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Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

theguardian.com

61–70 of 212 posts

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

#61
post #12

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 aren't acting in the interest of the people generically, often not even the members of the union. Otherwise they wouldn't go to court to force people who don't even want to be in the union to pay dues, even when the dues go to political campaigns unrelated to the purpose of the union, as in Janus v. AFSCME (where the support for political causes by the union meant it violated public sector workers freedom of s…

> Otherwise they wouldn't go to court to force people who don't even want to be in the union...

Even worse, they might request your dismissal if you don't join. Here is a direct quote from the Union agreement of a major university, where I teach part-time: "The Union may request that a Part-time Faculty Member who fails to join the Union, maintain Union membership, pay an agency fee, or make a charitable contribution in lieu of an agency fee shall be dismissed. If the Union makes such a request, the Employer shall comply... If the Part-time Faculty Member fails to pay within that time period, and the Union so verifies, the Part-time Faculty Member’s employment will be terminated at the Union’s request".

If anything, unions are only acting in their own interest.

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

#62
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…

> There is nothing about carbs themselves that is bad for diabetics.

That is untrue. A Type 1 diabetic requires insulin proportional to the amount of carbohydrates they eat. The larger the insulin dose, the higher the potential error in the dose compared to the carbs (it’s inexact). If the error is on the “too much” side it can drive blood sugar fatally low. This happens, unfortunately often.

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

#63
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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) advi…

It's strictly a question of his likelihood P for developing diabetes. If his P is the same as that of other people with lower A1C, then "prediabetes" is nonsense.

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

#64
post #58

The entire American medical system manages to act against the interests of both patients and doctors, the two essential classes of participants. It’s a rather remarkable achievement.

If you look around, that happens often on several different industries.

Somehow both people consuming and producing stuff are powerless nowadays.

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

#65
post #44
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you go from "does not seem well rounded" to "therefore is essential"? Here's some facts. There are nine essential amino acids that our body needs to function properly and cannot produce by itself from something else. Meat provides those amino acids and carbs do not. Carbs are a source of energy but so is fat, proteins, ketones and alcohol. In addition to reversing diabetes, people on low carb / high fat diets, inc…

This is exactly how I felt when I went keto/low inflammation foods. Would have never expected it.

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

#66
post #42

Classic principal-agent problem. It's why you can't usually trust experts who aren't aligned with you. One way is skin in the game. But I suppose "if you aren't paying, you're not the customer" applies as well to nutrition and medicine as it does to free webmail.

In light of this news, how should we reevaluate some of the recent admonishments to "trust the experts" and "don't do your own research"?

Are you talking about doing your own research or sheepishly believing on what some random person you like preaches to you?

One of those work, the other is what people that say they "did their own research" usually do.

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

#67
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you check the litterature? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20697688/ Hba1c 6.0 to 6.5 (so called prediabetic range) has 2.5 times the hasard ratio of below 6.0. Increasing Hba1c is the leading indicator of future health issues and by far.

This comes closer to a cogent answer, which is what I was after. > future health issues like? As I said, I'm not ready to publish this, but I wanted to hear some arguments that made sense. So thanks. To me, "probability of progression from pre-diabetes to diabetes" is the only reason to say it's a real condition rather than just a risk factor. Furthermore, it would be the derivative of the level, rather than the leve…

Get peer review and publish; let’s see what happens.

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

#68
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One drug advertisement I’ve seen on Pinterest lately says “diet and exercise can’t treat diabetes” which may be true of type 1 diabetes, but last time I checked 90% of the diabetes in the US is type 2 and diet improvements should absolutely be the first line intervention.

Diet and exercise are extremely effective in treating type 1 diabetes. But some exogenous insulin (and other medications) are usually still required. For type 2 diabetes, research had shown that many patients can put the condition into remission through lifestyle changes alone. Nutritional ketosis is very effective in reversing insulin resistance. https://www.virtahealth.com/research

Agreed, I've just successfully reversed mine using the "Newcastle Protocol" (calorie restriction for ~12 weeks):

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal/#pub... https://www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2017/dec/newcastle-diet-achi...

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

#69
> In case you’re curious, the ADA and Splenda appear to be still at it. As I write this, the ADA’s Diabetes Food Hub web page still features no fewer than 203 recipes – some marked “sponsored”, some not – that include Splenda, whose parent company’s $1m contribution has brought to light the utter insanity of our diabetes epidemic.

If you call yourself the "American Diabetes Association", (why) aren't there regulations against such stuff? For eg in some countries you cannot use the name of the city/state/country unless you're a government entity.

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

#70

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…

> The more complete and histocally evidenced rule is that all institutions eventually just work to continue and/or expand their existence in itself.

This isn’t more complete and historically evidenced. This is a Law Named After Person/Dilbert Quip, which is the pit of cliches that a lot of HN comments fall into on sociology.

What, other than just cynicism,[1] have these Stated Truisms contributed to? These rules are so rigid (so they can be pithy, snappy) that they sound immutable. Is the point only to, say, feel smug about how the manager directly above you has been promoted to his level of incompetence?

[1] Cynicism is fine and good. But just-cynicism has no way of moving beyond itself to a better state. The difference between critique and throwing your arms up.

> 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 mandate instead.

Nothing in history is ever just a downward spiral of corruption and rigidity. Outside things happen, revolts happen, things are replaced, systems are overturned.

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