About the Diabetes Epidemic

I’ve chosen the “Diabetes Epidemic” as my first Blog Entry for 2006 because I believe it is topic in desperate need of perspective.
Just like you I am concerned and unhappy when I read the statistics and just like you I’d like to do something about it. I believe you need to know as much as I do about it in order to protect yourselves and thus here is what I have to offer you on the topic of diabetes.

1. Diabetes has been a public health problem for the 30 + years I have been a physician so I am baffled as to why suddenly it has become an epidemic. Any physician trained in the inner city like I was (Brooklyn, NY) knew in the 1970s that under privileged communities had poor eating habits, access to mostly canned, preserved and high trans fat and high calorie fast foods. The same population had no access to or information about the value of exercise and lived continuously under high levels of stress and fear. The high risk population I am referring to included primarily African Americans, Latino and immigrants. In the 1970s, this population was the first to get numerous diabetes drugs and all insulin formulations. Nothing much has changed. To this day, it is in the inner city where most drugs get their first runs after FDA approval. “Drugs before lifestyle changes” should the motto for conventional medical treatment of the poor.

2. With the fattening of America (see Greg Critser’s book “Fat Land”), the dietary horror staple of the poor inner city population has expanded to permeate all levels of society from rural to middle, to upper income families. The disintegration of the American family, heralded by the economic need for both parents to work, steered the eating culture even more toward fast food; no more home cooked family dinner and certainly no healthy fresh or organic foods. In the 1980s and 1990s the whole country through their local supermarket was turned into a society of processed, chemicals, hormones and antibiotics laden foods in microwaveable packages. Translated into medical terms, as Americans got fatter and spent more time at McDonalds and less time cooking or teaching their children how to prepare foods and enjoy sit-down dinners, everyone got fat and diabetes spread deeper into American society.

3. Finally, the ADA (American Diabetes Association and other conventional diabetes education and treatment venues) grew out of the need not to prevent diabetes but rather to diagnose and treat it. Once diabetes is diagnosed, and believe me, conventional doctors are trained to dig for as long as it takes to diagnose diabetes (and any other disease for that matter), the patient is referred to these organizations first to get scared out of their wits about the long-term effects of untreated diabetes and then given medications and foods that only worsen the situation, Not to mention the “need” to measure blood sugar levels obsessively throughout the day.

I have never met a diabetic in my conventional medical practice who got cured of diabetes or stopped taking medication by following the ADA or my conventional advice.
Enough about the negatives!

Diabetes does not have to be a terminal chronic disease with devastating long term effects. Diabetes or better yet, overweight and occasionally elevated blood sugar, must become a warning sign that the diet you are on is bad for you and that you are not exercising enough.
If your family history, genetics and socioeconomics are also against you, you are best  prepared if you resolve to prevent rather than wait to be diagnosed with diabetes.

To better illustrate where I’m going let me tell you this true story.

A close work relation of mine is from India. He lives with his family and his mother and wife cook at home. Most of the food is cooked in oil and fried. Much of it is bought in cans and soda is a staple.
Over a period of 3 years this young man gained 25 pounds and did not exercise. It isn’t part of his culture.  He developed heart disease and diabetes at the age of 30.  After cardiac catheterization and a stent, he was placed on multiple medications.
Because he works with me, I got involved and encouraged him to go on a healthy diet and start walking 30 minutes a day.

Within 2 months his blood sugar normalized and he went off the diabetic medication.

He lost 20 pounds and felt great again.

Now and then he goes to India or eats too much home made fried and prepared food, but he understands the cause and effect and is determined to never become a conventional diabetic again, or need to take medication to lower his blood sugar. He told me he hated how it made him feel foggy and unfocused.

Not everyone has access to a mother/doctor who will not accept disease, medication and infirmity as life’s natural progressions as part of their every day life.
However, we all have access to the news, to books and information that tell us a different story than what most conventional doctors do.

Diabetes is in epidemic mode because too many people listen to conventional scare tactics and not enough people listen to common sense advice and even fewer people want to take responsibility for being healthy.

I want to still believe that people want the simple advice that works and that deep inside we all know drugs and bad foods aren’t good for us.

Please put this good advice to the test and see if you still need medication or an ADA counselor in your life after a couple of months of serious commitment to your health.

1. Stop drinking soda; diet, regular, any kind.
2. Eliminate all sugar substitutes form your diet- aspartame, Splenda, everything.
3. Stop eating fast foods
4. Stop adding pre-prepared salad dressings to your salads. Use olive oil, red wine vinegar or lemon and little salt and pepper.
5. Stop eating cheese and milk past the age of 25.
6. Eliminate fried foods.
7. Stop eating canned foods.
8. Drink water and green tea and drink a lot of it.
9. Start moving. Exercise is optional. Just get off the couch and move. Move for 30 minutes a day.
10. Get 6-8 hours of sleep a night.

If you do the above consistently and you still have diabetes, you do need medication, but I am not sure you are part of an epidemic. You may just be a person with diabetes.