ADA Alert Day: High Glucose in the Blood

Thanks for your comment, Guest. It definitely adds another dimension to the post, which is still open here. I will update it with the hyperglycemia correction.

Admittedly, I usually shy away from writing about medical issues as its very easy to get something wrong or not get detailed enough if you're not in the medical field (I'm not).

However, I think diabetes awareness is a very important issue as it affects some of my loved ones personally -- as I'm sure it does many others as well. I appreciate comments like yours that fill in the gaps and catches inaccuracies -- knowledgeable people are part of the reason CR4 is such a great place.

Thanks again!

Guest here, again.

In the 1960's it was rare to know someone with diabetes. In the 1970's you knew of someone with diabetes. In the 1980's you knew someone with diabetes. In the 1990's you were related (by marriage) to someone with diabetes. By the start of the 21st century, you were related to someone with diabetes. In this decade, you have a 20 to 25% chance of developing diabetes. Also to come, there will be a 50-50 chance your children will be diabetic. And at an early age.

Sharkles, it's a disease that affects everyone and our progeny. Since our metabolisms aren't keeping up with glucose intake or production naturally, an engineering solution is necessary. Over 25 million Americans are at or close to a diagnosis of diabetes. Whatever solutions we come up with will not be spent on a few but may be necessary for long term survival.

Guest,

I appreciate your input on the topic. I do disagree with your statement "our metabolisms aren't keeping up with glucose intake or production naturally, an engineering solution is necessary." though. Our metabolism is highly influenced by the composition of our diet. Our ancestors did not consume the highly processed foods and carbohydrates that are common in the majority of diets today.

What has changed in the last 40 years? Dietary fat was deemed to be dangerous, carbohydrate intake increased, and low and behold there is has been a steady increase in obesity rates and diabetes since then. There are many documented cases of isolated societies (island, remote jungle areas, etc.) where diabetes, heart disease and other diseases of civilization are vitually unheard of.....along comes civilization and within a generation or so, diabetes, heart disease, etc. start showing up in similar rates to the more civilized world.

I guess I would rather see a change to a lower carbohydrate diet as opposed to an engineering solution. Now if by 'engineering solution' you mean a way to inexpensively produce and distribute low carbohydrate foods, then I would agree.

About time to reduce intake of Junk Food by 90% and replace it with Home-cook Organic Food. Prevention is still the best antidote, thus no need to seek irrelevant cure then.

? Are you implying that "Junk food" is inorganic?

Funny thing about organic food is that in order to provide fertilizer they must use substantial amounts of manure, and not chicken manure as that is not considered acceptable under organic grown definition. So they typically use manure from source typically cattle, maybe pig, both of which comprise a primary source of E coli and other infectious bacteria. Almost every case of E coli infections has arisen because the product was contaminated by fecal material from humans or cattle. Additionally, many of the cases related to liquids were caused by the product not being homogenized, in order to maintain organic "healthy" quality.

Believe it or not, coming from a farming family I already know that behind the japanese, McDonalds has some of the highest produce quality standards you can find. whereas organic growers typically produce foods of poor quality control on purpose to achive the " natural" quality buyer expect, and only have to make sure not to use certain pesticide/herbicides and fertilizers (some are deemed acceptable, though from a chemical stand point there is not real distinction except in quality control of the product used).

In addition, the manures organic acids tend to form chelating agents that mobilize orders of magnitude greate concentrations of resident heavy metals from the naturally occurring minerals in the soils and the plants will bio-accumulate these heavy metals (This is actually a method we use to remediate metals contaminated soils). So if you live in an area where certain metals minerals occur, which are generally found in highly insoluble sulfide forms, the organic agriculture process can contribute to oxidate (increasing mobility), and then chelation (greatly further increasing mobility) allowing for a very high level of bio accumulation of metals, e.g. lead or mercury.

A few years I read an article about E coli and foods. Grass is the natural diet of cattle, not grain. Of course the cattle industry mostly utilize grains to fatten and grow their cattle. A down side of this is that it increases the E coli (O 157:H7) in the manure.

Here's a quote from the article "A number of studies have shown that switching cattle from grains to roughage (grass or hay) drastically reduces the amount of E. coli O157:H7 in their manure". Also here is a link to the article http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/good-eating/another-reason-to-eat-grass-fed-beef/

With all that in mind, I do not know if in order to be "certified" organic producers have to use manure from grass fed cows or not. I, also, am not aware if there are even organic growers who attempt to do so.

25 million close to a diagnostic condition of diabetes divided by 300 million does not equal 50/50 chance of childhood diabetes, especially since it is so prevalent amongst older persons in our society. However, even if it was a equal distribution through society it would still be less than 10% probability in childhood.

So the question is how do you come up with a probability of 20% to 25% of adults developing diabetes and 50% chance of children developing diabetes. I think ther is something fishy about your supposed statistics.