The United States has seen a rapid rise in pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes over the last decade. Nearly 80 million people—about one in four—now has diabetes or pre-diabetes.
Diabetes among children and teens is also growing at a rapid rate. The most recent data reveals that, between 2001 and 2009, type 2 diabetes among children aged 10-19 rose by 30 percent.
Overwhelmingly, the evidence points to a faulty diet—indeed the entire culture of inappropriate, health-harming food—which is the topic of the fast-paced documentary, Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying to Eat, produced by Lathe Poland and Eric Carlsen.
Poland was himself diagnosed with diabetes in 2010, which led to the creation of this revealing film. In a press release, Poland notes:
“I wasn’t overweight… To be honest, I was completely blown away when my doctor gave me the diagnosis. Why would a seemingly healthy 30-something man like myself get a disease like this? — Lathe Poland
My misconception like most people was that there were two scenarios where you get diabetes…Either it’s hereditary and it’s not your fault, or you eat junk food like it’s going out of style and end up diabetic.”
His doctor wanted him to take three different medications, and what alarmed Poland was what he calls “the rubber stamp approach.” So he decided to look deeper, to find out what really causes diabetes, and whether the drug approach was really the only remedy.
Processed Carbs Fuel the Diabetes Epidemic
For the last 50 years, Americans have been told to eat a high complex carbohydrate, low saturated fat diet. Even diabetics have been told to eat 50-60 percent of their daily calories in the form of processed carbs.
As the filmmakers note, “refined and processed foods, especially processed carbohydrates have become a staple of our culture, and we are reaping the consequences.” Conventional wisdom states that whole grains are part of a heart-healthy diet, and cereal commercials abound making that same claim…
But make no mistake about it. This nutritional advice is exactly why diabetes rates are shooting skyward. (Even athletes would be well advised to reconsider carb-loading, as a high fat diet tends to improve performance to a greater degree. This too is briefly discussed in the film.)
Conventional advice also states that diabetics can safely use table sugar, as long as you readjust your medications to compensate appropriately (i.e. take more drugs to increase your fat cell storage capacity). Using toxic artificial sweeteners in lieu of sugar also gets the green light.
The sad truth is that these recommendations are not based on nutritional science. They’re based on industry lobbying – just like the USDA’s Food Pyramid, which is fraught with massive industry conflicts of interest.
As discussed in the film, there was NO science to back up these nutritional recommendations. In essence, it was an experiment, and we are now able to say the experiment was a horrible abject failure that has resulted in needless pain and suffering and the premature deaths of tens of millions.
We simply cannot follow the conventional food pyramid (or the updated version called MyPlate), and maintain optimal health. Why? Because grains turn into sugar in your body, which leads to insulin resistance and promotes chronic inflammation in your body—all of which is explained in the featured film.
The film also discusses the pernicious influence and sheer power of the processed food industry, and how they shape our food culture—and much of the “conventional wisdom” about food—through junk food advertising.
Conventional Medicine Has it All Wrong…
Conventional medicine has type 2 diabetes pegged as a problem rooted in “dysregulation of blood sugar control,” which is typically explained as “an inability of your body to produce enough insulin.”
With that view, it seems reasonable to conclude that in order to control diabetes, you need a prescription for insulin, or drugs that raise insulin to counteract the elevated blood sugar.
In reality, however, the underlying problem is improper insulin and leptin signaling. In type 2 diabetes, your pancreas is still producing some insulin—in fact, usually too much insulin is being produced on a chronic basis—but your pancreas is unable to recognize the insulin and use it properly.
This is an advanced stage of insulin resistance, which is typically caused by a diet that is too high in sugars and sugar-forming foods such as grains. Type 2 diabetes also involves malfunction of leptin signaling, which is caused by chronically elevated insulin and leptin levels—again due to a diet that is too high in sugar.
This is why drug treatment isn’t getting us anywhere. Treating type 2 diabetes with insulin is actually one of the worst things you can do, as it will actually worsen your insulin and leptin resistance over time. You do not need more insulin. You need to restore the sensitivity of your insulin and leptin receptors, and the way to do this is by keeping your insulin and leptin levels low.
As Dr. Ron Rosedale wrote in 2005, doctors cause diabetics to D.I.E from their flawed prescriptions, which stem from a basic lack of insight into this root cause of diabetes. D.I.E., here, is a clever acronym for “Doctor Induced Exacerbation,” which does indeed include early death.
It’s important to understand what really happens when you simply add insulin without addressing the underlying insulin/leptin resistance. When your blood sugar becomes elevated, insulin is released to direct the extra energy (sugar) into storage. A small amount is stored as a starch called glycogen, but the majority is stored as fat.
Insulin’s primary role is not to lower your blood sugar, but rather to store this extra energy as fat for future needs when food may not be available. The fact that insulin lowers your blood sugar is merely a “side effect” of this energy storage process. So taking more insulin just makes you fatter!
As Dr Rosedale has previously stated; “Type 2 diabetes is brought on by constantly having too much insulin and leptin circulating secondary to the same diet that has been recommended to treat diabetes and heart disease, a high carbohydrate, low-fat diet. Then giving these diabetics more insulin is adding gasoline to the fire. Doctors couldn’t be doing more harm if they tried.”
Type 2 Diabetes Is Preventable and Treatable Without Drugs
Since type 2 diabetes involves loss of insulin and leptin sensitivity, it’s easily preventable and nearly 100 percent reversible without drugs. One of the primary driving forces behind type 2 diabetes is eating excessive amounts of grains, refined sugar, and processed fructose in particular—the latter of which has adverse effects on all of metabolic hormones, including insulin and leptin.
According to statistics in the film, after World War II, Americans consumed an estimated 16-24 grams of fructose per day. By the mid-70s, that average had risen to 37 grams per day, and 20 years later, Americans were averaging nearly 55 grams of fructose per day. Other statistics found in Dr. Richard Johnson’s book, The Sugar Fix,5 suggest about 50 percent of Americans consume as much as half a pound, more than 225 grams, per day!
There is really no question in my mind that regularly consuming more than 25 grams of fructose per day will dramatically increase your risk of insulin/leptin resistance, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. It’s important to realize that even though fructose is relatively “low glycemic” on the front end, it actually reduces the receptor’s affinity for insulin, leading to chronic insulin resistance and elevated blood sugar on the back end.
So, while you may not notice a steep increase in blood sugar immediately following fructose consumption, it is likely changing your entire endocrine system’s ability to function properly behind the scenes. A quick note on testing: Be sure to monitor your fasting insulin level in addition to monitoring your fasting blood sugar. You’ll want your fasting insulin level to be between 2 and 4. The higher your level, the greater your insulin resistance and the more aggressive you need to be in your treatment plan, especially when it comes to altering your diet.
Important Notice: This article was originally published at www.theepochtimes.com by Joseph Mercola where all credits are due.
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