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Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

theguardian.com

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Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#121

Post by bee_rider »

crazygringo wrote: post #95
nradov wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a pair of continents, not the name of a country. The US federal government doesn't hold a trademark. The notion that companies shouldn't be allowed to name themselves after geographic features or political regions is absurd.

In the US, if you ask 100 people what "America" is, they'll tell you it's the name of the country they live in. And since language is defined by use, yes -- America is the name of a country. The shortened version, of course, just like "Mexico" is the shortened version of the "United Mexican States". Surely you're not going to claim that Mexico isn't the name of a country either? And no, "America" is not a pair of con…

Asking people in the US seems like a sort of skewed sample; surely everyone in the Americas at least should get a vote on whether or not they want to distinguish more clearly between the continents and this one large country some of us happen to live in.

I do agree though that it is not so ambiguous really in the case of America, the Americas, North America, and South America—because there isn’t a singular “America” continent to refer to (unless we want to dip into the nightmare that is counting and naming the continents; Europe is a subcontinent, I’ll happily die on that hill). But “American” seems a little ambiguous, what else should we call somebody from the Americas, if we want to refer to them in that context? Nobody would say “An Americasian.”

Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#122

Post by mixmastamyk »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #109
mixmastamyk wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery wasn't invented in America. It was common during the Roman Empire and thousands of years before that. Blaming 18th century folks for not righting every wrong up to their time is lazy, as it would be to attribute full-responsibility to you today for something improved and looked down upon in the future. (None of us are fully independent but gain and suffer inertia from history and society at large.) Still, we…

I apologize, this is such a strange way to be positioned to all this. The point of bringing up something like the practice of slavery in early America is not about "blaming" people about anything. They are already dead! Many generations over. This conceit that the bare acknowledgement of history itself should merely serve to assign blame or culpability to certain people or another feels just so wrong. The point is th…

This whole thread is a bit weird now rereading it. My post was pushing back on the narrower idea that past folks' ideas in subject area A should be disregarded because they may have participated in now unacceptable subject area B. Also that Americans tend lack context around the subject.

Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#124

Post by epcoa »

watwut wrote: post #98
bhelkey wrote: post #75

From the linked study, "These findings of positive associations between artificial sweetener intakes and increased T2D risk strengthen the evidence that these additives may not be safe sugar alternatives." This is news to me. I was under the impression that: 1) artificial sweeteners were a safe substitute for sugar for people with diabetes and 2) diabetes came from excess sugar consumption which wasn't a problem with…

There is type of diabetes that is simply hereditary and that is all there is to it. It is not rare. Then there is also pregnancy diabetes that comes and goes with pregnancy (they make routine test for it). Not all diabetes is from sugar.

> There is type of diabetes that is simply hereditary and that is all there is to it.

This is a common misconception. Type 1 diabetes cases are more often acquired with no family history, there are some genetic associations but it is actually less strong than Type 2 (insulin resistance/diet related diabetes) where family history is a substantial risk factor. Pregnancy (gestational) diabetes isn’t just pregnancy related either as it is more likely in those with metabolic syndrome/obesity and is associated with type 2 as well, so it is also partially diet related.

> Not all diabetes is from sugar.

I would go further and just say no diabetes is “from sugar”, it’s just a completely uselessly simplistic way of looking at it (I know this was in response to GP comment). It’s not like low carb diets even prevent some people from getting type 2.

Type 2 diabetes is a disease of acquired insulin resistance for which excessive consumption of high glycemic index food (eg processed food with high sugar content) is a major risk factor, but not the only one.

Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#125

Post by shkkmo »

crazygringo wrote: post #95
nradov wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a pair of continents, not the name of a country. The US federal government doesn't hold a trademark. The notion that companies shouldn't be allowed to name themselves after geographic features or political regions is absurd.

In the US, if you ask 100 people what "America" is, they'll tell you it's the name of the country they live in. And since language is defined by use, yes -- America is the name of a country. The shortened version, of course, just like "Mexico" is the shortened version of the "United Mexican States". Surely you're not going to claim that Mexico isn't the name of a country either? And no, "America" is not a pair of con…

Travel to some other american countries and ask them what they think of the appropriation of the word. Not everyone is a fan.

I don't really get how you think a company using the name of the country is wrong but somehow a country appropriating the name of the continent is just fine?

Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#126

Post by throwawaymaths »

voisin wrote: post #97
guerby wrote: post #9

David Unwin is a real hero, things are starting to move hopefully for diabetics Recommanded readings https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/02/bmjnph-20... https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2023/01/02/bmjnph-20... https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2023/12/14/bmjnph-20... Those papers are the most read papers of BMJ nutrition whole history, and this is the top journal of the field

The insight being low carb can send T2 diabetes into remission?

Isn't it known that 800 kcal diet (brutal) will reverse T2D? Iirc, 90% remission, 12 patient study, nejm article

Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#127

Post by throwawaymaths »

verisimi wrote: post #103
crazygringo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been baffled by this for the longest time. Why does "Bank of America" get to call itself that? Growing up there was a "USA Federal" credit union [1] too, with a stylized American flag logo. Similarly there's a historic "New Yorker" hotel in New York City, and the totally separate "New Yorker" magazine, neither of which have any official affiliation with the city. The short answer is that no, there don't seem to…

Even the federal reserve is privately owned though.

Sort of. It's actually worse. It gets to claim privately owned when being government is inconvenient; it gets to claim delegated authority from government when that's convenient.

Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#128

Post by throwawaymaths »

watwut wrote: post #98
bhelkey wrote: post #75

From the linked study, "These findings of positive associations between artificial sweetener intakes and increased T2D risk strengthen the evidence that these additives may not be safe sugar alternatives." This is news to me. I was under the impression that: 1) artificial sweeteners were a safe substitute for sugar for people with diabetes and 2) diabetes came from excess sugar consumption which wasn't a problem with…

There is type of diabetes that is simply hereditary and that is all there is to it. It is not rare. Then there is also pregnancy diabetes that comes and goes with pregnancy (they make routine test for it). Not all diabetes is from sugar.

Iirc diabetes is technically "sugar in the pee" so all diabetes must be linked to some sugar metabolism at some point.

Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#129

Post by monkburger »

nradov wrote: post #101
AlbertCory wrote: post #20

> Over 100 million Americans have diabetes or prediabetes These two are not the same. It is dishonest to combine the two. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/07/29/prediabetes-the-ep... I'm not quite ready to publish my hypothesis that prediabetes is a scam. I need to research it a little more. But a statistician friend of mine responded: A handful of years ago, I looked into the National Health and Nutrition Evaluat…

If you're going to try an appeal to authority, then at least come up with a plausible authority instead of some random statistician who likely doesn't know the basics of physiology. The first thing you need to understand is that normal ≠ healthy. For example, a resting heart rate of up to 100 bpm is considered "normal" in the sense that it doesn't require urgent medical intervention. But of course anything over 60 bp…

> Also note that HbA1c tests aren't perfect for diagnosing type 2 diabetes and can > have false positives or false negatives.

When we do workups on pts suspected of diabetes, we use the following criteria.

- Iron deficiency anemia workup to confirm accuracy of HbA1C

- HbA1C ≥6.5%

- FPG ≥126mg/dL (7.0 mmol/L). Fasting is defined as no caloric intake for at least eight hours

- Two-hour plasma glucose ≥200mg/dL (11.1 mmol/L) during an oral glucose tolerance test

- In a patient with classic symptoms of hyperglycemia or hyperglycemic crisis, a random plasma glucose ≥200mg/dL (11.1 mmol/L)

I would like to redo the diagnostic criteria to include their BMI.

Re: Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

#130

Post by epcoa »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #128
watwut wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is type of diabetes that is simply hereditary and that is all there is to it. It is not rare. Then there is also pregnancy diabetes that comes and goes with pregnancy (they make routine test for it). Not all diabetes is from sugar.

Iirc diabetes is technically "sugar in the pee" so all diabetes must be linked to some sugar metabolism at some point.

It’s an interesting bit of ancient word and medicine trivia but it isn’t terribly elucidating about the mechanism or course of diabetes in modern times.

Your body always has some glucose metabolism going, even if you’re in ketosis, etc there’s always “sugar metabolism” - your blood glucose doesn’t drop to 0 unless you’re dead. It’s simply not a useful abstraction to link sugar consumption to diabetes as implied by the GP. And ultimately diabetes is defined as a condition of dysregulation of sugar in the blood.

In fact, these days most well cared for people with controlled diabetes don’t have sugar in the pee unless they’re taking a medication specifically to put it there.

Also if you want your mind blown and why you can’t diagnose based on etymology alone (at least not without a sense of humor) - lookup “diabetes insipidus”. Literally means “sweet pee that isn’t sweet”. The historic reason is that excessive urination is common to both.

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