hey – did you know that people who drink coffee in the morning are more likely to get into a car accident than those who don’t drink coffee in the morning? We know this because after interviewing 100 people who got into a car accident on their morning commute, 80% of them admitted to drinking coffee. Same strange phenomenon amongst orange juice drinkers and toast eaters.

Did you know that people with diabetes overwhelmingly prefer the color blue to any other color? So to the ladies who are hoping to have a baby someday, you can reduce your child’s risk by painting the nursery green.

* * *

And on that note, happy Blue Friday!