Veganist_ Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World - Kathy Freston [29]
Declawing Diabetes
One out of every three children born after the year 2000 will be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Can you believe that? One in three! What the heck is going on?
To understand diabetes better, and to learn how to reverse it, I spoke with Dr. Neal Barnard, whom you met earlier. He’s an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine, the author of numerous scientific articles in leading peer-reviewed journals, and a frequent lecturer at the American Diabetes Association’s scientific sessions. His diabetes research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. government’s research branch. He is also the author of Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes.
Straight from the Source: Neal Barnard, MD, on Diabetes
KF: Why is type 2 diabetes suddenly so prevalent?
NB: Diets are changing, not just in the U.S., but worldwide. Diabetes seems to follow the spread of meaty, high-fat, high-calorie diets. In Japan, for example, the traditional rice-based diet kept the population generally healthy and thin for many centuries. Up until 1980, only 1 to 5 percent of Japanese adults over age forty had diabetes. Starting around that time, however, the rapid westernization of the diet meant that meat, milk, cheese, and sodas became fashionable. Waist-lines expanded, and, by 1990, diabetes prevalence in Japan had climbed to 11 to 12 percent.
The same sort of trend has occurred in the U.S. Over the last century, per capita meat consumption increased from about 125 pounds per year (which was already very high compared with other countries) in the early 1900s to over 200 pounds today. In other words, the average American now eats 75 pounds more meat every year than the average American of a century ago. In the same interval, cheese intake soared from less than 4 pounds per person per year to about 33 pounds today. Sugar intake has gone up, too, by about 30 pounds per person per year. Where are we putting all that extra meat, cheese, and sugar? It contributes to body fat, of course, and diabetes follows. Today, about 13 percent of the U.S. adult population has type 2 diabetes, although many of them are not yet aware they have it.
KF: What causes diabetes?
NB: Normally, the cells of the body use the simple sugar glucose as fuel, the way a car uses gasoline. Glucose comes from starchy or sweet foods we eat, and the hormone insulin escorts it into the muscle cells to power our movements. Glucose also passes into our brain cells to power our thoughts. In type 2 diabetes, the cells resist insulin’s action, so glucose has trouble getting into the cells.
KF: What happens to the body when a person develops diabetes? What’s the fallout?
NB: If glucose can’t get into the cells, it builds up in the blood. It is as if gasoline coming out of a gas pump somehow can’t get into your gas tank, and it ends up spilling over the side of your car, coming in through your car windows, and dribbling all over the pavement. It is a dangerous situation. The abnormally high levels of glucose circulating in the bloodstream are toxic to the blood vessels, especially the tiny blood vessels of the eyes, the kidneys, the extremities, and the heart.
KF: Is it really that serious, or can we just take a drug for it?
NB: A person with diabetes loses more than a decade of life, on average; about three-quarters will die prematurely of a heart attack. It is also a leading cause of blindness, amputations, and loss of kidney function. Many drugs are available, from insulin to oral medications and an ever-increasing variety of other medications. In order to protect the heart,