Posted on 10/20/2012 10:35:47 AM PDT by Innovative
A large federal study of whether diet and weight loss can prevent heart attacks and strokes in overweight and obese people with Type 2 diabetes has ended two years ahead of schedule because the intensive program did not help.
About 25 million Americans have Type 2 diabetes. Many are overweight or obese. On average, the disease increases heart disease risk by 2 to 2 1/2 times, said Dr. Ronald Kahn, chief academic officer at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
Dr. Nathan, though, said the results meant that people with diabetes might have a choice. The group assigned to diet and exercise ended up with about the same levels of cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar as those in the control group, but the dieters used fewer medications.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My mother-in-law lived into her early 80’s after a diabetes vertic in her 50’s without taking meds. She did it through diet.
She inherited the disease. She was super self disciplined and smart enough to figure out the food chemistry. I would guess not everyone is the same as her. Her body demanded insulin for a few years before she passed away.
Weight loss and exercise will affect the numbers, the surrogate measures of the disease, and so will the pills. However, no one has yet proved that making the numbers go in the right direction will alter the course of the disease in terms of morbidity and mortality. That would take decades, and no pharmaceutical company wants to run a study that long, so they go for results just in terms of the A1c or lower cholesterol.
The one large study done in the UK many years ago supposedly demonstrates a benefit, but it is measured in terms of reduction in relative risk which can be very deceiving. Also, they did a lot of massaging of the data to even show that small benefit.
There has not been one good study that has proved that weight loss will lengthen one’s life. People may want to lose weight (and most will not be successful in the long run) because it makes them feel better, etc. but there is no guarantee that it will make one live longer.
There is much more we don’t know about obesity and diabetes than we do know, but this deviates from Holy Writ concerning these conditions. People need to keep an open mind and see some real proof, not just in adjusting various numbers in tests, but actual benefit to the patient, before they swallow the accepted wisdom.
Recommend The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos (he is a bit of a lib and goes off on tangents at times, though) and any book by Dr. Nortin Hadler, MD. His latest on aging is excellent.
One more... Overdiagnosed by H. Gilbert Welch.
And the numbers went down, but were they any healthier? Such a drastic diet (starvation) is very hard on the heart, but I imagine if any of these poor souls keeled over of a heart attack in the months after this regimen, the death was blamed on the diabetes.
I doubt, too, that many of them were able to keep the weight off for long. Our bodies see diets, especially ones that drastic, as starvation and become that much more efficient at putting on fat stores and keeping them in case there’s another “famine”.
“However, no one has yet proved that making the numbers go in the right direction will alter the course of the disease in terms of morbidity and mortality. “
Exactly. See below:
Another interesting study:
Heart failure patients with diabetes may benefit from higher glucose levels
http://www.uclahealth.org/body.cfmid=561&action=detail&ref=1880
The researchers found that for the diabetic heart failure patients, two-year event-free survival was highest among patients with the highest elevated glycosylated hemoglobin levels: a 65 percent survival rate for patients with Level 4 (greater than 8.6 percent of the marker) and a 61 percent survival rate for those with Level 3 (7.3 - 8.5 percent of the marker).
Thanks! I also read a study that said weight gain was actually protective in type 2, because there were more cells to take up the excess circulating glucose.
You might like this site: www.junkfoodscience.blogspot.com
The lady who wrote the articles there doesn’t post any longer, but there are some great pieces on obesity, diabetes, bariatric surgery, etc.
The big breakthrough was not incremental - they stopped having type 2 diabetes. Here’s a more thorough article. Note three months after they returned to a normal diet, 7 of the 11 were still diabetes free.
The dramatic part was less the diet than the understanding that it was possible to cure diabetes, which had been previously believed was irreversible.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/229606.php
As an aside, there are a lot of highly unusual diets being devised right now, such as the very high fat, low carb diet (Ketogenic diet) for some neurological conditions, like a very hard to treat epilepsy.
could be that really morbidly obese people don’t move or do much of anything.....no stress on the heart...no stairs...no walks...no work.
don’t think this will help you but my black lab was overweight with a back end problem...she loved her chicken nuggets every time we went to a drive through....vet told me no more chicken nuggets if you want to give her a snack, feed her green beans....she went from 89 1/2 pounds to 79 1/2 pounds snacking on green beans and did it in less than 2 months.....Like I said, don’t know if this information will help or not :O)
What they call a cure is blood glucose and insulin production being at normal levels. That means the numbers look good. It does not mean that once these people return to normal eating that the ongoing differentiation of Beta cells has stopped. Scientists used to think Beta cells died, but they discovered that they changed their function.
As they patients age, their Beta cell function will continue to deteriorate and their diabetes will return (not that it was ever really cured). As of now, there is no permanent cure for diabetes. Not only that, but all the emphasis on just getting the numbers to look normal are lulling people into a false sense of security. If dieting and they hypoglycemic drugs work so well, why does virtually ever diabetic eventually have a progression of the disease?
As I said, there is much more they don’t know about diabetes than they do know.
I am flooding my body with sugars and starches, so that it finally gets over itself, gives up and stops being diabetic.
Exercise helps one live longer in a few ways.
1. A fit person is more mobile than an unfit person, which leads to his ability to be more independent longer.
2. Exercise helps keep the blood vessels clear, which contributes to less chances of heart attacks or strokes.
3. Prevention of falls. A person who has eaten well and exercised throughout his life will have stronger bones. It is my understanding that the biggest contributor to removing a senior’s ability to live a long life is falling and breaking their hips. Most don’t recover when they’ve suffered that sort of injury.
In short, exercise may not be a big factor in being able to live to 100, but it certainly contributes to an enjoyable life up until the moment of death.
OK. I’ve got some green beans in the freezer. I don’t eat too many chicken nuggets, though. It’s Popsicles for me.
“As I said, there is much more they don’t know about diabetes than they do know.”
I absolutely agree. Unfortunately, I don’t think that doctor’s do.
“In short, exercise may not be a big factor in being able to live to 100, but it certainly contributes to an enjoyable life up until the moment of death.”
I can agree with this, though I don’t necessarily agree with your points 1-3.
Exercise makes you feel better, probably somewhat good for you, but it doesn’t necessarily assure a long, healthy life.
I’ve known more than one person who exercised religiously, ate healthy, and died of a heart attack in their sixties.
I’m a few months away from 70. My grandmothers cooked with schmaltz, added chicken skin cracklings to everything meat based and sour cream and butter to everything dairy based. Both were prolific bakers and used pounds of butter per week.
They were both obese even though they were born in the 19th century and gardened, cooked and baked from scratch, sewed, did their own cleaning. They did not exercise or even walk much. They both developed Type 2 and died of stroke or heart attack in their 50s/early 60’s. One smoked. The daughter of the one who dies at 60, my mother, is still alive at 95 and smoked for 20 years. My Dad was always a good weight, never exercised much after the 1950s and died of a heart attack (his 3rd) at 84. He smoked for 55 years.
My mother did not garden, did not exercise after 40 and cooked the same way as her mother, with a few years of low fat in the mix. The Depression did not mean starvation for my family. I’d say they had an overabundance of leisure expressed in weekly card games, including afternoon Canasta and Ma Johng and evening poker, parties, *functions*, movies, the occasional cruise or casino outings, winters in Arizona.
None of my sibs or surviving cousins are fat or have Type 2.
We are all 65-73 and were more active aged 30-65 than our parents. We have abundance and some have it in spades. The ones who are dead died young of specific diseases beyond lifestyle control.
I think it is just the luck of the draw.
No where in this study did they incorporate nutritional solutions such as alpha lipoic acid, berberine, resveratrol, Gymnema sylvestre, antioxident vitamins, curcumin, etc.
I believe many of the drugs previously prescribed for other ailments add to the rise of diabetes in people because of their depleting action of essential nutrients. And.. I also believe that the cause of those other ailments was because our bodies have been deprived of necessary nutrients for much of our lives.
The more I study and experiment with my own ailments, the more convinced that I’m on the right track.
Found a treasure trove of info here!
http://www.fatnutritionist.com/index.php/articles-evidence/
I haven’t had time to even begin to wade through all of it.
Thanks for the link. I’ll save it and check it out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.