The Medical Mind and Type 2 Diabetes

October 18, 2007

"Them Bones, Them bones Gonna Rise again. Them Bones, Them Bones Gonna..."

An irrelevant little hymnal for this post, but it got stuck in my head as I prepared to write this blog.

This recent article in the NY Times about diabetes and how the skeleton affects it while interesting, showed the true depth of stupidity that the medical mind can sink to.

A couple of things: Turns out that our bones play a role in regulating blood sugar. A hormone called 'osteocalcin' (osteo for bone and calcin for calcium) seems to be affected when type 2 diabetes rears it's ugly head. A nice finding. Seems that the body produces and secretes this hormone and together with the rest of the body working in harmony, blood sugar is kept in check.

"If osteocalcin works similarly in humans, it could turn out to be a “unique new treatment” for Type 2 diabetes, Dr. Malozowski said. (Most current diabetes drugs either raise insulin production or improve insulin sensitivity, but not both. Drugs that increase production tend to make insulin resistance worse.)"

Hey yeah! A new drug! Eureka! But wait now - what about eating a low sugar diet so that we don't need to work our skeleton and pancreas to death causing the problem in the first place - NAH!

And Land Ho - current diabetes drugs raise insulin levels making resistance WORSE?! And these are administered? But the medical mind won't be deterred.

"The defining feature of diabetes is elevated blood sugar. But the reasons for abnormal sugar seem to “differ tremendously from person to person,” said Dr. Robert A. Rizza, a professor at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine."

Differ tremendously? How different could it be? Insulin insensitivity is insulin insensitivity. There are so many confounding factors that could confuse this issue making it seem as if there are such varied differences it's astounding. But let's make something fairly simple really complicated.

Type 2 diabetes is primarily an outcome of eating too much sugar over a long enough period of time (which usually develops into obesity). Some people may have a better pancreas than others and take longer to cause the disorder (I use the term disorder because it is self inflicted - type 2 diabetes is NOT a disease) but the cause of the disorder is ultimately the same for everyone.

In other words, type 2 diabetes doesn't just happen - it is created by the person. I suppose the same could be said for almost any "disease" as well.

If all a person ate was meat, fish, eggs, colorful vegetables and some seasonal fruit, type 2 diabetes would essentially vanish. There you have it.

They have also unearthed another nasty little factoid about obesity - the body produces an overabundance of 'macrophages' (of which there are good ones and bad ones) which can lead to excessive inflammation.   

Here's the medical mind conclusion:

“Certain cellular anti-inflammatory proteins may now be important new targets for drug discovery for diabetes treatment,”

How about just eating right? Too simple. No money in that.

The article ends:

“The picture is becoming more and more complicated,” Dr. Saltiel said. “And let’s face it, it was pretty complicated before.”

Actually it's really simple. While it is great to study the complexity of the problem learning all there is to know about how the body works in all of it's varied systems, the solution to type 2 diabetes is a cinch.

But the medical mind keeps complicating the issue, making it worse and keeping you FROM getting better. 

If you have type 2 diabetes or know someone who does, the answer is not waiting for a drug to save you. The answer is right in front of your very eyes - and you know it.

    

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