In 1890, Robert Saundby a former president of the Edinburgh Royal medical Society, presented a series of lectures on diabetes to the Royal College of physicians in London in which he estimated that less than one in every 50,000 died from the disease. “it is one of those rarer diseases” he said.
One Los Angeles physician, according to Saundby, reported in seven years practice he had “not met with a single case”.
In 1892, William Osler at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore reported that of the 35,000 patients treated at the hospital, only 10 had been diagnosed with diabetes.
In the next eight years 156 cases were diagnosed.
Mortality statistics for diabetes showed a nearly doubling between 1870 and 1890 and then more than doubling again by 1900.
In 2010 they were 73,000 amputations in the US alone through diabetes.
Those afflicted with diabetes will die at greatly increased rates from heart disease or stroke, from kidney disease and diabetic coma.
Type 2 diabetes is a disease created by human diet and lifestyle.
Since Christopher Columbus first brought sugar to the New World on his second voyage in 1493, sugar has been exciting the minds and fuelling the bodies (although initially it was so expensive that it was never able to be consumed in large quantities).
In 1847 a Bostonian named Oliver Chase launched the modern candy industry with his invention of a machine for churning-out perfectly formed candied lozenges by the thousands.
Welcome to mass-produced sweets!
By the 1920s sugar refineries we are producing as much sugar in a single day (millions of pounds) as would have taken refineries in the 1820s and entire decade to do.
Sugars, like sucrose and high fructose corn syrup (and any of the other 60 or so names for sugar), are fundamental causes of diabetes. They have unique physiological, metabolic and endocrinological (hormonal) effects in the human body.
It has been known since the 1960’s that insulin resistance, which leads to type 2 diabetes, can be managed through reducing our bodies constant battle with high blood glucose, and the inevitable glycemic roller-coaster that we put ourselves through with the massive over consumption of simple carbohydrates and sugar.
We micro-dose on a sweet-tasting drug that slowly kills us, and because the symptoms aren’t visible until 20 or 30 years of abuse, we ignore it as a problem, and even “treat” ourselves and our children with more of it as a reward for good behaviour or an achievement.
3.5 million people in the UK have diabetes, and it is estimated that 549,000 people have it but are, as yet, undiagnosed.
The analogy of boiling a frog comes to mind. If you place a frog in boiling water, it will jump straight out!
If you place a frog in cold water, and slowly heat it on a stove, the frog will stay in the water until it boils to death.
We are the same with our diets and lifestyles. Because we can't see the inevitable, horrendous consequences of eating a little sugar, in our immediate present, we brush aside the thought of correcting bad food choices, and allow days, weeks, months and years of compound bad choices result in "an unexpected heart attack" or "type 2 diabetes".
Insulin resistance, which leads to type 2 diabetes, is now estimated to affect up to 1 in 3 Americans…and a similar number is thought to plague the UK population, and it is growing at an alarming rate!
Worse still, insulin resistance can become a genetic characteristic that is passed-down through generations, and it is shown that diabetic and pre-diabetic parents can pass poor glucose metabolism to their children to some extent, making the problem the biggest and fastest-growing health pandemic of all time.
Today is World Diabetes day!
Do yourself a massive favour, and do the one thing that is guaranteed to reduce your propensity to insulin resistance and the onset of type 2 diabetes. Reduce your insulin production by reducing your consumption of sugar.
Here are 5 top tips to get you on the right path to reverse insulin resistance:
Don’t have sugar in tea or coffee. It takes about 2 weeks to wean yourself off sugar in drinks, and when you do tea will taste just as good to you as it did before. If you have 3 or 4 cups of tea a day that is a lot of extra sugar avoided! It is thought that we add 19 teaspoons of sugar to our diets every day, and just dropping two teaspoons from 4 cups of tea a day may halve that. This might be the difference between a life without metabolic issues, or an eventual decline into insulin resistance and eventually diabetes, and all of the chronic terminal illnesses that follow. Is it really worth it!?
Find a new treat. When you want to reward yourself, do it with something that doesn’t contain sugar. It is all too common for us to self-sabotage by treating! Hit the gym, then you deserve a chocolate bar as a treat! Cycle to the shops, come back and have a few extra biscuits with your cuppa. Treats that elevate blood glucose will elevate insulin, reduce fat loss, increase appetite and work against your health.
Skip breakfast! Forget what your mother told you! Breakfasts aren’t the most important meal of the day, but they are the most damaging. They set you up for what follows throughout the day, and traditionally in the "civilised" world that means mostly sugar and carbs (think toast, cereal, juices, etc) which are the WORST things to start your day with. Extending the “break”-fast is shown to be a great way to massively improve your insulin sensitivity. Make lunch your first meal of the day and watch how your energy increases and your hunger subsides (great indicators that you are fixing your metabolism).
Skip puddings! It has been demonstrated that a sugar “fix” before bed can lead to poor quality sleep and a craving for more sugar in the morning. The roller-coaster will never end....unless it never starts in the first place. Wake-up without the sugar cravings and rumbly stomach, by skipping sugar before bed.
Empty your bucket! Think of your body as a bucket full of glucose...when it is being used (emptied), you are well, but when it is floating around your bloodstream (a full bucket) it is extremely damaging to you. Keeping active, utilising any excess blood-sugar through exercise, and improve your insulin sensitivity. Make sure you get out walking, playing tennis or being generally physically active throughout the day to keep emptying your bucket.