My parents (neither diabetic) both died of heart failute, my mother at
74 and my dad, the stocky Swede (6'2" and 160 to 220 pounds at various
times) at 77.  No kidney failures.
The second cousins in Montana had a lot of over-70 members and I didn't
hear of any early deaths.
Nan, Type 2

No there is no history of that.  there were heart attacks ad strokes among
some of the men, but these were generally in their 70's, also some high
plood pressure and the occasionalheart attack, also reletively late in
life.  There, also was not a lot of obesity among theolder folks, which
may, well, be a factor.  No one was skinny, but all of reasonable size.  
My brother, who also was heavy, never developed either diabetes of a heart
condition.  He died at 75, just two yers ago, of a fall down his cellar
stairs, comething I still am dealing with.  

Something I have been ewanting to ask, particularly you, Jenny, as I know
you wer on precose, My DIL, recently diagnosed was put o Slyct, which she
said was to prevent digestion of carbs.  I had never heard of it, so I
wondered what yu know about it and its effectivelness.  she has
subsequently been put on metforming, which I am pleased with adn she is
losign weight and actually listened to me about testing after meals to
find out whar she can eat.  I have. also, sent her ennifer's post.  Her
dieician has put her on one of those 200 carbs a day diets, with a glass
of skim milk at every mel.  (she is lactose intolerant and very kosher!)
She finds she cannot eat that man  carbs at all.  

Wendy

I'm amazed at the pattern of fairly long-lived families in this little
sub-sample. I'm 59; my parents are 90 and 83.  They have health
problems but mostly related to bone and muscle.  My dad has severe
hearing loss - probably related to noise in WW2 - he packed parachutes
for guys on bombers - and his eyesight is very poor, but he's the one
who has normal bg  whatever he eats. He has breathing difficulty from
time to time, but he was a heavy smoker until he was 50 when he stopped
cold.  My mother's chief problems are hip and knee - both knees and one
hip have been replaced.  She has osteoarthritis, but no heart or kidney
problems.   Older relatives have mostly lasted into their 80s unless
they had specific dieseases, like leukemia, or heavy smoking.

Since T2 is clearly a genetic disease that takes time to show up the
genes are passed on easily, but some sets of them seem to allow for a
long delay - long enough to let people live their lives without
diagnosis.  This may be changing as the diagnosis levels are reduced
and GPs get clued in to early signs of trouble.  On the other hand, I
still think the reason nothing really showed in my mother's family is
that their lives were active and their diets better.  I - and my
siblings - have much more sedentary lives than our parents and
grandparents, and we eat a lot more commercially prepared foods, with
much more bread and starch than I remember from my childhood.

Susan Adair