Michelle Trachtenberg has Died !

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I'm sitting here watch an episode of Criminal Minds with MT portraying a deranged woman holding a couple of people hostage.

She was a an excellent actress. Such a loss!
 
DeepBlueJoy
DeepBlueJoy
She should have been here to get old and be amazing at all the stages of life. sighs.
Moptop said:
I'm sitting here watch an episode of Criminal Minds with MT portraying a deranged woman holding a couple of people hostage.

She was a an excellent actress. Such a loss!
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that is one of the saddest episodes of Criminal Minds and she was utterly terrifying. One of the 'best' unsubs...
 
Almost two weeks later, I am still shocked. She was only two years older than me and I related a lot to Dawn, being the younger annoying sibling to a much cooler older sister. Therefore, I never understood fans who disliked Dawn as a character. As a teenager I even had a big crush on her and a poster of her on my walls, before I realised/accepted I was gay. A huge loss to the Buffy fandom.

I didn't follow much of her career in the years after Buffy ended, but I saw her in Mysterious Skin and it was nice to see her pop up on shows like Weeds. It had gotten awfully quiet around her in the last couple of years and it's sad to hear that she may have suffered in silence from a serious illness these last couple of years. Makes it even harder to see that some people were quite rude to her on social media (and it angers me that there are some people online insisting now that she had alcohol problems).

I've been watching a lot of interviews with her in the last couple of days and what really surprised me about her is that she actually quite tough and feisty. Since I mostly only knew her as Dawn, I guess I projected this sweet innocence on her, but she was actually quite strong and tough.

I am not sure if she knew how beloved she was, given the comments on her Instagram and her awareness of Dawn not always being the most liked character.

May she rest in peace.
 
DagonSphere said:
it angers me that there are some people online insisting now that she had alcohol problems
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I'm guessing that's because she had a liver transplant. But that's ignorant of them. I know someone who has a genetic liver disease that causes scarring and may someday require a transplant. I thought Michelle possibly had something similar. My friend has strict orders to never drink alcohol.

Secondly, I once worked for the transplant division at a hospital, and they don't give you a liver unless you are committed to not drinking. Of course, there were backsliders, but most were scared straight. I would bet good money that Michelle drank far less than most of the people criticizing her.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Yep, I went off on someone the other day for suggesting that the reason she had a liver transplant was due to alcoholism. There is no indication of that and suggesting so is disrespectful to Michelle.
Yeah, I want to imagine that he was having a drink while listening to "Dangerous" in her memory. I also don't want to as well.
 
It does feel odd that I was thinking of her on the day she passed.
 
NileQT87
NileQT87
I was literally wearing my vampire slaying earrings that day and didn't know until I looked on my phone during a work break. I have a photo where my eyes are slightly teary. Total coincidence and an eerie one, because I do a lot of fandom looks.
AlphaFoxtrot said:
Cause of Death Revealed.

So, toxicology shows natural causes related to diabetes. Which is consistent with what we already knew.
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Hepatopathy Associated With Type 1 Diabetes: Distinguishing Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease From Glycogenic Hepatopathy - PMC

Autoimmune destruction of pancreatic β-cells results in the permanent loss of insulin production in type 1 diabetes (T1D). The daily necessity to inject exogenous insulin to treat hyperglycemia leads to a relative portal vein insulin deficiency and ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


You don't have to drink to have liver disease in diabetes
 
DeepBlueJoy said:

Hepatopathy Associated With Type 1 Diabetes: Distinguishing Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease From Glycogenic Hepatopathy - PMC

Autoimmune destruction of pancreatic β-cells results in the permanent loss of insulin production in type 1 diabetes (T1D). The daily necessity to inject exogenous insulin to treat hyperglycemia leads to a relative portal vein insulin deficiency and ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


You don't have to drink to have liver disease in diabetes
Click to expand...
Wow, this is news to me, and I have several relatives with diabetes, Type 1 and Type 2. I thought it just involved the pancreas and kidneys. But the liver, too! That is a disease that really needs a cure; it messes up everything in your body. Poor Michelle!
 
DeepBlueJoy
DeepBlueJoy
It is has global reach. since sugar is carried in the blood, wherever blood goes, the damage also goes. It can cause brain issues too - people with type 2 diabetes have a higher incidence of dementia
Right, a 39 year woman just dies, the only information is that it wasn't unexpected and she had just had a liver transplant. It's likely some kind of organ failure was happening, and it had to be apart from behavioral causes, like a genetic disease, or an autoimmune disease or a tick.

Diabetes certainly fits that bill. We forget this, but before insulin therapy, old age for a type 1 diabetic was mid thirties. Insulin therapy, at best, still has it limits. It could damage her liver, and any other organs.

By toxicology, please remember they couldn't perform an autopsy, they had to test her body chemistry to figure out what happened. I am not trying to imply she died of alcohol abuse.
 
DeepBlueJoy
DeepBlueJoy
One can learn a lot from the blood profile. Incidentally, sometimes transplants themselves fail. The body may reject the organ.
Diabetes is an awful disease that affects your entire body (all the various kinds of diabetes - there's at least 5 types)

*If you have been diagnosed with prediabetes don't waste time: change your diet immediately and begin regular exercise (walking daily 30-60 mins a day works) .

*You can reverse and control prediabetes and keep your A1C in the normal range.* I have been doing it for 20 + years.

Diet and exercise can *prevent* type 2 diabetes and most (sometimes all) of the related health destruction, which WILL slowly happen to most diabetics. (Diabetes caused diseases include: blindness, vascular damage and poor healing, heart disease,, kidney and liver disease and multi-organ failure. vascular and nerve damage can lead to amputations as well as impotence)

You will have to eat differently for life to prevent prediabetes from becoming full on diabetes, but it is not necessary to have a bland diet. You do not ever have to become diabetic (type 2). It is totally worth it!

Please note that once you are type 2 diabetic THAT is not reversible and control of your A1C becomes much more difficult. The drugs you will probably have to take also can damage your body.

Note: Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease (which usually begins in childhood) and you can't prevent it or cause it. It requires the use of Insulin to manage. Poor sugar control (high and low) can happen if it is not managed very carefully and very bad things happen to type 1 diabetics - sometimes even if you *don't* mismanage it. Since things as simple as stress or getting the flu can affect your blood sugar, it can be very hard to manage.

It's quite likely given that she was so young, and that she was thin that Michelle Trachtenberg's diabetes was type 1. While obese kids can develop type 2 diabetes in childhood, Diabetes Mellitus (type 2 diabetes) is generally a 'lifestyle' disease and it tends to develop after years of abusing food (High refined carbohydrate diet, in particular) and not exercising. Most people start having issues in their 30s or later, but the age is falling because of our fast food diet and consumption of sugary soft drinks (including juice)

Genetics also play a role. You do NOT have to be fat to get DM, but if you are overweight, you're more likely to convert to diabetes earlier and have poorer outcome. Weight loss becomes very difficult in diabetes b/c of insulin resistance... but exercise will still help insulin resistant people with A1C control even before the person starts to lose weight.
 
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I didn't like Dawn's character. Her potential was wasted. Joss focused better on other characters. But I knew Michelle was a good actress considering what lines Joss gave her. Knowing that she passed away makes me feel off when rewatching BTVS episodes with her in them.
 
ILLYRIAN
ILLYRIAN
Plus Joss never let her wear high heels!
It is so weird seeing her in Buffy episodes, especially as she's the youngest cast member you would have thought she has decades to live.
 
It looks like her cause of death was complications related to diabetes.

www.instagram.com

9News on Instagram: "Almost two months after her passing, Michelle Trachtenberg's cause of death has been revealed as a result of complications of diabetes mellitus. Trachtenberg, who was best known for appearing in 'Harriet the Spy', 'Buffy the Vam

32K likes, 1,132 comments - 9news on April 16, 2025: "Almost two months after her passing, Michelle Trachtenberg's cause of death has been revealed as a result of complications of diabetes mellitus. Trachtenberg, who was best known for appearing in 'Harriet the Spy', 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'...
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com
 
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