https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/diabetes-death-america/2022/01/31/id/1054720/
You can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet
DR. MARK HYMAN
In January 2022, the National Clinical Care Commission issued their report to Congress & the Secretary of Health & Human Services on the pathway to prevent and control diabetes, and better manage complications. For a link to download and read the full report, click here.
The Bad & The Ugly
Candidly, the U.S. is in trouble. Not only did over 100,000 Americans die from Diabetes in 2021, but it’s the second consecutive year of hitting such a grim milestone. Consider the following statistics:
- The CDC estimates 37M+ Americans are diabetic, or 11% of the entire population.
- 90% – 95% of the total diabetic population has Type II Diabetes (T2D), which is dietary & lifestyle related, and is largely preventable.
- An additional 90M Americans are considered pre-diabetic (or insulin resistant), which means they are on the path to T2D if they do not make significant changes in their lifestyle immediately.
- 42% of the American population is considered obese (BMI > 30), and there is a direct link between obesity & diabetes (the report frequently references this link)
- People with diabetes have a two-fold greater risk of severe symptoms related to COVID-19, and diabetes is one of the top 3 comorbidities linked to death from COVID-19.
- The U.S. is spending over $327B per year in diabetes care and lost productivity due to diabetes.
- Globally, according to the World Economic Forum, 1 in 11 adults worldwide are diabetic.
The Root Cause
So, it’s abundantly clear we have a serious problem that has been worsening for decades. Here’s another point-of-view from the federalist regarding the dire situation we’re in, and the link between obesity & diabetes.
Typically, we look at a chronic disease proliferation like this and we want to throw money, regulations and medical treatments at it, and the committee report didn’t disappoint in this regard. One of the recommendations the committee even suggests is to create an Office of National Diabetes Policy as a critical step in changing this trajectory. Stop and think: When has creating more government bureaucracy ever yielded a step-change for the better, especially in a national crisis?
Ironically, one of the direct areas the committee did NOT talk about in any detail is our dietary recommendations. In lieu of creating new bureaucracy, encouraging early & increased usage of pharmaceuticals, taxation and other band-aids, what about if we tackled the root cause? And here it is. We have been following a dietary recommendation for 45 years that is making us insulin resistant, obese, and metabolically unhealthy, and to reverse the diabetic trend, we need to reverse the dietary guidelines. Just as Dr. Mark Hyman correctly stated you can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet, we have more than ample evidence that eating copious amounts of carbohydrates (in all forms), vegetable oils, processed foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, and low quality fats has caused our bodies to become inflamed, obese and insulin resistant, and is a direct cause of major medical issues like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, T2D, obesity and gastrointestinal disorders. For more information on how this occurs, I invite you to read:
There Is Hope
What could happen if we changed the dietary guidelines? What if, through lifestyle intervention, a person who suffers from T2D could reverse his/her condition and not only become metabolically healthy, but cease any external insulin or medication? That is exactly what is happening right now, and below is a presentation from Dr. Sarah Hallberg with Virta Health who describes the success they are having with dietary, lifestyle and coaching changes to dramatically improve lives and, in most cases, remove patients from any external insulin or pharmaceuticals. There is hope for change, but it starts with addressing the root cause. Let’s start before it’s too late.
BusinessFit 