Atkins was right

On Sun, 11 Apr 2004 12:07:44 -0400, Jackie Patti
wrote:

Many people here are not frankly diabetic like me. But many are "on the
way" to diabetes and will end up there if they don't eat low-carb.

Wrong...As you know diabetes is brought on by genetics. Eating crap
and being pre-disposed, can bring it on faster. Eating crap with no
pre-disposition will not make one a diabetic. Diabetes is scary
enough, without using further scare tactics.

Sleepy

____________________________________
The True Axis of Evil
Bush - Cheney - Ashcroft - Rumsfeld
____________________________________

Sleepyman wrote:

On Sun, 11 Apr 2004 12:07:44 -0400, Jackie Patti
wrote:

Many people here are not frankly diabetic like me. But many are "on the
way" to diabetes and will end up there if they don't eat low-carb.

Wrong...As you know diabetes is brought on by genetics. Eating crap
and being pre-disposed, can bring it on faster. Eating crap with no
pre-disposition will not make one a diabetic. Diabetes is scary
enough, without using further scare tactics.

It's not scare tactics to say that people who are predisposed are much
more likely to get there if they eat a high carb diet. I think that
people who are extremely successful using low-carb for dieting are
likely to be pre-diabetics. Certainly not all of them, but a large
chunk of them.

Eat a candy bar and find yourself hungrier than ever an hour later?
That's a blood sugar issue, even if the person still passes a GTT and
doesn't technically qualify as diabetic. If they keep eating candy bars
on a regular basis, they're damned well going to fail a GTT sooner or later.

It's not scare tactics to point out that people predisposed to diabetes
need to eat carefully if they don't want their health to deteriorate
anymre than it's scare tactics to tell someone to wear a condom if
they're screwing around. Diabetes is a hell of a lot more serious than
just losing a few pounds to look and feel better; there's real and
*serious* health reasons to do low-carb.

I have *never* stated low-carb was the be-all and end-all diet for
everyone.

Heck, I still bake homemade bread for my husband - and even the
occassional sugar-laden dessert. He grew up in a cake bakery eating
insane amounts of sugar - if he were going to be diabetic, he would be
by now! I just mentioned to him earlier when we were sharing childhood
Easter memories, if I'd grown up in his family, I'd probably have been
diabetic before puberty.

But to say that low-carb *only* benefits diabetics is wrong, for the
reasons I stated, that many diabetics don't *know* they're diabetic and
that many whom are pre-diabetics don't know that either. Both those who
are frankly diabetic, if undiagnosed, and those who are pre-disposed to
diabetes would benefit from a low-carb diet, for much more important
reasons than weight loss.

--
Newbie tip: Read the FAQ. It's posted here daily, contains tons of
great info on low-carbing and lots of links to more great info and tons
of recipes too!

April Goodwin-Smith wrote:

Jackie Patti wrote:
snip

Neither archeological studies nor population studies have
anything to do with what is good for me.

I do believe this is sig material. May I?

Sure.

I'm becoming a meme. Or mebbe a virus.

--
Newbie tip: Read the FAQ. It's posted here daily, contains tons of
great info on low-carbing and lots of links to more great info and tons
of recipes too!

Jackie Patti wrote:
snip

Neither archeological studies nor population studies have
anything to do with what is good for me.



I do believe this is sig material. May I?

April.
Put out the cat.
--
"Things that try to look like things often do look more
like things than things. Well known fact."
Esmerelda Weatherwax (Pratchett 1988)

"Sleepyman" wrote ...
Jackie Patti wrote:

Many people here are not frankly diabetic like me. But many are "on the
way" to diabetes and will end up there if they don't eat low-carb.

Wrong...As you know diabetes is brought on by genetics. Eating crap
and being pre-disposed, can bring it on faster. Eating crap with no
pre-disposition will not make one a diabetic. Diabetes is scary
enough, without using further scare tactics.

So the medical fraternity go on about the obesity epidemic and diabetes
epidemic, telling us that being obese will give us diabetes.

Are you saying that this only the case if you're genetically predisposed to
diabetes in the first place?

And does that mean we're breeding more and more people with that genetic
predisposition to diabetes?

So if I, with insulin resistance, had continued to eat crap and get fatter
was I guaranteed to get full blown diabetes in the future?

Enquiring minds want to know.

cheers
Rachel
(New Zealand)

Supergoof wrote:

So the medical fraternity go on about the obesity epidemic and diabetes
epidemic, telling us that being obese will give us diabetes.

Yeah, I think that is backwards... I think insulin resistance causes
obesity.


Are you saying that this only the case if you're genetically predisposed to
diabetes in the first place?

Sure.

We all know people, like my husband, who grew up eating insane amounts
of sugar and don't have blood sugar problems. I mean, he grew up in a
bakery. He ate cake *every* day. And then his mom had to do soemthing
special on top of that for holidays!

He can still eat an incredible amount of sugar, like... 2 packages of
pudding at a sitting (what is supposedly 8 servings). He's almost 40
and been eating like this for years and has very good blood sugar control.

He's missing the predisposition.


And does that mean we're breeding more and more people with that genetic
predisposition to diabetes?

I don't think so. I think we've probably always had the same proportion
of people susceptible to diabetes, but a worsening of the average diet
means more people actually develop it.

NOTE: I am making numbers up in the following example, I don't have real
numbers. They're just for illustraiton purposes.

I don't know what percentage that is, but just for the sake of example,
let's assume it's 50% of the people susceptible to diabetes.

OK, suppose we raise those people on the diet I was raised on, which was
a mostly healthy diet with a requirement to eat veggies daily and
dessert being a rare thing, but an unfortunate amount of bread and
pasta. We get maybe 30% of the population with frank diabetes before
age 30 on that diet.

Now suppose we take those same people and raise them on the cake diet my
hubby grew up with. I bet we'd get closer to the full 50% susceptible
developing it by age 30, and a much higher percentage developing it
earlier still. IMO, this is where childhood type 2's are coming from...
they're people that would've probably developed type 2 eventually
anyway, but are getting it 20 years earlier than used to be the case due
to a deterioration in diet.

Now think about going in the opposite direction... imagine a low-carb
diet were the average diet. You might only see 10% with diabetes at age
30. The same percentage of people would be susceptible to diabetes, but
some of them might not deteriorate to that degree until they were older.
And some would die of other causes before they ever actually "got" to
diabetes.

Now... it's still quite true that those folks who are *not* susceptile
to diabetes are not going to develop it regardless of how much sugar
they eat, short of a major immune disaster. That "other" 50% of the
population doesn't get diabetes no matter what they eat.


So if I, with insulin resistance, had continued to eat crap and get fatter
was I guaranteed to get full blown diabetes in the future?

Ummm... yeah. "Guaranteed" seems the wrong word though.

If you keep spiking your blood sugar, you increase your insulin
resistance and decrease your insulin production, basically your health
deteriorating towards the flatout diagnosis.

Insulin resistance *is* diabetes, it's just a matter of extreme. It's
like... being 40 pounds overweight versus 80 lbs overweight - both are
the same problem, just one is more extreme than another.


--
Newbie tip: Read the FAQ. It's posted here daily, contains tons of
great info on low-carbing and lots of links to more great info and tons
of recipes too!

"Crafting Mom" wrote in message
...
As someone who spent years blaming my overeating on psychological and
emotional issues, and thinking "Oh I am still tempted to overeat, I must
not have resolved my 'issues'", it eventually got OLD after a while.

That's why I think dealing with obesity is a multi-approach issue. Doing the
all psychological approach is as bad as doing the all diet approach. Some
people do have a biological tendency to be fat, but I don't think that many
people can break the 300lbs mark only with their biological background.

Too many ways of eating focus on that and it's tiresome and so
Oprah-ish.

Oprah doesn't have much to do with real psychology...

I learned I was eating the wrong TYPES of foods for my own
body. Everybody's body reacts *differently* to certain foods.

That might be explained on the psychological level as well, or a combination
of both. Like, you found food that was easier to deal with on both
psychological and biological level. Such a level of obesity as we are
experiencing now is still fairly new. It's much newer than the habit of
eating bread and sugars. Most of all, extreme obesity (the one that is
really harmfull, being merely overweight is just an esthetic issue) is
something pretty new on such a large scale. There are many sociological or
behavioural changes that can also explain this (fast food, disappearance of
the traditionnal meal, eating in front of the TV...).
From what I read here, many people on low carb *also* make behavioural
changes. So, it's hard to see where the results come from. We will have to
weight till low carb fast foods and low carb takeaway become the norm to see
the weight the behavioural changes carried.

My husband is a prime example. He can eat a chocolate bar, feel satisfied,
and then NOT hungry after. I on the other hand, if I were to eat that
same chocolate bar, I'd feel ravenously hungry and my body would feel
INTENSE urges to eat more. Two different people, same food, two
different reactions... whoda thunk?

This doesn't tell *why* you have the different reaction. That might be that
your husband doesn't consider chocolate as taboo, and doesn't go into
desinhibition when he eats some.
FYI, I *am* diabetic. Yet, post meal cravings used to happen with any kind
of food, not just carbs. I managed that with cheese, meat, eggs or whatever.
But I spent last month doing some meals "exercises". Single food meals, for
four lunches in a row. I did that with (real) chocolate, French fries,
cheese. I found out that I do reach a decent satiety level with chocolate,
though there is some latency. Right after eating 100g of chocolate, I do
still feel slightly hungry, but I really feel full 15 minutes afterwards.
Likewise, when I focussed on what I was eating, I experienced similar
satiety levels with French fries (came really quick) or cheese (somewhat
slower). In all these cases, I experienced no special urges until well into
late afternoon. What I changed was my attitude towards the food while I was
eating.
And for those who are thinking it was a kind of suicide in relation to my
diabete, I ended that month of exercise with my A1C 1.6% lower than its
start of the month value (almost in the normal range now). My loss of weight
rate also remained perfectly normal.

Finally, a diet that attacks one of the biological sources of
overeating. Just take away the starchy foods and refined sugars and
bada bing, I don't need to go through a "psychological assessment" every
time I want to eat something.

That's an issue many low carbers differ on. Some say whole grain is ok,
others don't. Some say carbs should be close to nill, others actually eat a
decent amount of them. Some say no to fruits, some don't.
I can agree with the most moderate of them (whole grain in decent
quantities, fruits), because it's not really low carb to me, but rather
balanced actually. I mean, *I* also try to cut highly glycemic meals. To
some people, low carb just means NOT low fat, which is a good thing (this
translates into lowered glycemic indexes, fats slows down digestions, and
low fat is just stupid anyway). But then, the newsgroup title is a misnomer,
it should be alt.support.diet.low-glycemic-index or something like this.

Not to mention over a dozen chronic health complaints I used to suffer
from are GONE.

But you did lose weight, didn't you? You also exercise, right? These two can
already improve things a lot on their own. Both also reduce
insulino-resistance.
I lost 30+ lbs until now and I do some level of exercising. I never really
had bad health, but some minor issues, like joint pains, are gone.
Cholesterol and triglycerides are gone, glycemia is under decent control.
Yet, I didn't really change my diet (except in total amount and I stopped
eating sugar by the spoonfull).

And I don't eat "more food". I actually, now that I think of all the
years never actually wanted "more food". I never EVER wanted the
freedom to "eat all I want". I just wanted to eat, feel the resulting
satisfaction, and move on with other daily activities.

Same here.

My low-carb diet is a perfect fit for MY BODY. Whether or not other
people eat differently, or expect ME to eat differently is simply not my
responsibility to deal with. Whether other people approve or disapprove
is not going to sway me away from a way of eating that has dramatically
changed my life so much.

Well, you do whatever you do with your body, including terminating it,
putting drugs in it or selling it. That's your own freedom.
However, I do have a problem with low carb becoming a business, like it
seems to be now. I don't think the low fat business did a lot of good, and I
don't think the low carb business will either. I also have a problem with it
becoming so mainstream it gets forced on everyone with a bit of fat, just
like low fat was. Lastly, I also have a problem with people feeling they
have to justify whatever they want to do with going back to cavemen diet or
whatever "people used to do that" justification. If I want to smoke
cannabis, I will not bull**** about "my ancestors did that", I will just do
it...

"Supergoof" wrote in message
...
So the medical fraternity go on about the obesity epidemic and diabetes
epidemic, telling us that being obese will give us diabetes.

If you listen to them, they don't say that, they say that obesity is one of
the factor in diabetes. Around 20% of the type 2 diabetes are *not* obese.
And many obeses, or even super-obeses, don't have diabete. Obesity is just a
factor there, just as lack of exercise is another, and bad genetics yet
another.
Just like smoking is a factor in getting lung cancer. Some people never
smoked in their life and still die from a lung cancer at 50. And others have
been smoking a few cigarettes a day and die at 80. Same with cholesterol and
heart diseases - having low cholesterol doesn't mean you will never die from
an heart condition...
Some people just get incredibly lucky. I had a great grand-mother who had
been told that she would die from tuberculosis. Yet, she burried her doctor,
and a bunch of others, as she made her way onto her 98th year. Some people
just get very lucky, and die at a very old age despite all odds. And others
are just plain unlucky, exercise daily, eat organic and die at 30 from a
congenital heart disease. Fate likes to have fun sometimes...

Are you saying that this only the case if you're genetically predisposed
to
diabetes in the first place?

Having diabete in your familly seems to play a major role. This doesn't mean
you will never get diabete if it's not in the familly, it just means the
risk is much lower. If you're a Pima Native American, you have very very bad
genetics that will make getting diabete very likely, whatever you do. Other
people can grow very fat for a number of reasons, and yet have lower insulin
resistance than many slim people...

And does that mean we're breeding more and more people with that genetic
predisposition to diabetes?

People with diabete used to die younger, leading to a lesser chance of
breeding. Another issue is with mixing ethnicities. Some ethnicities never
got the chance to adjust to high carb, and diabete is very common among
them. This includes Black people, many Native Americans... And diet does
play a role of course. Being overweight makes diabete more likely (it
doesn't cause that, but combine with bad genetics and lack of exercises,
your risk factor gets much much higher). And diet also plays a role of
course (if only because it gets more people overweight).

Diabete is a multi-factor diseases. It mixes genetics, behaviour, diet and
probably many other factors. It's difficult to isolate one factor from the
others. It's the same with lung cancer. Smoking plays a role, but so do
alcohol, heredity, diet, air pollution... It's a difficult question to
decide whether smoking while living a perfect life is less healthy than not
smoking while drinking alcohol and living in a very polluted city and having
a bad familly history of lung cancers.

So if I, with insulin resistance, had continued to eat crap and get fatter
was I guaranteed to get full blown diabetes in the future?

Not any more that one could guarantee that you could win the lottery
But you would have gotten to play your own special lottery, where you would
have had to find only a couple of numbers to win instead of finding all the
bunch of them...
It's all probabilities...

Brevity is the soul of wit.

HTH



"Lictor" wrote in message
...
"Supergoof" wrote in message
...
So the medical fraternity go on about the obesity epidemic and diabetes
epidemic, telling us that being obese will give us diabetes.

If you listen to them, they don't say that, they say that obesity is one
of
the factor in diabetes. Around 20% of the type 2 diabetes are *not* obese.
And many obeses, or even super-obeses, don't have diabete. Obesity is just
a
factor there, just as lack of exercise is another, and bad genetics yet
another.
Just like smoking is a factor in getting lung cancer. Some people never
smoked in their life and still die from a lung cancer at 50. And others
have
been smoking a few cigarettes a day and die at 80. Same with cholesterol
and
heart diseases - having low cholesterol doesn't mean you will never die
from
an heart condition...
Some people just get incredibly lucky. I had a great grand-mother who had
been told that she would die from tuberculosis. Yet, she burried her
doctor,
and a bunch of others, as she made her way onto her 98th year. Some people
just get very lucky, and die at a very old age despite all odds. And
others
are just plain unlucky, exercise daily, eat organic and die at 30 from a
congenital heart disease. Fate likes to have fun sometimes...

Are you saying that this only the case if you're genetically predisposed
to
diabetes in the first place?

Having diabete in your familly seems to play a major role. This doesn't
mean
you will never get diabete if it's not in the familly, it just means the
risk is much lower. If you're a Pima Native American, you have very very
bad
genetics that will make getting diabete very likely, whatever you do.
Other
people can grow very fat for a number of reasons, and yet have lower
insulin
resistance than many slim people...

And does that mean we're breeding more and more people with that genetic
predisposition to diabetes?

People with diabete used to die younger, leading to a lesser chance of
breeding. Another issue is with mixing ethnicities. Some ethnicities never
got the chance to adjust to high carb, and diabete is very common among
them. This includes Black people, many Native Americans... And diet does
play a role of course. Being overweight makes diabete more likely (it
doesn't cause that, but combine with bad genetics and lack of exercises,
your risk factor gets much much higher). And diet also plays a role of
course (if only because it gets more people overweight).

Diabete is a multi-factor diseases. It mixes genetics, behaviour, diet and
probably many other factors. It's difficult to isolate one factor from the
others. It's the same with lung cancer. Smoking plays a role, but so do
alcohol, heredity, diet, air pollution... It's a difficult question to
decide whether smoking while living a perfect life is less healthy than
not
smoking while drinking alcohol and living in a very polluted city and
having
a bad familly history of lung cancers.

So if I, with insulin resistance, had continued to eat crap and get
fatter
was I guaranteed to get full blown diabetes in the future?

Not any more that one could guarantee that you could win the lottery
But you would have gotten to play your own special lottery, where you
would
have had to find only a couple of numbers to win instead of finding all
the
bunch of them...
It's all probabilities...

Lictor wrote:
This doesn't tell *why* you have the different reaction. That might be that
your husband doesn't consider chocolate as taboo, and doesn't go into
desinhibition when he eats some.

Look I have been transparent about what my *chemical* reactions to food
are, and you don't seem to be listening, but I'll try again...

It's because of the refined sugar. I used to think it was "all in my
head" too, until someone served me something which contained refined
sugar (in a non-dessert item, small amount), which I didn't find out
until later. And these were not foods I had ever saw as "taboo", yet I
felt like gorging myself on it. It was a *chemical* response to a
*chemical* which my body shouldn't have been having.
Not to mention over a dozen chronic health complaints I used to suffer
from are GONE.

But you did lose weight, didn't you? You also exercise, right? These two can
already improve things a lot on their own. Both also reduce
insulino-resistance.

While there is no denying that losing weight can improve health, my
health improved dramatically LONG before I lost any weight. I had only
changed my way of eating a WEEK and I felt like a million bucks.

Well, you do whatever you do with your body, including terminating it,
putting drugs in it or selling it. That's your own freedom.

Well, it's obvious you don't understand what I've been saying. My way
of eating has improved my health dramatically and you're equating it to
damaging it as is evidenced in the above paragraph.

However, I do have a problem with low carb becoming a business, like it
seems to be now.

I agree. I hate the way it is marketed as being a "for everyone" type
of diet as opposed to a "this is a diet which attacks a *specific*
problem" type of diet.

However, the fact that it is marketed has no bearing on the fact that
such a diet has made ME healthier.

CM