Mum had diabetes then dementia... I don’t want to suffer the same fate

SOPHIA Husbands’ mum Caroline developed type 2 diabetes in her late 50s.

‘She said to us, firmly, “This stops here”,’ Sophia recalls. ‘She’d watched her mum, Janey, suffer a stroke after living with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.’

Caroline had taken her diabetes diagnosis seriously. She had gained weight after having children but she transformed her diet, cutting back on salt and baking instead of frying.

She was adamant her children shouldn’t suffer the same fate.

But now, just a few decades on, Caroline, 75, has symptoms which point to dementia. She is set to have tests. It is all the more painful for Sophia, 41, as her father, Wilson, died with Alzheimer’s 14 years ago.

‘It was very hard – we were very close. He didn’t know who I was.’

Sophia began noticing changes in her mother’s behaviour a few years ago. ‘She didn’t seem like herself, and would say things which were out of character.’

Now Caroline can get disorientated and doesn’t always understand what is going on.

Whether Caroline’s type 2 diabetes led to her symptoms, Sophia will never know for sure, but she is determined to listen to her mother’s words.

Sophia, who runs wellness brand Love Happy Body, has overhauled her diet and lost the weight she had piled on in her 30s. She says: ‘With my family history, I know I’m more at risk from type 2 diabetes. It’s hard not to look at my parents and see my future, but there are things I can do to prevent it.’