I’m not asking anybody here to believe anything. I’m asking you to:
(a) justify or explain treatment protocols for diabetics that not only ignore the possibility of fixing the problem, but actively encourage diabetics to eat in a manner that is guaranteed to make them worse
(b) explain, with reference to some solid biochemistry/physiology (as opposed to “the experts say this and that”) why I’m wrong.
It is my personal belief that the vast majority of nutritionists couldn’t tell their ass from a hole in the ground. I would have thought the fact that they haven’t cured any problem that they claim to be experts on (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, eating disorders) is prima facie evidence of that. Meanwhile, the solutions I’m putting forward here actually work, very well, in real clinical practice. And since they do work, I’d say the onus is upon the naysayers to come up with a real good explanation.
ehhh… I’m pretty sure the science shows that people who drink sugary beverages are 25% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. There’s no “clear link” that eating a lot of sugar gives you diabetes, but keep in mind the idea that “fatty foods make you fat” was accepted science until just a few years ago, when it came out that the sugar industry paid scientists to “find that out”. People I know who drink a 12 pack of coke before lunch daily are always confused, along with their doctors (?!), about why they can’t lose weight. But no one wants to see what cutting out the sugary drinks might do?
The exact cause of most types of diabetes is unknown. In all cases, sugar builds up in the bloodstream. This is because the pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes may be caused by a combination of genetic or environmental factors. It is unclear what those factors may be.
If you have prediabetes, losing a small amount of weight if you’re overweight and getting regular physical activity can lower your risk for developing type 2 diabetes.
=
The fastest way to gain weight is to eat a copious amount of sugary foods. Cutting down on added sugars and eating healthy, unprocessed foods is a great way to lose weight. Packing on pounds increases your chance of developing type 2 diabetes. Losing weight can help you if you are pre-diabetic. The logical conclusion would be that eating lots of sugar (empty calories) > weight gain > pre-diabetes > type 2 diabetes. Yet somehow doctors can’t find that connection? Somehow there are theories out there that both obesity and diabetes are symptoms of a greater problem? How is it possible that everyone I know (myself included) that has an occasional sugary drink but mostly drinks water, tea, or coffee and has an occasional sweet treat but mostly eats veggies and white meats and unprocessed foods has few health problems, but doctors look at patients who down more sugar in the first hour of the day than should be consumed in a month and, when they come in wondering why they feel like shit all the time and are doubling in size every year say “oh, we don’t know what’s wrong with you.” It doesn’t take a medical doctor to know that eating healthy foods and getting exercise leads to better health outcomes than eating sugar-loaded, highly processed foods. Anyone who’s ever tried to properly exercise after a bowl of cocopuffs can attest to this reality. I find it quite suspect that there “isn’t a connection”, though I will admit that I can’t fine one, and my logical reasoning don’t hold much weight when compared to scientific studies, no matter how little sense they make
This is why I go off on extended rants about nutritionists and their bizarre assertions. The first sentence here is a gross oversimplification, and the second is simply false. Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are both disorders of carbohydrate metabolism, but they’re not similar in any other respect. A Type 2 body is producing plenty of insulin - usually vast amounts of it. It’s doing that because it is correctly responding to the diet being consumed. Sugar hangs around in the bloodstream because the normal places for it to go - muscles, fat, or your liver, mostly - simply can’t accept it. They ignore the insulin signal. Again, this is the correct response. There’s nothing dysfunctional about it. If you give a Type 2 patient insulin, they rapidly become very sick indeed, because you’re forcing their cells to accept glucose that they cannot use.
As long as the patient hasn’t been in this state for too long - glucose toxicity does eventually cause organ damage - correcting the diet results in a rapid correction of the problem. Their pancreas is working just fine so their insulin output will drop to the expected range.
“It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”
Diabetes researchers have often made an entire career out of what they’re doing. If they were to announce that, in fact, they’d spent the last three decades on a wild goose chase and that T2D is not particularly difficult to treat, they’d be out of a job. There were two high-profile cases that I can think of (one in Sweden, one in Australia) of doctors prescribing diets for their diabetic patients - with a lot of success - and being hauled up in front of tribunals for heresy. Both were subsequently vindicated, but it achieved the desired effect of silencing them.
It may well be true that the precise mechanisms aren’t fully understood. But the outline of it is pretty clear, and the treatment is brain-dead simple.
I think she’s saying some think that obese people should take the drug , but others are saying they should not and should face up to being obese and eat lettuce. The disturbing part of that article for me was that it conjured up an image of hell where I have to only eat lettuce for infinity over and over.
Look, for every fat bloke who absorbs 50K a year of NHS funding simply because he’d rather eat frozen pizzas and Coke every day instead of cooking some meat and two veg, there’s 50K a year less to treat people who need broken bones pinned back together or a stab wound stitched up. It is indeed a moral question (as well as a simple financial one). It would be far more cost-effective to simply give him 10K a year and say “spend that on proper food”.
The NHS spends way too much money on people who don’t deserve it. People who make their own problems. People who come in to the ER effing and blinding because they want to be seen first. People who turn up asking for painkillers or other random drugs, or using ambulances as taxis, or just enjoying themselves wasting the doctor’s time. It really ought to stop, and there are pretty simple ways of making it stop (such as arresting troublemakers and fining them, or charging a nominal fee for seeing a doctor, as in Taiwan). Fat/diabetic people are wasting time and resources that ought to be invested elsewhere.
In any case part of the problem is that doctors are simply giving people terrible advice. I’ve mentioned Dr David Unwin before, who doesn’t just go around “moralizing” but has developed an extremely cost-effective and successful protocol for getting fat people eating properly. It works and it’s cheap. The NHS have absolutely no interest whatsoever in rolling it out nationally.
Relying on magic medicine to fix every problem is far, far worse than “moralizing”. The shitshow of the last three years has amply demonstrated that.
IMO this is exactly why fat people don’t want to fix the problem. That’s the choice they’re being offered. It’s a false dichotomy.
As I said a lot of moralizing bullshit that hasn’t actually worked, basically anywhere.
These drugs work as appetite suppressants mostly, they work, the get the job done 5x better than any other failed policies or wishful thinking.
Your train of logic seems to be “giving diabetics shite advice that’s guaranteed to make them worse makes them worse, therefore the only solution is an injection”. Why is it so crucially important to not just give them the fucking right advice? Cui bono? How is it that we live in a world where most people - and I include in that group most politicians, doctors, and the average man in the street - find the idea of eating ordinary healthy meals to be completely reprehensible, and something to be avoided at all costs? Seriously, WTAF is that all about?
I really don’t care what people inject into themselves. However if a perfectly viable solution exists - one that doesn’t impose costs on the health service - but people still want their injection, fine. Just make them pay for it out of their own pocket. I don’t want my taxes/NI funnelled into yet another pharma black hole.
How about just telling people how to fix their problems, and then helping them do it?
= 