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America’s losing battle against diabetes

reuters.com

131–140 of 182 posts

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to go way out of your way to get food that is not loaded with sugar. Just normal food, let alone something that is meant to be a desert. Seriously. It's such a pain to shop. I've, thankfully, managed to find one brand of 100% whole wheat bread that has And protein bars, despite being labeled as 'healthy', usually contain tons of added sugar, sadly. Or, just as bad, they have sugar alcohols to make them swe…

Is this the Dave's Power Bread? That's what I've switched to but I just recently realized they still add stevia as a sweetener. Wondering if there is an even plainer version of bread with that level of sugar (< 1g)

It's Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat. I get it from Kroger. Total sugars are <1g, all of which seems to be added. The only sweetener I see on the ingredients list is brown sugar, but the FDA defines that as an added sugar so it's taken into account.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#132
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common misconception. Insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes is mostly caused by obesity. Sugar has a relatively high caloric density and can be addictive, leading to obesity. However, you can eat large amounts of sugar if you do a lot of sport, for example, and then burn off the calories again. Then you don't get diabetes from it either.

> Sugar has a relatively high caloric density and can be addictive, leading to obesity. Blood sugar triggers the release of insulin to clear it from the blood. Insulin is a hormone that puts the body into an anabolic state so all cells and in particular fat cells begin to store the sugar from the blood. There is a correlation between obesity and T2D, but not causation. This is why not all T2D patients are obese, rath…

That's not true either. You can definitely develop type 2 diabetes without eating carbohydrates.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#134

Consider checking out CGMs (continuous glucose monitors) for what I think is a pretty comprehensive solution. They can even be useful for people who don't have diabetes, but are just interested in maintaining healthy blood glucose levels during the day.

When these are available in non-invasive form in a smartwatch, it could be a gamechanger.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#135
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sugar has a relatively high caloric density and can be addictive, leading to obesity. Blood sugar triggers the release of insulin to clear it from the blood. Insulin is a hormone that puts the body into an anabolic state so all cells and in particular fat cells begin to store the sugar from the blood. There is a correlation between obesity and T2D, but not causation. This is why not all T2D patients are obese, rath…

That's not true either. You can definitely develop type 2 diabetes without eating carbohydrates.

Can you link to any medical case where the patient did not consume any carbs/sugars and still became insulin resistant?

If a patient consumes no carbs, there would be no high levels of blood sugar, no need for insulin to clear excess sugar from the blood…so I’d really like to see what the medical treatment would be for such a patient.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#136
America should subsidize healthy foods in food deserts. Then to pay themselves back they should implement "bad food" taxes that increase until the healthy food places, such as grocery stores, as the majority.

Repeat this process within grocery stores for produce and processed foods.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what percentage of people with T2D are normal weight, because my impression is it's not very many people at all.

Weight and what's normal varies between nations, but nobody considers body composition. A skinny kid with a beer belly will be full of visceral fat and weigh the same at same height like an Olympic swimmer. Also the dietary habits can trigger problems at any weight.

Let’s be honest, we aren’t talking about Olympic swimmers here.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Type 2 diabetes is also very much a genetic problem. Sure, being overweight may give you a more likely chance of seeing the issues arise (sooner that is)but I know plenty of people who are not overweight and have type 2 diabetes. If someone has the genetic disposition for Type 2 diabetes in younger, more fit people they are still extremely likely to start seeing the effects as they age and lose activity (even if they…

I wonder what percentage of people with T2D are normal weight, because my impression is it's not very many people at all.

My worry with jumping straight to questions like that is that it doesn't seem terribly clear to me that this is a case where any hypothetical correlation is due to causation. I'm no doctor, but my vague understanding is that relevant biochemistry is arranged such that it would more likely that they simply share a common cause.

And the reason why that matters is that getting the causality wrong might promote incorrect conclusions about how best to address the problem, and that that in turn might lead to ineffective or even harmful recommendations. Which I don't think is a mere academic concern; it seems that that's a mistake that health researchers (or at least health pundits) just keep making over and over and over again.

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#139

The health care model in the US doesn't really help much on the matter, but this isn't a battle against diabetes, diabetes is just the result of an overweight population with bad dietary habits. There is the inherited kind, and then there is the "earned" kind. One is genetically unavoidable, the other is mostly preventable. It is not even the food, or fats, or carbs, or sugars, it's too many calories over extended ti…

There's an inherited kind, an earned kind, and a "whoops, diabetes!" kind. My sister spent the first 36 years of her life without diabetes or symptoms of diabetes. 5'3", 130 pounds. Then she had her second child, and whatever happened during that time eradicated her ability to deal with sugar. She had been perfectly healthy aside from an ovarian cyst which was removed before she was pregnant with the second child. So…

Presumably she had gestational diabetes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestational_diabetes

Re: America’s losing battle against diabetes

#140
post #96

The health care model in the US doesn't really help much on the matter, but this isn't a battle against diabetes, diabetes is just the result of an overweight population with bad dietary habits. There is the inherited kind, and then there is the "earned" kind. One is genetically unavoidable, the other is mostly preventable. It is not even the food, or fats, or carbs, or sugars, it's too many calories over extended ti…

> The rise of zero calorie drinks is a decent first step, some people say these can make you fat as well, but that is entirely physically impossible, they contain zero energy and they do not cause blood sugar level volatility , else diabetics drinking them could drop dead within minutes. I'd tread lightly here. Some initial research is showing that artificial sweeteners can stress your gut bacteria, which is a not we…

In addition there's a possibility that sweet taste causes the release of insulin in the blood which could also lead into resistance to insulin. There have been some studies on this too. On the other hand we know as a fact sugar is causing all sorts of issues so I'd place my bets in a substitute.

Realistically it's very hard to avoid sugar altogether, it's in everything in one way or another from bread to milk. Misinformation is also a big issue for example we grew up thinking fruit juice is good for you...

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