So, would you advise people to continue to smoke based on the fact we don't have have an exact pathology? We've got a pretty smokin' hot correlation.

I bet there's a whole lot of diseases we recognize and treat that we don't have a pathology for.

And it sounds like there's some pathology for lung cancer out there:http://www.iressa.com/iressaHCP/9898_11913_2_4_0.aspx

[QUOTE=Nancy LC]

No I would not advice people to continue to smoke, but then I would not advice them not to either. I would not tell them what to do, I would just give them information, not tell them what to do with it.



With smoking and lung cancer, yes we do. It does not matter how hard or consistent a correlation is, it does not prove cause and affect. The correlation can be 100 per cent, it does not prove cause and affect.



I have no idea how many diseases we treat without any pathology for them. I doubt it is very many, because without information about cause and affect it is extremely hard to work out how to treat a disease. There are plenty of diseases we recognise without any idea of the cause.

Did I at any point say that we should not recognise or treat Diabetes Type 2?

The parts of this to look out for are in bold italics....

Development of lung cancer

Chronic exposure to harmful substances is thought to cause bronchial mucosal cells to undergo changes. The injury elicits a compensatory and inflammatory response. Mucosal basal cells respond by proliferating to generate mucus-secreting goblet cells, and columnar epithelial cells are replaced by stratified squamous epithelium (metaplasia). Cellular atypia and increased mitotic activity which leads to mucosal dysplasia signals the development of neoplasia. Pre-invasive lesions are defined as morphological changes within the basal mucosa that are not invasive carcinomas but that may represent the initiation of carcinogenesis.

The phrases that I have highlighted there are what shows my point. This is a theory about the pathology. It looks like a rather good one to me too. Which does not change the fact that it is a theory. It is irrelevant how hard I think it is correct, and I am really very convinced that it is correct. It is still a theory.

A couple of months ago, Barrack Obama said; "It doesn't take a Financial Genius to figure out this country is in financial trouble." I thought he was right at the time and he is being proven even more right today....

I guess I could say; "It doesn't take a genius to know there is some type of correlation between smoking and lung cancer and some type of correclation between the foods we eat and diabetes....

I know the cause of all deaths and it doesn't require a pathology or a degree in anything to know it... "people stop breathing"......

My point is: Some points are pointless....

Nope, but you seem to be denying that there's any sort of prevention for it involving diet. Just like we can do a lot to reduce lung cancer (and we have already) by changing the behavior that triggers the disease.

It seems like your point is about 1/3 of the population has defective genes that cause them to get diabetes. You don't seem to believe that diet has any factor in their getting diabetes or they could avoid the diabetes by eating differently. It's like you believe you're born with Type 2 diabetes.

I don't see that as a defect. I see that as human beings eating a diet they're not evolved to eat getting into trouble. And as I've already stated, the other part of the population might not be diabetic but they don't exactly have good metabolic processes as they age due to the excess carb consumption.

Then a tiny percentage of the population will have amazing blood sugar and insulin despite living on very high carb diets.

gotta be diet...

was prediabetes before I lost weight, now I'm not even insulin resistant (per doctors)

Ah, here's a good paper about the type 2 diabetes explosion. How migrants tend to get it after leaving 3rd world countries.

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/29

Now, it does link it to excess carb consumption deep inside the article and there is this:

Very good. They acknowledged that obesity is at least likely to be a parallel problem, not necessarily the cause.

I haven't read the entire paper but it underscores what I've been saying. Type 2 diabetes is a disease of civilization.

Correct! As has been posted on this forum (over and over and over): correlation does not prove/show causation.
It shows that certain activities and/or behaviors are associated (strongly or less so) with a certain outcome. It does not show how (or whether) the activity or behaviour caused that outcome.

If a group of people has a genetic inability to metabolize large amounts of carbohydrates, nothing will cause that defect to become evident quite like eating a diet high in carbohydrates. That, however, in no way means that eating the high carb diet caused the genetic defect; it just made that defect evident. The fact that diabetes often has few to no physical symptoms until the person has had it for quite some time may make it seem as though it takes years to develop, but had they been tested and followed from early childhood on, it probably would have been quite evident almost from the beginning that the person didn't handle high amounts of carbs well.
Perhaps the reason that we are seeing diabetes diagnosed in younger and younger children isn't so much that they are developing it an earlier and earlier age but that doctors are looking for it and catching it at an earlier and earlier age?

My two cents (and that's probably all it's worth).

Our society's diet has changed quite a bit over the last few decades, with far more carbs, often in the form of sugar, being consumed, so any symptoms of diabetes would manifest earlier. (Example: In the 1940's, soda was an occasional treat for children...now it's a drink they enjoy several times a day.) So we have to be sure we're comparing "apples to apples".

[QUOTE=Nancy LC]

The reason that I am doing this is because there is absolutely zero scientific proof that there is any sort of prevention for it possible involving diet. All we have is some evidence and a theory. The reason for my thinking that it is a bad idea to take preventatitive action against disease based on some evidence and a theory is that all the people who told the whole world to eat a low-fat diet in order to prevent heart disease had when they did it, was some evidence and a theory. According to your theory they have caused diabetes in millions of people, and you appear to be suggesting that we again take action to prevent disease based on some evidence and a theory? I do not believe that they have caused the diabetes. I believe they have caused harm to a lot of people, but not that they have caused the increased rates of diabetes diagnosis.



The trouble is that if we carry on discouraging behaviour in order to prevent disease on account of a correlation, without finding the pathology...all that is going to happen is that people will be more and more limited in terms of what they can eat or do, until eventually we have prevented all diseases by stopping everybody everywhere from doing anything ever. This would definately work, and it is immaculately logical...but am I the only person here who can see the problem with it?



No I do not believe that 1/3 of the population has defective genes that caused them to get diabetes. I do not believe that we know what it is that causes diabetes and I think I have been quite consistant in saying so. What we know is that genes, and environment, and diet all play some important role. We know therefore that if you ignore genes, and environment, you are ignoring evidence...it is possible to believe that you can do the impossible if you do that. If I ignore just some of the evidence, I can acheive my long held dream of going to the edge of a black hole and coming back to tell everyone what it is like. The only thing that is actually preventing me from doing this...or even trying to actually...is some of the evidence that physics already has...if I just ignore the evidence that I will get get sucked in...



I don't see my genes as defective either, and that is despite the fact that I probably have a proven genetic form of the disease...the gene that is linked to the diabetes is not the only one I got. I got some gems in the same package. I don't know if not being able to metabolise sugar is a sign of defective genes anyway...I cannot eat what people around me eat...that much is a difference, not a defect.

You have a theory that human beings did not evolve to eat certain things, and a theory that this explains the current situation with Type 2 Diabetes...that is fine, but it is a theory. You have every right to eat whatever you want to, and for whatever reason you want to. IMHO everybody does.



Far more than a tiny percentage of the population are already eating very high carb diets, and they have normal blood sugars...not amazing blood sugars, to be normal is not amazing. Over in the Diabetes Forum people might often call normal BG readings amazing...I speak from experience...when you are seeing them for the first time in months, they are amazing.

Or because:

1) Children are being incubated in a high glycemic and/or insulinogenic environment in the womb predisposes them to insulin resistance.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...70828084428.htm

2) Children are consuming far more carbohydrates than their counterparts did 50 years ago.
Diabetes before Motherhood more than doubled in 6 years

If #1 is true then we can probably expect the trend to continue as those children age and give birth.

That children of diabetics are more likely to become diabetics shouldn't be a shocking thing; as my daughter's pediatrician observed when he diagnosed her with allergies, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree", meaning she had the misfortune of inheriting her father's genes that predisposed him to allergies as well. More interesting still is that the daughters of diabetics tend to develop diabetes at a higher rate than sons of diabetics, pointing to a possible genetic/gender link.
The first link discusses the impact of maternal high blood sugar (not necessarily a high carb diet) has on the developing fetus. Does this same link exist for type 1 diabetic mothers with poor control?
It's interesting to note that I was a type 2 diabetic before getting pregnant with either of my daughters and my blood sugar control was not as good during my pregnancy with my youngest as it was with my first and yet, she is very petite.
Interesting how in the second link, they have this link talking about how periodontal disease (not diet) can lead to gestational diabetes.
I'm not denying that how we eat plays a part in all this, but the sole cause? Nope. Not buying it. There are simply too many other possible factors.

From what I'm hearing, the argument is that;

Diet is not the only cause for diabetes (I think most people have come to that conclusion, if they've studied about diabetes for a while).

But, it sounds like I'm hearing that since it isn't the only cause, we shouldn't be all that concerned about diet.

I think there are many factors to make us predisposed to gettting diabetes. I think if someone is predisposed to getting diabetes, the greatest thing they can do to avoid diabetes is control their diet..... To do anything less is absurd.

If what you are hearing came from me, what you heard was that we do not know what causes it.

The disease is the inability to metabolise sugar, hence for people who have it, we should be very concerned about diet.




Adjusting diet controls the disease, because the disease is the inabilty to metabolise sugar. If you have diabetes that is under control you will have no symptoms or complications. If a person predisposed to getting it eats in a manner that would keep it under control if they developed it, and that happens in their case to be enough, they will prevent themselves ever suffering a symptom or complication. We would never find out if they had developed it, because to find out if a person can or cannot metabolise sugar, that person must eat sugar, or how would anyone know?

Why is diabetes (Type 2) virtually unheard of except in countries eating a highly processed, high carb diet like ours?