My father-in-law has Type 2 diabetes, but is on drugs, not yet on insulin (except for his recent time with COVID). He eats pizza, milk, Pepsi, and candy, but won’t eat vegetables. There are no supplements or drugs that can undo such habits. His blood pressure is uncontrolled. So much of this points back to his eating habits and a lack of exercise. It’s been this way for at least a handful of years.
Type 2 diabetes is capable of being put into remission and even reversed. Doctors knew this could be done before the advent of insulin, with a low carb strict diet allowing diabetics to live. Additionally, the American Diabetic Association in the early 2000s admitted low carb diets stopped diabetes cold, but refused to ever encourage such a diet because it was harder than the high carb diet with medicines (which just make you get worse, more slowly).
Please do what you can to minimize your diabetic risk. It is preventable.
Perhaps for some, but not for others. I am 62, 6'2", 215 lb., 36 waist. I exercise at least 30 minutes every day and often 60 to 90 minutes per workout (cardio every day and weights 2x per week). I am not fat. We eat very well (mostly home-cooked meals) because my wife is a Type 1 diabetic. And yet, I must now take meds to keep the blood sugar in check.
Do the opposite of what the FDA tells you and you’ll never be diabetic. Type2 is mostly caused by processed foods.
“Pepsi”
Any chance you could get your father-in-law interested in “Diet” or “Zero Sugar” drinks as a kind of intermediate step? They’re tasty. Artificial sweeteners can be problematic though, in that they can get us craving sweets at other times. My health and weight improved years ago when I gave up sugary drinks. When at times I have given up even the diet drinks and switched to mostly only water, my weight improves even more. Seen so many people drop weight when they get what they drink correct. Not the full story but quite a start. At least see if you can get him to give up caffeine in soft drinks. Can be a couple or three unpleasant days when going off sugary soft drinks, maybe stomach upset. But worth it. I try to use Lent to get my appetites under control. I don’t care much for vegetables either but if they’re a part of something I like, like beef stew, will eat them.
My husband is the same way. He has stopped drinking soda, but refuses to eat non starchy veggies.
Looking at the raw numbers of cases tells you little. You need to look at the rate - number of cases per a fixed number, e.g., 100,00 or 10,000.
As the population increases of course you will get more cases. Duh. As the population increases with illegals from our southern border, of course the raw number of cases of diabetes will increase. They are very susceptible to diabetes and untreated diabetes.
If you track them on a time scale, the rise in diabetes in the US tracks right along with the government’s adoption of the Food Pyramid recommendations on diet.
High consumption of carbohydrates is likely the culprit. And not just sugar and HFCS - bread, grains, rice, potatoes - they all contribute.
At 79, I have been diagnosed as Type II diabetic for 12 years or more.
Recently, in late December my labs indicated a precipitous A1c drop from 6.5 to 5.1 an all time low. I was taken off metformin. I began taking my fasting blood sugar in the morning and for 10 days it was less than a hundred. In recent years it was in the range of say 135 which is less than the former 140 type II threshold.
Type II diabetes is in my experience a disease of lab numbers. The original diagnosis was made on the basis of blood sugar of 140 in two 6 month tests. There are no real symptoms.
What happened? I have no clue
Does your father-in-law demand you wear a mask?
Sugar is a drug to many people. During the pandemic, people will turn to what comforts them. It’s easy to become addicted when a majority of our food has added sugar.
It’s like glo-bull warming. You shutter all the coal plants, kill the pipelines, and then the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano, erupts undoing everything man had done.
You restrict your diet, eat only healthy greens and bean sprouts, exercise, then drop dead from cancer.
Also genetics has more to do with longevity than lifestyle.
Bad genes... you are gonna die earlier no matter how much tofu you eat. It’s worth the 5 minutes.
You do all this “healthy” stuff so you live an extra 5 minutes?
Hey, I get it. I use insulin, have well controlled high blood pressure (drugs), avoid sugar, high fructose corn syrup (I only use honey), eat 100% whole wheat bread, take a variety of supplements, but if I occasionally want a piece of pie or cheesecake, damn it, I’m gonna have it!
“such as promoting consumption of healthier foods, ensuring paid maternal leave from the workplace, levying taxes on sugary drinks”
and when that doesn’t do a damn thing, the fascist left will eventually move to pretty much banning all foods except organic, free-range, gluten-free, Soylent Green at a cost of $25/lb ...
People have to get off their fat ass and move.