Posted on 01/05/2024 1:48:55 PM PST by nickcarraway
Understanding diabetes today requires holding two conflicting realities in your head simultaneously.
First, diabetes therapy has been revolutionized by a world of new drugs that have become available since the turn of the century—most notably, drugs of the same class as Wegovy and Ozempic that began their existence as diabetes medications and are now hailed as wonder drugs for treating obesity. These drugs do the best job yet of controlling blood sugar and, of course, body weight, which is critical for those Type 2 diabetes, the common form of the disease that constitutes over 90 percent of cases and is associated with age and obesity. For type 1 diabetes, the acute condition that typically strikes in childhood and adolescence, new devices—continuous blood sugar monitors and automated insulin delivery systems—make blood sugar control easier than ever. Still more advanced devices and better drugs are in the pipeline.
But then there’s the flip-side. It’s why the pharmaceutical industry has invested so heavily in new therapies: Once a relatively rare condition, diabetes is now so common that drugstores dedicate entire aisles to it and television commercials for diabetic medications are common fare. In 1960, when the first concerted federal surveys were quantifying prevalence, two million Americans were living with a diabetes diagnosis. Today that number is 30 million; almost nine million more have diabetes but don’t yet know it. Each year, 1.4 million new cases are diagnosed and at ever younger ages.
Diabetes puts all of these individuals at increased risk of heart disease, strokes, cancer, blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage, gangrene, and lower limb amputation. It increases cognitive impairment and dementia risk as patients age. Living with diabetes still comes with a decrease in life expectancy of six years.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Why is so much of what the medical system believes not based on science?
This article paid for by Big Pharma and the Deep State.
Goal 1 - “diagnose” more and more people with diabetes sooner
Goal 2 - immediately put them on a continually escalating series of new drugs and keep them on them.
I always assumed it was we are taking in more and more high fructose corn syrup which leads to the disease.
Get rid of that and watch the disease nearly go away.
Did you actually read the article. This actually gives info that the way diabetes is treated is not correct.
Did you actually read the article. This actually gives info that the way diabetes is treated is not correct.
Ping
Yet, the food industry hasn’t found the market. Sugar Free and Keto friendly foods are hard to find. I think Big Pharma would rather we eat like we want and just take more meds to fix the insulin issue.
Yes I read it.
“The greatest challenge to better therapy, as one recent analysis suggested, is the hesitation of physicians to continue prescribing more or newer drugs and increasing dosages as the diseases progress.”
The other thing I notice is that they keep defining down High Blood Pressure from where it used to be. It couldn’t possible be to get more people of BP medication, could it?
I did see that. From what I’ve heard it’s the opposite. But it also exposes the fact that what they recommend to diabetics is not backed by science.
Bfl
You should have read ALL of it. Gary Taubes is NOT pushing drugs. He’s been a vocal proponent of treating diabetes with low carb diets for years. His 2008 book Good Calories, Bad Calories is what caused me to try going low carb - with huge health benefits that followed.
If his advice was promoted 15 years ago, a lot fewer people would ahve died during COVID.
Or people can go on a Keto or Atkins diet and skip the Big Pharma shots. I know a number of people who cut carbs and sugar and saw their diabetes clear up within a couple weeks.
Most diabetes in the US is caused by diet—and can be effectively reversed by diet.
But there’s not much of a role for pharma in that.
“If the diabetes community is to solve the formidable problems confronting it, even as drug therapies get ever more sophisticated, it will have to accept that some of its fundamental preconceptions about diabetes and diet may indeed be wrong. As it does so, it will have to provide support for those living with diabetes who decide that what theyhave been doing is not working.
Some patients, when confronted with the choice between following a restricted eating pattern that seemingly maximizes their health and wellbeing or eating whatever they want and treating the symptoms and complications with drug therapy, will prefer the former.”
He goes on to explain those who refuse to change their diets will still need treatment. Although it could be asked if they deserve treatment when they refuse an approach that works without spending $50,000+ on medicne.
I did a quick scan through the article. They seem to be saying that low carb diets are proving effective against diabetes but that the health establishment is being slow to adopt them as treatment, neither of which surprises me. IMO the diabetes epidemic is a symptom of the obesity epidemic, which in turn is a consequence of the carb centric diet that’s been pushed by the establishment for half a century now. Maybe one of these decades they’ll admit that the carb heavy food pyramid has been a disaster. The article states that currently 1 in 4 healthcare dollars are spent on treating diabetes — a stunning statistic.
bump for reference
Intermittent Fasting - only eat in an 8 hour window each day. Every once in a while skip an entire day or two of eating.
And when you do eat, don’t eat a couple dozen donuts - unless you’re a cop.
For type Ii the biggest challenge is people refusing to limit carb intake. No, carbs do not provide a single essential dietary requirement.
Entirely self inflicted for type Ii.
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