LADA Awareness Week

Manny Hernandez of TuDiabetes and the non-profit Diabetes Hands Foundation, together with dlife, launched a LADA awareness campaign this week to help increase understanding and reduce misdiagnosis of latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA).  And I’ve been lucky to participate in this campagin!  I have an article on dlife explaining the LADA basics, and I’m also one of the faces of LADA.

LADA is confusing, both to patients and physicians, and there are still many, many LADA questions that need answering.  Even the name LADA poses problems and this was addressed in a recent commentary published in Diabetologia: Latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA) is dead: long live autoimmune diabetes! Authors O. Rolandsson and J.P. Palmer say, “The question of how to define LADA has resulted in numerous articles and debates discussing whether LADA is a disease on its own or just a variant of type 1 diabetes. Thus, it could be questioned whether the introduction of the term LADA has been an asset or an obstacle to our understanding of diabetes.”

Meanwhile, as the debate goes on, no matter what you you call LADA or how you define it, the most important thing for LADA/autoimmune diabetes patients and their doctors is to understand when insulin is warranted.  The proper treatment is key!

LADA Awareness Week runs from today through October 24.

Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and has continued to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets).

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Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and continues to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets). Jessica’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Financial Times Magazine, The Southern Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the diabetes correspondent for The Faster Times. In 2009 she and her husband, both type 1 diabetics, founded A Sweet Life, where she serves as editor-in-chief. Jessica loves spending time with her sons, cooking with her husband, playing with her cats, reading, biking, drinking coffee, and whenever possible, taking a nap. Follow Jessica on Twitter (@jessapple)