Boy , 7, saved mum's life -- Mother's pride after son stops her from falling into a diabetic coma

A schoolboy has been a hero after he saved his diabetic mother’s life.

Kieran Carroll, seven, made sure his two-year-old brother, Layton, did not panic before ca

lling for help when his mother, Rebecca Carroll, collapsed.

Ms Carroll, who has Type 1 diabetes, was at home in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, with her sons when her blood sugar level plummeted causing her to collapse.

Ms Carroll, 30, said: ‘I’d just come out of hospital after suffering from a viral infection and so my blood sugar was a bit all over the place.

‘I was on my own with the boys at home, and when I could feel my blood sugar dipping, I had a chocolate bar and a drink to try and stabilise it.

‘But the next thing I knew I was waking up and everyone was standing around me. Two of my neighbours were there and half of my family were all staring at me

Ms Carroll and her partner Mark Wood, 34, have taught Kieran what to do if he cannot wake his mother up.

‘We have always told him that if ever he can’t wake me, he needs to call for help,’ Ms Carroll said.

‘He knows how to use my iPhone and he can find the numbers for various family members.

I have been diabetic for 15 years and from Kieran being an early age he has seen me injecting myself on a daily basis, so I thought it was important to tell him what I am doing.

‘I also didn’t want him thinking it was something he should try.’

When Ms Carroll collapsed, Kieran took care of Layton, and led him safely across a busy road to knock on a neighbour’s door, before calling his aunt, Lindsay Smith.

An ambulance was called and paramedics rushed to the scene to give Ms Carroll a potentially life-saving glucose injection to bring her back to consciousness.

If Kieran had not found help, Ms Carroll could have slipped into a diabetic coma or even died

Don’t hide your emotions – it’ll knock years off your life and raise cancer risk by 70 percent

Research shows consequences of bottling up emotions are even more serious than previously thought
Getting angry increased blood flow to the left frontal region of the brain, which is involved in experiencing positive emotions

Keeping a lid on your emotions has long been thought to be bad for mental and physical health.

Now it seems it could actually knock years off your life.

The latest research shows that those who bottle up their feelings are at least a third more likely to die young than people who regularly express what they are thinking.

An angry young woman talking on a mobile phone.

Those who bottle up their feelings are at least a third more likely to die young than people who regularly express what they are thinking

A study in the US by experts at Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Rochester shows that the risk of premature death from all causes increases by about 35 per cent among those who fail to say how they feel.

But when the researchers looked at specific causes of death they discovered that the risks increased by 47 per cent for heart disease and 70 per cent for cancer.

The findings, published online in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, suggest that the consequences of bottling up emotions are even more serious than previously thought.

Researchers studied 796 men and women, with an average age of 44, who signed up to a health survey in 1996.

Part of the survey involved questions designed to assess how much the participants suppressed their emotions.

This involved agreeing or disagreeing, on a scale of one to five, with statements such as ‘When I’m angry I let people know’ or ‘I try to be pleasant so that others won’t get upset’.

The survey was repeated 12 years later, during which time 111 subjects had died – mostly from heart disease or cancer.

When researchers analysed the emotion scores, they found that death rates were highest among those most likely to bottle up their anger rather than let people know what they were thinking.

It is not clear exactly how suppressed emotions cause premature death.

One theory is that people turn to alcohol, cigarettes or junk food to help them cope with their hidden feelings.


Another is that the stress of keeping the lid on negative thoughts disrupts the hormone balance in the body, raising the risk of diseases linked with cellular damage, such as heart complaints and cancer.

The researchers stressed that the number of deaths in the study was small and that further investigations are needed.

‘These findings reveal significant associations between higher levels of emotional suppression and mortality,’ they reported.