Posted on 09/12/2009 12:56:41 PM PDT by neverdem
It would be entirely fitting for Congress to rekindle the "war on cancer" in response to the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), but another disease worthy of a war is diabetes.
Cancer kills more people each year - 560,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 233,600 for diabetes and its complications.
But the CDC estimates that the diabetes figures are hugely underreported and that the actual numbers may be 65 percent higher, or 386,000.
Kennedy's death from glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, is one reason for a renewed attack on cancer.
But, as Gina Kolata pointed out in an illuminating article in the New York Times, Kennedy called for a cancer war months before President Richard Nixon declared it in his 1971 State of the Union message.
Kennedy advocated a larger research budget than Nixon's and enhanced status for the National Cancer Institute - ideas Nixon agreed to support as long as Kennedy's name was not on the bill.
Kennedy agreed and Nixon signed a cancer bill in December 1971. Cancer has received one of the largest budgets at the National Institutes of Health ever since, but clearly it is still not conquered.
The reason for a war on diabetes is that, like some cancers, Type 2 diabetes - the most prevalent type - is heavily a "lifestyle disease" resulting from overeating and lack of activity. Therefore, it's preventable...
--snip--
If a "war on diabetes" were declared, it ought to begin with a war on obesity, the epidemic most responsible for rising incidence of Type 2 diabetes among both adults and, increasingly, children.
In 1980, the CDC estimated that 47 percent of U.S. adults were overweight. In 2006, it was an astounding 66 percent, and 34 percent were obese - 72 million people.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
We have the means, motive and opportunity as explained in the following paper if you can understand the biochemistry.
Fructose, insulin resistance, and metabolic dyslipidemia
Obesity and type 2 diabetes are occurring at epidemic rates in the United States and many parts of the world. The "obesity epidemic" appears to have emerged largely from changes in our diet and reduced physical activity. An important but not well-appreciated dietary change has been the substantial increase in the amount of dietary fructose consumption from high intake of sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, a common sweetener used in the food industry. A high flux of fructose to the liver, the main organ capable of metabolizing this simple carbohydrate, perturbs glucose metabolism and glucose uptake pathways, and leads to a significantly enhanced rate of de novo lipogenesis and triglyceride (TG) synthesis, driven by the high flux of glycerol and acyl portions of TG molecules from fructose catabolism. These metabolic disturbances appear to underlie the induction of insulin resistance commonly observed with high fructose feeding in both humans and animal models. Fructose-induced insulin resistant states are commonly characterized by a profound metabolic dyslipidemia, which appears to result from hepatic and intestinal overproduction of atherogenic lipoprotein particles. Thus, emerging evidence from recent epidemiological and biochemical studies clearly suggests that the high dietary intake of fructose has rapidly become an important causative factor in the development of the metabolic syndrome. There is an urgent need for increased public awareness of the risks associated with high fructose consumption and greater efforts should be made to curb the supplementation of packaged foods with high fructose additives. The present review will discuss the trends in fructose consumption, the metabolic consequences of increased fructose intake, and the molecular mechanisms leading to fructose-induced lipogenesis, insulin resistance and metabolic dyslipidemia.
There's no doubt overeating and lack of exercise play some part, but it's high time to find out if HFCS plays a part in obesity, type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. If it is then we can at least stop the subsidies, if not tax it.
There is the unfortunate world legacy of slavery tied to production of cane sugar (and sugar cane grows only in the tropics).
There is the production of sucrose from beet sugar (sugar beets can be grown under a much wider range of climactic conditions than cane sugar). Both beet and cane sugar have their production tied to international import treaties.
Finally, there is the production of HFCS from American corn, which has its own set of problems. HFCS is apparently cheaper to produce (from corn starch) than sucrose from beets or sugar cane.
The corn lobby corn.org would have you believe HFCS is harmless.
http://www.sweetsurprise.com/myths-and-facts/faqs-high-fructose-corn-syrup?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=high%2Bfructose%2Bcorn%2Bsyrup&utm_content=HFCS%2BFacts&utm_campaign=HFCS%2BFacts&gclid=CP-BrOHu7JwCFSn6agodnVBrjQ
I think in memory of Fat Teddy there should be a renewed effort to make single women aware of the dangers of suffocating to death in submerged cars after drunken Senators ‘jump that bridge when they get to it’.
Yeah, not original but it’s relevant.
UH...I don’t think the “greenies” will like a “war on diabetes”.....the cure for a lot of diabetics (Type 2) is high PROTEIN ... as in....MEAT, FISH, CHICKEN, NUTS, etc.....not carbs.
We would be much better off if ALL the carbs raised in this country were fed to cattle ~ specifically reindeer(elk) ~ and pigs.
True enough the "lifestyle" can make it worse ~ but exercise and a correct high protein, high fat natural game diet (plus pork) can make it better!
So I propose a WAR ON CARBS. Turn everything the animals can't eat into alcohol for our SUVs in fact, or to run the factories that make our guns and ammo to hunt down our natural food ~ the reindeer!P>The vegetarians will simply have to get along on their own, but I bet there's a disease that afflicts people who can't get all the carbs they think they need who persist in rejecting our natural foods ~ I think it's called STARVATION.
This nanny stater should shove his opinion up his a$$ and mind his own business.
Perhaps I’ll be in a better mood and more affable after we win the war on poverty and the war on drugs.
Going on 45 years now for the war on poverty and the government says there is more poverty than ever.
I shudder to think what a new war on diabetes would get us.
I'm negotiating a treaty with chocolate.
Chocolate is good stuff. Just as long as it is >70% cocoa.
Subsequent discoveries have demonstrated that there is a large body of people who are, as yet, undiagnosed, but not that this gene driven problem is "increasing".
It doesn't need to increase either provided you stick to the diet God gave you ~ reindeer, seal, root crops, lingonberries.
What this is really about is a war on fat people (as if they are not stigmatized enough).
The “experts” can’t even agree on how to fight type 2 diabetes. Some say low carb, some low fat/cal, use this med or that one, etc.
BTW, nobody has demonstrated that any particular treatment modality has any better LONG TERM effects than any other. Many things can bring down the numbers, if lower numbers are all that you want, but nobody has yet been able to prove that lower numbers mean fewer serious complications over the years.
Tight control has shown benefits for type 1 diabetics, but not for type 2. In fact in the studies in which tight control of blood sugar numbers was the goal for type 2s, the results were not good. There were many episodes of hypoglycemia (dangerous and possibly with future harmful effects) and more deaths.
Type 2 has a strong genetic aspect, there are some type 2s who are not overweight, and it is possible that it is the diabetes that causes the weight gain - not the other way around.
Finally, as we age, we all tend to get heavier and our blood pressure and blood glucose numbers rise. With Boomers entering the “golden” years and the health nannies constantly lowering the threshold for what they consider to be unhealthy weight and blood sugar numbers, it won’t be long until we will all be considered to be overweight and diabetic!
In the book, Rethinking Thin, there is a fascinating history of dieting and society’s war on fat folks. A leading health authority in the 1920s stated that 75% of Americans were overweight! Today, they say the same thing. The health nazis never get tired of nagging people and telling them how to live
their lives.
Until they can all agree and show me some proof that what they advise works and is safe, they can shut up and go away.
Books: Rethinking Thin; Worried Sick; The Healthy Skeptic
article: If There is No Benefit, Why Tolerate Any Risk? by Nortin Hadler at abcnews.com
blog: junkfoodscience.blogspot.com
later.
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