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Does the American Diabetes Association work for patients or companies?

theguardian.com

71–80 of 212 posts

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

#71
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

No it's not.

From https://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal/#bac...

"We now know that type 2 diabetes is caused by excess fat inside liver and pancreas. ... The Twin Cycle Hypothesis described how it might be possible to explain the cause of type 2 diabetes in a very simple way. ... It was clear from that time onwards that type 2 diabetes is caused by too much fat building up within the liver, then overspilling to the rest of the body - including the pancreas. This starts up a second vicious cycle inside the pancreas, with the fat actually switching off normal insulin production...One of the most important discoveries is that of the Personal Fat Threshold. Type 2 diabetes is not caused by ‘obesity’. Different people have different levels of tolerance of fat within liver and pancreas. But if you have type 2 diabetes, you have crossed your ‘personal fat threshold’.

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

#72
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

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

#73
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.

Carbohydrates are not necessary for survival, but there are circumstances when they are necessary, for instance when a very intense effort is required to be sustained for a long time it is impossible to achieve a maximum performance without eating carbohydrates, because they can be absorbed and used for energy production faster than the alternatives. Moreover, there is not enough data to decide whether a diet lacking…

> Carbohydrates are not necessary for survival, but there are circumstances when they are necessary, for instance when a very intense effort is required to be sustained for a long time it is impossible to achieve a maximum performance without eating carbohydrates, because they can be absorbed and used for energy production faster than the alternatives.

And some people require an intake of 8000+ kcal a day. Not relevant to anything.

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

#74
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.

> A carbless diet does not seem well rounded, and is thus unhealthy.

Why “thus”. Just saying that lacking something is not well rounded thus unhealthy just looks some sort of middle of the road fallacy.

Diets that are not about calorie restrictions are all about excluding certain things. And they all claim to be better than the potentially more versatile middle of the road diet.

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

#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 artificial sweeteners.

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

#76

> 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 regulatio…

I agree, it seems extremely misleading, especially for medical organizations. The US government doesn't make consumer clothes, so I don't think anyone's too confused with American Eagle Outfitters not being government-ran, but the US does have several government-ran Health and Human Services divisions and U.S. Public Health Service agencies (e.g. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), etc.)

I wonder what percent of Americans think that the American Diabetes Association is a government-ran organization. My guess is that it's quite high. You'd have to design a poll correctly (e.g. "From the following list, select which ones are government-ran organizations") to not give the answer away, but I imagine it's a high percentage.

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

#77
post #28

I was shocked by the ADA's nutritional training (required by my insurance company) but I figured that the actuaries had decided they'd delay amputation better by encouraging people to eat a small slice of cake rather than no cake at all.

So the actuaries decided to unironically "sugar coat" the truth to gain a small measure of compliance?

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

#78
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The "trust the authorities" perspective currently en vogue is certainly not that "doing your own research works." It's that one needs an MD or PhD in a medical field in order to evaluate research, and hence should defer judgment on personal decisions to such qualified individuals (or more often, in practice, to institutions which purport to speak for them like the AMA, AAP, or American Diabetes Association).

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

#79
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Arguably, a union has to hold the position of requiring membership, and against those who don’t want to join. Collective bargaining only works when your position represents the group to the point where it can’t be dismissed.

But yeah, It’s challenging for a union to remain exclusively dedicated to serving its membership. I think it’s increasingly complicated with national unions which exist for the sake of unions as a concept, but not necessarily any union members.

It’s weird.

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

#80

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.

The fundamental idea of most unions seems to be, that once labor recognizes that it is working for a monopoly, instead of working to break up that monopoly, they decide to form one of their own in order to gain some power of negotiation with their employer. Typically to the detriment of the consumer market and the labor market.

For new entrants into the labor market, as you've flagged, now they have to successfully negotiate between two overly large entities with predictably unfortunate results. Labor is best served as a competitive market and unions should only be used in the few limited circumstances where they are otherwise unavoidable.

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