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Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

theguardian.com

31–40 of 212 posts

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

#31

> 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…

I have no credentials here, but I'm often working in this space and your take is the polar opposite of what I normally hear from the endos and diabetes researchers that I've worked with. More accurate terms might be diabetes and morbid diabetes.

That the cutoff for prediabetes is close to the median level is a statement that much of the population is actually unhealthy in this regard.

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

#32
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a movie clip I’ve seen with Brad Pitt of all people, explaining how America isn’t a nation, it’s a business. A business you don’t own and can’t escape. And you’re on your own. Something to that effect anyway. I’d love to know the movie or show! Its such a perfect example of a truth we all know but that never gets spoken aloud. The Founding Fathers would be deeply ashamed of us, I think.

Killing them softly?

Yep. Quote is at the end.

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

#33
post #26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Carbs are necessary macronutrient for everybody. This is a wild claim to make and doesn't seem to hold true scientifically. Humans require fat, protein, and various vitamins usually received from vegetables. There is no requirement that comes from carbohydrates as they effectively are just empty calories.

Nothing gives me quick, accessible energy like carbs though. Energy to think and love my body. Yes I’ve seen documentaries on low carb high fat ultra athletes, but they still have their fats with a bowl of pasta. God only knows their saturated fat intake too. A carbless diet does not seem well rounded, and is thus unhealthy. So carbs are essential.

It does not follow from you personally deriving psychological benefits or quick energy from eating carbs that a diet which excludes them is not well rounded or is unhealthy.

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

#34

My hard and fast rule in america is that everything aside from unions do not work in the interest of the people. The sooner this is taught to our kids, the better off they'll be from being indoctrinated from the trash on instagram/tiktok.

Unions also don't always work in the interest of everyone they represent. For instance, they tend to be protective of older and longer working members in exchange for limiting upward mobility of younger members. Or building policies that encourage the growth of the union as an organization, despite potential costs.

It’s true. My first job was as a cashier at Kroger. I remember looking at the pay tables and being shocked. You could make impressive money as a cashier at Kroger… if you worked there for 30 years. Virtually no one I worked with had even worked there for more than a few years either. Meanwhile, I earned just above the federal minimum wage and multiple hours of my weekly earnings went to little more than protecting my “right” to “no-call, no-show” for six straight days in a row before being fired. I never did this. It seemed unfair. Others did and I had to work that much harder on those days.

One day a union rep stopped by. He was very well-dressed, and he had this beaming smile. He gave me a t-shirt. That pretty much summed up the benefits I experienced.

I remain pro-union, but every time the subject comes up I think there’s a lot more nuance there than people would like to admit. My Dad, for example, has worked at a union job for over 30 years. Ironically, he’s a Republican. He makes decent money now, but the job is very labor intensive, and the healthcare sucks. He’s repeatedly turned down a promotion into management because he’d be out of the union and earning a salary that is not that much higher than what he currently earns per hour. He’s also told me repeatedly that kids just don’t want to work anymore because the turnover rate is high. Many starting out, especially those with dependents, complain that it’s not worth it for what they earn. He holds that although it’s not great it’s enough. Recently, in an attempt to persuade him to take a promotion, he learned that the healthcare plans offered to management are 2-3x cheaper for better benefits than what the union has negotiated. It’s been pretty crazy to watch his opinion slowly begin to shift.

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

#35

> 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…

I have no credentials here, but I'm often working in this space and your take is the polar opposite of what I normally hear from the endos and diabetes researchers that I've worked with. More accurate terms might be diabetes and morbid diabetes. That the cutoff for prediabetes is close to the median level is a statement that much of the population is actually unhealthy in this regard.

No, it's a statement that the "cutoff" was chosen on questionable grounds. Defend it.

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

#36
post #2

The ADA has for a very long time told diabetics to keep eating carbs. Their tune is finally changing, but no, they don't give a shit about anyone other than themselves.

There is nothing about carbs themselves that is bad for diabetics. Carbs are necessary macronutrient for everybody. If you mean certain foods that also have a high percentage of carbs then sure but carbs are not the problem. Take this line from the article itself, for example. > It can be challenging for many people with diabetes to forgo the breads, sweets, pastas and starches that form the basis of many diets. What…

This is shocking misinformation.

> Meat is considered a complete protein source, meaning it contains all nine essential amino acids that your body cannot produce on its own

Do carbs?

> Carbohydrates primarily provide energy for your body and are not a significant source of amino acids. Essential amino acids, which your body cannot produce on its own, are primarily found in protein-rich foods such as meat, dairy, eggs, and some plant-based sources like quinoa and soy

So you're 100% wrong: carbs do not provide essential amino acids and meat does.

The mechanism behind type 2 diabetes is well known and it's all about eating too much carbs.

Sugars and carbs are converted to glucose in your blood.

You can't have too much (or too little) glucose in blood.

Some of it is burned as fuel but the rest has to be removed somehow so body starts producing insulin to push glucose into cells where it's get converted into fat.

If you can't produce insulin, you have type 1 diabetes and need insulin injections.

If you overeat carbs you store more and more fat. You become over-weight and insulin gets worse at moving glucose from your bloodstream.

The diagnostic test for diabetes is literally: do you have too much glucose in your blood (compared to what is healthy range) or related test a1c which tests for elevated levels of insulin in your blood.

If you know the above, then how in the world can you claim that carbs are not the problem? It is literally the thing that causes diabetes.

The simple solution to reversing type 2 diabetes is therefore to stop eating carbs. That's low carb diets like keto or carnivore.

You make very wrong assertions (carbs are not the problem; carbs have all macronutrients; low carb diets are bad) without a single supporting argument or reference.

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

#37
post #26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Carbs are necessary macronutrient for everybody. This is a wild claim to make and doesn't seem to hold true scientifically. Humans require fat, protein, and various vitamins usually received from vegetables. There is no requirement that comes from carbohydrates as they effectively are just empty calories.

Nothing gives me quick, accessible energy like carbs though. Energy to think and love my body. Yes I’ve seen documentaries on low carb high fat ultra athletes, but they still have their fats with a bowl of pasta. God only knows their saturated fat intake too. A carbless diet does not seem well rounded, and is thus unhealthy. So carbs are essential.

Keto isn't no carbs, but it's a pretty small number compared to typical diets.

It's not for everyone, but it can help some people manage blood sugar.

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

#38

> 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…

> pre-diabetes [...] is rather close to the median level

but according to the NIH, 30.7% of Americans are overweight, and 42.4% are obese. as the median American is overweight, it doesn't seem a stretch to claim that the median American is also pre-diabetic? I don't know whether it's true or not, but your evidence seems a bit thin.

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

#39

> 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…

I switched health providers and got a physical recently. One of my labs came back with "pre-diabetic" check marked. I asked my doctor about this and I was .1% into the metric. It could have been either side of the line. I'm very fit because I enjoy hiking and exploring. I already avoid sugar and bread. I work out nearly every day. I'm very active and my BMI is on point. My blood sugar was fine. It was another metric…

This was likely your A1C, or a metric of the last three months or so of your sugar levels.

Just because you feel healthy doesn’t necessarily mean you are healthy. You may have, for example, a pancreas condition. Or it may be nothing at all, and just something to track, which is why you never base any medical decisions off a single test.

Your last sentence is nonsense. People can provide exceptional (and correct) advice without necessarily following it themselves, and for all you know this nurse has spent the last year actively trying to improve their health.

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

#40

My hard and fast rule in america is that everything aside from unions do not work in the interest of the people. The sooner this is taught to our kids, the better off they'll be from being indoctrinated from the trash on instagram/tiktok.

The more complete and histocally evidenced rule is that all institutions eventually just work to continue and/or expand their existence in itself. They can get founded in the genuine interests of some cause (and often are), but each transition in leadership tends to find itself more professionalized in some way and more divorced from the founding cause, with process (and/or corruption) becoming their effective mandat…

this has lots of "real" in it but details matter. At a formative time, American politics specifically substituted "safe" leadership in union upper management.. either connected to party politics or just directly from old-Right Europe who had lots of experience dealing with workers and systems. Yes, there were real Mafia families in the Teamsters, in other words. The fiery and violent revolutions across the world did have their impacts on America.

Since the 1980s, evolution via bureaucracy and golf clubs, court cases and election results seem to have been more the driving force.. people can only get so fat before their eyes start to glaze over and trivial concerns take the airtime.

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