Spouse's diabetes impacts the entire family

I meant to keep it casual when I asked my husband, Erik, about his blood sugar one morning as he dressed for work.

Diagnosed last fall with Type 2 diabetes, he had none of the usual risk factors and no symptoms. At 43, he was a trim 170, former athlete, nonsmoker with no family history of diabetes. That he had the disease was odd, but not impossible.

His doctor prescribed Actos, a commonly used first-line treatment, and suggested he meet with a nutritionist, who recommended Erik limit carbohydrates to 60 per meal -- and that was that. I assumed Erik could do this on his own, and paid little attention to what he ate. He is not...