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  #1   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 08:16
howlovely howlovely is offline
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Default The shame of diabetes

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  #2   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 08:29
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girlbug2 girlbug2 is offline
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Plan: Ketogenic paleo
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I am confused about the whole issue of type 2 diabetes. If it isn't caused by lifestyle, then what causes it?
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  #3   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 09:42
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costello22 costello22 is offline
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I have two coworkers with type 2 diabetes who are both enormously fat and take a pharmacy of meds. Another coworker is well on his way - diagnosed prediabetic, taking medications, and gaining weight. The prediabetic one's dad died of diabetes a few years ago and his mom is currently dying of it.

None of these three is making any lifestyle changes at all. They all eat sweets freely and don't exercise at all. I'm sorry. They're contributing to their own problems. I'm sorry if that sounds like I'm blaming them. I believe they have a genetic predisposition, and there are people who (seemingly) can eat all the crap they want and not become diabetic. (I have a couple of coworkers in the latter group too.) It's not fair, but it doesn't justify doing the very things that will deepen the problem.
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  #4   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 09:44
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costello22 costello22 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by girlbug2
I am confused about the whole issue of type 2 diabetes. If it isn't caused by lifestyle, then what causes it?


One thing is psychotropics. My son takes Zyprexa which is notorious for causing metabolic problems, obesity, and diabetes.
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  #5   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 14:31
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amundson amundson is offline
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Folks,

Blood Sugar 101 has a web pages on the causes of type 2 diabetes -- please see this link:

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046739.php

The article is long and includes quite a few different research sites. To give you an idea of the tone of it, here are the first couple of paragraphs:

"You Did NOT Eat Your Way to Diabetes!

"Don't fall for the toxic myth that you caused your diabetes by reckless overeating
While people with diabetes often are seriously overweight, there is accumulating evidence that their overweight is a symptom, not the cause of the process that leads to Type 2 Diabetes.

"Even so, it is likely that you've been told that you caused your diabetes by letting yourself get fat and that this toxic myth is damaging your health.

"Blaming you for your condition causes guilt and hopelessness. Even worse, the belief that people with diabetes have brought their disease on themselves inclines doctors to assume that since you did nothing to prevent your disease, you won't make the effort to control it--a belief that may lead to your getting extremely poor care.


"The myth that diabetes is caused by overeating also hurts the one out of five people who are not overweight when they contract Type 2 Diabetes. Because doctors only think "Diabetes" when they see a patient who fits the stereotype--the grossly obese inactive patient--they often neglect to check people of normal weight for blood sugar disorders even when they show up with classic symptoms of high blood sugar such as recurrent urinary tract infections or neuropathy.

"Where Did This Toxic Myth Come From?"

The article continues on from there. The point of the article is that excess weight is an effect of diabetes rather than (or perhaps in addition to) a cause. The fact that society assigns blame to individuals for getting the disease is misplaced, in Blood Sugar 101's opinion.

Susan
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  #6   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 15:08
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costello22 costello22 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amundson
"Even so, it is likely that you've been told that you caused your diabetes by letting yourself get fat and that this toxic myth is damaging your health.


By late 2007 I was at 250 and gaining rapidly. My doctor dx'd me as prediabetic. I adopted a low-carb diet. I lost weight. I'm no longer prediabetic. If I can change what I'm eating and reverse an impending health problem, then shouldn't I do that?

Quote:
"Blaming you for your condition causes guilt and hopelessness.


This is an interesting topic which I believe has been debated on this forum before. Is it better to tell yourself you have a medical condition over which you have no control? Or is that merely disempowering? If I believe I have some control over my condition, there's a risk I'll "blame" myself getting into that condition in the first place. But it also empowers me to make positive changes to avoid or reverse the condition.

I have a son with a serious mental illness so I spend some time on mental health forums. The "mental illness industry" has so strongly pushed the biological disease theory of mental distress - in order to sell drugs, IMO - that people simply accept that they have a "disease called X" and just swallow the little pills their doctors give them without asking what non-medical changes they can take to make themselves well.

I think the two situation are completely analogous. A condition that is part genetic and part environmental. A medical and pharmaceutical industry that has a stake in a particular point of view. And this article is so reminiscence of the campaigns to reduce the "stigma" of mental illness. And who's behind those campaigns? Big Pharm.

We should all accept that we're just the victims of bad genetics and therefore suffer from diseases over which we have no control, because they have a pill for that now. I'm sorry-- that's a truly disempowering message. That's the message that will cause hopelessness.

Quote:
"The myth that diabetes is caused by overeating ...


It's not merely overeating. It's overeating sugar.
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  #7   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 16:00
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rightnow rightnow is offline
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Plan: LC (ketogenic)
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Well technically, yes.

But I don't believe "overeating" is a 'primary' cause of anything, it's a symptom. Given research, most likely of combined chronic malnutrition (both in nutrient deprivation and in acquired toxin). Telling people that crappy food is good and good food is dangerous and they eat "too much" merely results in people making the malnutrition issue WORSE in both categories.

But does "your food intake" cause/contribute to T2DM? Yes, of course it does, and to obesity and probably every other disease that isn't 100% genetically acquired. The very fact that people can reduce and even completely revert T2 through eating habits ought to demonstrate that well enough and there are tons of people who do.

The problem is the ADA is filled with advice about how it's perfectly fine to eat candy, sodas and pie as long as it is "in moderation" and with insulin to compensate. The very metabolic problems that give people T2 in the first place, never mind the standard American diet, never mind a diet even slightly geared to low-cholesterol/fat, are unlikely to result in people eating sugar/carbs "in moderation."

Regarding people's beliefs though, I'd say the problem is the wrong things are considered the bad guys. Yes, all the health agencies will say that you should not live on junk food, of course. Not even the worst ones recommend donuts and snickers, but they do recommend whole wheat bagels and plenty of fruit, which if you're looking at carbs+sugar+grains is going to affect body organs (and brain chemistry and human cravings) just as well.

As long as the powers that be are telling people to avoid meat and eggs and eat lots of grains and stick to PUFA fats, they are essentially recommending a diet destined to give most people, without "a pancreas of steel" (as I think it Peter at Hyperlipid humorously refers to it), T2 diabetes eventually.

As for fat diabetic people eating horribly, that clearly doesn't help. But I know that when I first gained a ton of weight very fast (~200# in 2 years), and then went on a diet, I did The Perfect Diet(tm) according to all the sources of info I had at the time -- low protein, super low fat, high in carbs, high in grains and fruits, high in morning exhausting aerobics. It took a month to not really lose weight, during which I felt more horrible than I ever had in my entire life. I was not only freezing and beyond-exhausted and ravenous the entire time, I was verging on homicidal and clinically depressed. I knew there was no possible way I could live like that. Not even a little.

So I said f---- it, and I ate whatever I wanted, which of course was profoundly the wrong decision, given by that time my body was already screwed up. So for years I varied from not eating for 1-3 days (as Jack Kruse pointed out, the superobese have the same leptin profile as anorexics) to eating in compensation for that and nearly always badly. When I would sometimes attempt to simply "improve my eating" I would shift to vegetable oils and grain foods and fruit smoothies in my deluded notion this was so much better for me than just having a steak, which only made the primary malnutrition issue even worse, in a spiral. I'd not heard of LC and didn't know any bodybuilders or life might have been different. At least nowdays I think most younger people are more exposed to these ideas.

Anyway -- I'm guessing that when people behave like that, it's less that they don't care as that they feel like it is hopeless. They try to maintain the advice they're given, fail miserably, feel horrible, and finally give up. Unfortunately instead of giving up meaning "becoming more moderate" with whatever advice they were trying to follow, it usually means just throwing every bit of good idea to the wind. Sad, really. But sometimes predictable.

I have talked with many people over the years who were overweight and diabetic. When I talk with them about LC and about how I've known many people with T2DM who were able to reduce if not completely reverse the condition through food choices, eventually their response is simple: "I could never give up breads."

There you have it. Bread is the drug of today.

PJ
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  #8   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 17:20
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Thomas1492 Thomas1492 is offline
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Quote:
When I talk with them about LC and about how I've known many people with T2DM who were able to reduce if not completely reverse the condition through food choices, eventually their response is simple: "I could never give up breads."

There you have it. Bread is the drug of today.

I have heard this many times too PJ..It is because people shield themselves from self harm,thinking it will happen to the other person and never to them..Every diabetic knows the horror stories of losing limbs,eyesight,organs to diabetes,but they think they are in control,and can manage it..If you were to ask most sane people,"Which would you choose..Your feet or Pasta??..Your eyesight or bagels??" We know what the answer would be..However when told "You can lower your sugars and reduce the risk for illness and organ damage in the future by cutting out all sugar,grains etc"..The answer is "Oh I couldn't do that..I will just increase my insulin!!"
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  #9   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 20:31
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costello22 costello22 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rightnow
I have talked with many people over the years who were overweight and diabetic. When I talk with them about LC and about how I've known many people with T2DM who were able to reduce if not completely reverse the condition through food choices, eventually their response is simple: "I could never give up breads."

There you have it. Bread is the drug of today.

PJ


Yup. I've heard that one too.
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  #10   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 22:26
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Judynyc Judynyc is offline
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Plan: No sugar, flour, wheat
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Yes, I've heard that one too, many times!

Last year, I connected with on old friend from high school. She lost her dad to diabetes and is now type 2 herself. I told her that she could control her blood sugar with the right food choices and her response was that her doctor and his nutritional counselor told her to eat what she wanted and use the injection into her belly to deal with it. She doesn't speak to me now over this, sorry to say.
So yes, until the medical profession begins to teach people how to control their blood sugar without insulin injections, then they are doomed, as far as I'm concerned. They sure don't want to hear it from people like me!!

Why do people do this to themselves?
If changing the way we eat can help us avoid sticking our belly with needles and all the complications that come from diabetes, is that such a hard thing to do?
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  #11   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 22:45
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cnmLisa cnmLisa is offline
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Plan: AtkinsMaintenance/IF
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomas1492
I have heard this many times too PJ..It is because people shield themselves from self harm,thinking it will happen to the other person and never to them..Every diabetic knows the horror stories of losing limbs,eyesight,organs to diabetes,but they think they are in control,and can manage it..If you were to ask most sane people,"Which would you choose..Your feet or Pasta??..Your eyesight or bagels??" We know what the answer would be..However when told "You can lower your sugars and reduce the risk for illness and organ damage in the future by cutting out all sugar,grains etc"..The answer is "Oh I couldn't do that..I will just increase my insulin!!"


I see patients for a living. This is not a rare statement. I hear it all the time. I also hear patients say they know they could lose a limb or their eye site...but could never give up <blank>. It saddens me to no end. I just keep fighting the good fight and hope thru education (carbohydrate controlled eating--not ADA ) that the message will be heard.
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  #12   ^
Old Sat, Nov-05-11, 23:35
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Thomas1492 Thomas1492 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cnmLisa
I see patients for a living. This is not a rare statement. I hear it all the time. I also hear patients say they know they could lose a limb or their eye site...but could never give up <blank>. It saddens me to no end. I just keep fighting the good fight and hope thru education (carbohydrate controlled eating--not ADA ) that the message will be heard.

Thank you Lisa for trying to do what you can to teach and guide others!!
Doctors and nutritionists are well aware of the effects of Alcohol,Drugs,and Smoking on the body..I believe every one of them would support and encourage a patient to reduce and hopefully stop using these Toxins,to prevent disease and prolong their life.. Here is where I get very angry...All of these professionals are aware of simple biology,the body takes carbohydrates and breaks it down into Glucose..What is the basic problem with a diabetic?? Their body cannot sufficiently handle the glucose in the body!!! So why in hell will you stand by and not persuade and educate your Diabetic patient that eating too many carbohydrates,(whether in the form of Brown rice or Twinkies)will kill them???Just the same as drinking too much,smoking all your life or abusing drugs,eating excessive carbs will eventually end.... your.... life...
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  #13   ^
Old Sun, Nov-06-11, 00:15
heirloom10 heirloom10 is offline
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it is very sad . i just feel like this world is so messed up people don't even care if they're hurting themselves, because the whole world (economic) system is destructive. it's so hard to deal with people who don't want to change... who won't hear. but i have hope that if you say something, someone will hear. if you put your positivity and you put the truth out there... it will begin to be recieved. it seems worth it to even be slightly offensive!? because it's not about offending anyone. just had to say that.
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  #14   ^
Old Sun, Nov-06-11, 01:32
howlovely howlovely is offline
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The problem with T2 diabetes is that most people who have it DO eat their way into it, but they were eating the things they were told were healthy. I have a pretty strong family history of diabetes. Every time I fall off the wagon and start eating carbs again, I know I am slowly eating my way to diabetes. There is an epidemic of denial out there too. My aunt, who is morbidly obese and eats a horrible diet, was SHOCKED when she was diagnosed with diabetes (even though Grandma had it along with many other relatives). Also, she had high blood sugar readings for a long time but the Dr kept telling her that she did not have diabetes "yet", which I guess she took to mean she would never have it.
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Old Wed, Nov-09-11, 18:42
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gonwtwindo gonwtwindo is offline
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Well..when I was diagnosed, I was told by the endocrinologist's Diabetic Nurse, "You were born with a loaded gun...lifestyle pulled the trigger." Lifestyle = Standard American Diet and lack of exercise. Note: we rarely ate fast food (no budget for that), I cooked from scratch, and I was not as overweight as I am now!

Never mind that I was the mother of two young children and rode my bike, hiked, walked to the park almost every day. She said only cardio of greater than 30 minutes or weightlifting qualified as "exercise".

So, how many Americans live just like that, or worse, yet don't get diabetes? Most Americans. It's in the genes, that's why.
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