Hack 7: Type 1 Diabetes In Adulthood - The Unexpected

Conventional wisdom is that adults who start developing symptoms of diabetes in their 20s and beyond, and especially in their 40s or 50s, have Type 2 Diabetes. Traditionally, Type 1 is referred to as "juvenile diabetes," because most cases of T1D, traditionally, develop in childhood, for reasons that are still not fully understood.
       In fact, when my glucose numbers jumped from the lower 100s suddenly into the 300s (and my a1C flew from 6.3% to 19%), my internist told me with a confident nod (but no testing) that I had Type 2 Diabetes, especially because I had no (known) family history of the disease.
       But, it turns out that recent studies show that 62% of T1D cases develop in patients who are older than 20 years now, and that misdiagnosis occurs in nearly 40% of adults with T1D, according to a 2021 study by the National Institutes of Health. I was one of those people who was initially mis-diagnosed, and probably unknowingly had T1D for more than a decade before it was discovered.
      In reading this study online, I believe I may have had LADA or "latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, a progressive autoimmunity that was slowly attacking my pancreas, but not enough to bring on the extreme symptoms I experienced (see Hack 6) until the past year. In fact, it may have been my 20-year-long Zone Diet and Muscle Hack (low carb) diets that help keep symptoms at bay because my body didn't require as much insulin to break down the limited carbs I was eating at each meal. Ironically, I had started relaxing on carb intake the past couple of years, which may have prompted the extreme symptoms that "suddenly" occurred last summer. 
        Anyway, I cover the details in other Hacks, but here I want to make the case, and build awareness, that one should not just accept "conventional" wisdom, even among health professionals, that adult-onset diabetes is automatically Type 2, especially if one already manages their weight, eats well and exercises.