Forget Vioxx. What is now gradually emerging is a disaster several levels of magnitude more destructive. However, for a number of interconnected reasons, this disaster is unlikely to feature as even the tiniest blip on the radar screens of the mass media. Indeed, so far, it hasn’t registered at all.

I have written about obesity and diabetes before, but as an obsessive-compulsive, I am returning to it to have another go. My purpose is to help people understand this subject, something I may not have done too well in the past. But I think it is worth trying again, as I believe that this is hugely important. Why? Because obesity is being set up as the next great “disease epidemic” and the pharmaceutical companies are lining up to provide “treatments” and “cures.”

Some studies are just so much fun that I can’t resist them. As some of you may know, for some time now I have been suggesting that being overweight is not, in any way, unhealthy. Quite the opposite.

I know that everyone bangs on about the fact that obesity causes diabetes, and that diabetes vastly increases your risk of dying of just about everything. But the simple fact is that obesity does not cause diabetes — there is no mechanism for it to do so. (For a discussion on what does cause diabetes, see previous ramblings.)

Part Three here
Part Two here
Part One here

Goodness me, it’s all getting a bit complicated. I feel like one of those jugglers who tries to spin fifty plates at the same time. Instead I am trying to keep fifty strands of thought spinning. I am beginning to understand Lenin, who said (sic) ‘everything is connected to everything else.’

Part two here
Part one here

A lot of people have asked when I was going to write this follow-up article, and why has it taken so long? The answer is that I have been trying to write it for months, but my lack of skill as a writer has driven me mad, as I have been unable to get my thoughts down on paper. Anyway, here is my attempt to make what is clear in my mind, clear in yours.

When I was first diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, I was afraid, but also excited. I saw it almost immediately, as an opportunity, a blessing in disguise. It was going to force me to finally ‘deal’ with my weight - but from a point of view that was considerably less complicated than my historical push/pull on the subject of losing weight.

first article of the series here

For those of you who read my last article, ‘A sugary tale’, and who didn’t agree with a word that I said, which could well be almost everybody. I would like to introduce you to a fact that you may find surprising – to say the least.

Just to rewind for a moment. Basically I said that obesity probably wasn’t the underlying cause of type II diabetes. (I also said that there was no such disease as type II diabetes, but we’ll get to that later). In order to prove my first point I thought it would be interesting to try and find out if there is a population with zero adipose tissue to see what happens to their insulin resistance, levels of blood sugar, and rate of type II diabetes.

(First article in a series on ‘type II diabetes’)

part two here

For the past 30 years, give or take, people with type-II diabetes have been instructed to eat a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. Why? Because it is “known” that a high-fat diet causes heart disease. It is also known that people with type-II diabetes have a greatly increased chance of dying of heart disease (true). Ergo, type-II diabetics should not eat fat.

What is a disease? Here are a few definitions, culled from three dictionaries:

• a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning

• illness of people, animals, plants, etc., caused by infection or a failure of health rather than by an accident

• unhealthy condition of organism or part of organism. 2 (specific) disorder or illness.

 

Okay, so that counts as pretty unhelpful. A disease is: an illness, an unhealthy condition, a failure of health, an impairment of normal functioning. I can sense a circular discussion arriving.