The Diabetes Delusion
A Plane With Pilot Error ?
It used to be called adult onset diabetes – I kid you not. An adult disease, as in someone who had a good few years under their belt, lots of notches on the bedpost. A well seasoned person, yet chancing upon a diabetic state, over decades. Arriving as a diabetic, triggered by something you’d done (or not done) repeatedly over the years. Thoughts that became actions, which as you got older, helped you fall into sudden adulthood. What if it was not so much the fault of your genes but was actually “eating the way I have, I can no longer get in my jeans”. What if you were only following instructions, the accepted wisdom of clever, scientific, official advice. But, might your plane of thought have been hi-jacked – by unseen winds of change. What if you flew into disguised storm clouds, created by others? And what if you were mis-directed on your journey, while encouraged to stick to allowances of this and that – and also with luck, a fair bit of the other?
Take An Order, But No Cola and Fries, Please
What if you were simply following orders. Those of head honcho’s official advice, namely: the UK EatWell Guide or across the Pond, the US My Plate ‘diets’. But sadly they are dietary regimes that were written to suit the agricultural grains, not healthy foods, industries. If you had followed their map, your journey would soon have you arrive in Sick Street, but up on bricks. In a dead end cul de sac. That’s a street littered with unhealthy amounts of industrial sugars and grown carbs. However, what you might not have been too encouraged to do was to read up, just a tad, on what actually causes Type 2 Diabetes.
It happens, but not too suddenly, when your metabolic function is overwhelmed – when your cells just can’t do their funky stuff. In all their interrelated complexity. Too many sugary foods impair cellular efficiency to convert your calorie intake into available human activity and effective work. The decades long demonising of healthy fats means the sugar diabetes epidemic has now really taken hold. As our food has been denatured and is increasingly devoid of nutrients our bodily repair mechanisms have struggled to cope. Real, but less sugary, less industrial food, could be the answer.
Pure White And Deadly
Did anyone see this epidemic coming? Well, it seems Dr John Yudkin did, for one. There’s a name few have heard of and fewer still have read up on his extensive research into the harms of sugar. His book, Pure White and Deadly wasn’t a big seller back in the 1970’s – more’s the pity, as he was so on the money and on the science too. In the red corner, a battle raged for 15 years between Dr Yudkin (of the UK) and in the blue corner, Dr Ancel Keys (of the US). Dr Keys put forward the ‘fat causes heart disease hypothesis’ so beloved of Statinistas everywhere – but he was wrong. We are now living through that error, and the all too apparent heavyweight evidence. Across the globe, most healthcare systems have become besieged by diabetes, and by its associated harms and costs. By simply observing the 30 year sugar and carb diet adoption, we can see that we’ve been led by the nose (and the tongue) to the fat farm. Witness to that are obese and diabetic nations on every continent. We would have to live on a funny farm not to see that the globe is now more troubled by obesity than by starvation.
Sugar, The Bitter Truth
Dr Yudkin wasn’t alone, he was just fairly early. Dr Robert Lustig is a Paediatric Gastroenterologist at University of California and has studied metabolic science for over 30 years. But likely, he too has not had so much as a dollar of funding for his research from the US sugar and grains industries. Dr Lustig being more focussed on buckets of sense than buckets of cents. His lengthy videos highlight the science, the evidence, and the solutions to our diabetes epidemic – but more of our ‘health leaders’ so need to tune in. Closer to home, Professor Roy Taylor of Newcastle University provides plenty of real world evidence of permanent diabetes reversal, by dietary changes.
Are Those Junkers Really Fokkers?
So what could we learn from history, looking perhaps a fair way back – when, during WWII, everyone seemed slimmer? Maybe black and white is slimming after all. What if they had their rations cut, yet still remained more than healthy? With a little something extra for the weekend, Sir. It seems the wars of the past have all but been forgotten. Meanwhile, those current rutting stags, Presidents Trump and Juncker have cut a deal. More jaw, jaw, than war, war, across the Atlantic and the fear of a trade war is no more. It seems Mr Trump won’t erect trade barriers to four wheeled German metal (their invasions nowadays being less airborne) while Mr Juncker will allow more EU beach landings of the US’s finest objects d’art. Their ‘finest’ of course being ever more American soy and medicines air lifted into Europe. Sadly, eating ever more of the former will ensure we need ever more of the latter.
Follow The Money
Meanwhile, back in the US (that home of good health) the price of insulin has been rising for a Century. Some diabetics even use crowd funding pages to raise money for their vital insulin medicine. Some are spending as much on insulin as on mortgage payments or home rental. The issue has been raised by Senator Bernie Sanders amid class action lawsuits with accusations of collusion and price fixing. Nevada has proposed legislation to deal with the issue. In the most recent decade, insulin prices have risen 300%, but that’s just following an upwards only insulin pricing trend. Eli Lilli and Novo Nordisk raised their prices again in 2017 to keep each other company.
Message In A Bottle?
Humalog (known as Lispro, made by Eli Lilly) and NovoLog (made by Novo Nordisk) are the two major insulin ‘products’ which have risen from $25 per bottle in 1996 to a mere $275 by 2016. Better than making cars or building houses – margins wise some say. In normal markets, prices tend to fall through scales of economy as volumes increase. But remarkably, over 20 years – during a time when diabetes hasn’t exactly been on a downwards trajectory, prices haven’t fallen. What if a dietary regime was adopted on which you would struggle, physiologically, to catch diabetes? one which would cost society a lot less too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6gExJIkaK4
Speaking personally, as a long distance walker (and non medic) I seem to suit a: high fat, minimal grains, very low carb regime – but diet is the wrong word. An occasional food sin, or two, is of course more than allowed. Whole undenatured food could really catch on – now how sweet all round would that be?