Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mr. Peachy on July 24, 2008 at 9:55pm

Since I don't have the luxury of being able to afford insurance, I have a slightly different perspective...

What if it was our fault? What if you had no choice but to take complete responsibility for your own health? Surely you've heard the old saying, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."... right? What if we were placed into a situation (like me) and had to learn as much as we could about the disease... like what groups are more susceptible to type two, what groups are less susceptible, and (most importantly) why are they more or less susceptible?

After several years of comprehensive research into conventional and alternative treatments, it seems that it is someone's fault, because many of us, who have learned to eat a high nutrient, low glycemic index, low calorie diet and combining that with plenty of daily exercise, have achieved remarkable success in reversing the disease.... enough to put away all medications. Hopefully, for good.

While I'm not a big fan of insurance companies, I am a big fan of personal responsibility. Expecting others to pay for our own ignorance is biting us all in the butt right now in the form of higher insurance rates, costly lawyers, higher taxes, bigger government, safer this and that, etc. etc.

FYI, I'm 5'11" tall and currently 172 pounds (BMI 24). Just a few years ago, I was 215 pounds (BMI 30). I was diagnosed in 2003... I don't know how long I was diabetic prior to the dx. Last fall, my BGL was creeping up above 120mg/dl despite "healthy diet and exercise" and 1000mg/day of Metformin. I became desperate. I read and read as if my life depended on it. I finally found a combination that not only brought my glucose numbers down... in the first week, they actually dropped below normal... into the fifties and sixties as my body adjusted to the new nutrient rich, low glycemic index natural foods based diet. So, I quit taking Metformin last December. My BGL has been in the upper 80s to lower 100s ever since.

No, you're not obese at a BMI of 29.5... neither was I at 30. But you could certainly stand to lose forty pounds and I'm willing to bet you don't get nearly as much exercise as you should. I'm 56 and walk at least an hour and a half throughout the day... averaging nearly four miles and hour. I keep up with many joggers.

Certainly you know that diabetes is not just a disease of the obese. What you may not know is, that it is a disease of those who subscribe to the typical western diet of way too many refined carbs and not nearly enough fresh fruits and vegetables with lots of TV time. Since increasing my daily intake of bananas, apples, apricots, tomatoes, spinach, etc, etc, I watched in amazement as my sugar dropped. If you think about it, our bodies were optimized for foods like these. Whether you're into creation or evolution, it makes perfect sense that natural foods are what our bodies thrive on. Not man made crap stripped of many important and essential nutrients.

Should we force insurance companies to pay for our ignorance? No.

Should we encourage improved health education? Yes.

Should we teach our kids personal responsibility? Absolutely

- A different Craig

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Permalink Reply by Khürt Williams on July 27, 2008 at 6:11am

Craig,
That was a very informed and reasoned post.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. Peachy on July 31, 2008 at 7:41pm

I'm reasonably sure that was aimed at my comments... thanks Khürt.

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Permalink Reply by Danny Weems on July 27, 2008 at 12:58pm

My mother had gestational diabetes when she was pregnangt with me, and when she was mid thirties, she was diagnosed diabetic, T2. At no time through her life was she ever over weight. I have many cousins who are diabetic and only one I would consider obese. When I was 33, my appetite went crazy, and my mouth was always dry. the epiphany occured when I went to see mom and dad one day and I turned down coffee for water. I had all the signs of diabetes. A few weeks later, the doctor told me I was prediabetic and to watch diet and all would be fine;. So, i simply paid attention to what my body was telling me. If it made me hungry for days after consuming it, I cut it outof my diet. over time, I cut 99% of the soda and 90% of the cakes/pies from my diet. I also quadupeled my garden. One acre was large enough to grow 80% of the vegetables I ate every year. The outrageous appetite, and "cotton mouth" disappeared, and I forgot about it.
Flash forward. In 2007 I was at the doctors office for another reason and was diagnosed diabetic. I was 10 pounds above my target weight. Once again I started paying closer attention to my diet. Excersize was no problem because I am a carpenter. this time, diet had no effect on my BS. Doc added metformin to my meds and it helped for about a year. My BS was once again on the rise. At and A1C of 7.2, Doc added Glipizide but its only affect was it made me go low too easy and I was outrageously starvind all the time, so I dropped it and now I am on insulin and metformin. The difference is dramatic. I am not ravenously hungry, I do not have cotton mouth and my spikes are small. I wouldn't trade insulin for anything. Anyway, by taking control of the diabetes in my 30's I didn't eliminate the diabetes, I simp;ly slowed its progression.

I do agree with Craig in a limited way. Diet can play a small role in diabetes. However, his arguements are over generalized and simplistic. He fails to take in consideration there are 8 genetic defects that individually can cause diabetes, or the gender differences in metabolisim.
Further, if we apply craigs metaphor to flood insurance and you lose your house to flood waters then your loss is your fault because you should have done more research so the insurance company should not be obligated to rebuild.......
Or, if you have an autombile accident and it is your fault then it is your fault because you should have been more careful, so the loss is all yours.......

danny

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Permalink Reply by Mr. Peachy on December 7, 2008 at 5:46pm

I'm not sure which Craig you aimed this response at, but I'm going to assume it's me.

Genetics plays only a minor role. Diet plays the lead role. Exercise (or, lack thereof) plays the supporting role.

My arguments are sound and well thought out. Insurance companies are out to make money with the minimum amount of risk. They're not about to pay a claim (to someone who built their house on a flood plain) after a levee breaks, or someone who habitually runs red lights. Yes, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but as with just about everything, there's varying degrees of personal responsibility involved. We, as a society, are eating, watching TV, playing video games with complete abandon to our health as compared to what our bodies were designed for... healthy, natural foods and moderate daily physical activity. It's just a matter of time until the government steps in. In fact, with the failing insurance giants, it's right around the corner.

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Permalink Reply by jims on October 18, 2011 at 7:55pm

one again, another uninformed opinion.

If ones liver adds too much glucose, Diet is worthless and achieves little.

Once liver under control, yes one can manage properly using diet and exercise.

Having been there and watching my weight climb exhorably on a tight 1200 calorie diet with carbs restrictions,
that problem did not stop till liver was shut down. Once that achieved, yes diet - same 1200 calorie diet
then worked and got weight down from 330 pounds to under 250 and still dropping.

I am fed up with such arrogant opinions.

Life style does not necessarily cause the problem, but once medical conditions trapped and fixed, diet and life style critical to keep problem turned off.

The control of body glucose is the on tune orchestra peformance of some major organs such as liver, gut/intestine, kidneys, thyroid,brain and pancrease.

Unfortunately, not withsatnding major miracule cures in other areas of medicine, current dark ages 20th century type 2 diabetes medicine is focusing on the pancreas only. That's a type 1 problem and solution not really applicable to most type 2 insulin resistance diabetes. Solve the Insulin resistance first and the better answers show up studying cell physiology.

In my case; after 30 years on wrong stupid drugs boosting insulin, my main medicine is metformin placed at key times and my pancreas is working well and only off a small amount and a small boost of insulin of 1 to 4 units helps tighen up control.

I am fed up with the stupid ignorant opinions out there.

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Jacobson on October 22, 2011 at 6:26pm

Well, Mr. Peachy, I am the exception to the rule. I lost over 80 lbs, I exercised, and I ate healthy. I still got gestational diabetes with my second son at 35 and full blown T2 at 49.....My lifestyle was a healthy one, and I still got the disease. So where does that give me responsibility. I did take care of me, I did what I was supposed to do.
My grandmother, my great grandmother and one aunt had diabetes.....and I got gestational. So I am the exception. All exceptions line up behind me.

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Permalink Reply by jims on October 22, 2011 at 8:53pm

neat.

Blame is pointless, useless and unproductive.

In past human did not have to manage energy input due to scacity of food and its poor quality. In addition; it tooks lots of work and energy to get a meal.

Today we have case where food is totally abundant especially the grains, corn and corn sugar with attendent drop in exercise due to cars, laptops, videogames and all sorts of couch potatoe entertainment - wide screen TV's etc.

Now the energy supply /food/carbs are always plentiful 24/7days. Maybe we should blame science over this.

So now we have old hunter gatherer high efficiency digestive system that grabs every calorie intended for days of min food and poor quality and bypasses nothing. There is no dash lite and no capability of gut to bypass calories when all cell storage and liver topped out.

Hence this becomes riot for human to ensure food/energy consumed matchers actual energy burn so that cell storage/liver does not get filled up. If not the liquid energy - glucose backs up and only place left is the blood system.

Blood Glucose regulation is based upon the storage capability of body cells/liver always have room left over to store glucose.

Hence - drop food/energy input or increase hearty exercise or both to put body back in equilibrium.

In the end, life style probably did not cause your type 2 diabetes but changes in life style are crucial to getting the body back to working correct.

Using excess insulin and avandia/actos to stuff more glucose into cells topped off is dangerous and in end is counterproductive.

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Permalink Reply by trc0705 on January 11, 2012 at 5:10pm

Mr. Peachy,

I can see your point. At some point we should take responsibility for our decisions. Whether we will drink soda or tea, eat another greasy cheese burger or a salad.....these are decisions we make for ourselves daily.

However, I realize too that our food choices are not what they use to be. Many times the crops are genetically altered and put into our foods without our knowledge. The long term effects of this is still being determined and argued. I found some interesting information about GMO here.

I totatlly agree that everyone should exercise on a daily basis......but most of us work and it can be a challenge to find the time. I love walking but admit I should do more of it.

I can understand a little better why diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease are on the rise when I educate myself.

So yes, we are responsible for our actions, but there are many factors at work here that are out of our control.

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Permalink Reply by Natalie ._c- on January 11, 2012 at 6:50pm

Right you are! The other thing you didn't mention is that there is SO much going on metabolically and different people are born with genetically different metabolic capacities, so some people CAN eat the greasy cheeseburgers, and sit on the couch without getting fat. Others can eat minimally and exercise and still get fat. Both of those extremes are really beyond our control, so we can work with what we inherited, but reality is reality.
The other thing that I think is REALLY important is to disassociate Type 2 with obesity, because they are NOT the same thing. Most (but not all) Type 2s are obese, but most obese people do NOT have Type 2. New research is needed to distinguish between 2 DIFFERENT diseases that have a symptom in common. I haven't heard much of anybody acknowledge that.

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Permalink Reply by jims on January 11, 2012 at 9:05pm

The real tragedy is that human body was optimized to protect against starvation and in fact there never was any optimization built in to protect against over supply of calories/glucose since in past scarce and low energy foods coupled with hard work - expended energy tended to limit the amount of daily available carbs externally to human body. Today, yes, human needs to directly manage energy input so as not to saturate body local glucose storage of the fat and skeletal muscle cells.. This has noting to do with obesity/body size or fat supplies but saturation of the local glucose stores of fat and skeletal muscle cells. The saturation is what causes the system to go out of regulation.

This saturation is further complicated by liver leakage from aging - and pancreas aging droping its basil pulses and offsetting the body setpoint creating extra glucose over and above diet considerations. and extent of physical exercise burning that glucose off.

Since genetic variations generally do not happen in one life time but over many cycles of that, the excess 24/7 quailty food availability has only been available since 1970's and on, we are reaping the reward.

Should the gloom and doomers be right and we have a full scale world economic crash, we may have opportunity to see this disease epidemic get starved out of the human system as food sources dry up.

As for blame, ridiculous. None of us growing up had any traininjg or thought about energy management and nor any real good reasons to do so prior to the 1970's.

I concur that the current fad to link body fat and obesity to be causitive agents of diabetes to be off track standing in dead end tunnel with lights turned off. I honestly believe that there is no difference in this case narrowly speaking between the type 2 obese diabetic and type 2 scrawny lean diabetic as both types have probably saturated their body's local glucose stores of the skeletal muscle/fat cells and energy equation out of balance. The obese person is just better able to convert more glucose to fat better than the scrawny person.

And it may still turn out that genetic damage - immune diseases may be a factor causing the set point servo system of the liver, pancreas, skeletal muscle/fat cells to get damaged and go out of whack and wander up causing cell glucose saturation faster and sooner as system ages over time. Presently the only real tool fighting excess liver glucose release is metformin coupled with carbs control and sufficient hearty exercise.

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Permalink Reply by Natalie ._c- on January 11, 2012 at 9:25pm

Actually the abundant supply of food was available in first world nations long before the 1970's, only interrupted by war-induced famines. Somewhere, I saw menus from opulent feasts put on by rich people in the 1700s and 1800s -- MUCH meat, and many courses -- I almost puked reading them! So why is this obesity epidemic only happening since the 70's?

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