another form of environmental pollution, are prius drivers aware of these facts?

The only place I know of to start investigating the insulin index theory is the referenced paper by Holt et al. This is a 10 year old paper, so there must be something more recent on the issue. Maybe track down Holt and see what she's doing now.

Dr. Cousins is a practitioner, and as such is mostly a user of the medical literature. What is unique about his program is the astounding success that he's had with diabetes patients. Quoting from the book,

... it is common to see people shift from blood sugars of 300-400 on medication, to being taken off all medications, including insulin, and within one to four days achieve relatively safe or normal fasting blood sugars. Within one to three weeks many have their fasting blood sugar go down to the optimum of 85.​

...​

Some ... may take three or four weeks ...​

Whether it takes four days to a few weeks, or a month, or even two months isn't the point so much as that we have the capacity within us to return to a healthy physiology, with a fasting blood sugar that is consistently around 85.​

I don't think that Dr. Cousins has any disagreement with the fact that native people have avoided diabetes while eating meat. His point is that meat is one of the challenges that contribute to diabetes. If you combine modern grocery store meat with highly processed carbs, eat too much of it, do it for many years, add in cortisol inducing tension, and a long list of other things, then you can develop diabetes. Just how much challenge your body can cope with is an individual thing.

The aspects of meat that make it bad for diabetics include the relatively high insulin index, the total lack of fiber, the lack of enzymes in cooked meat, it increases insulin resistance, it's calorically dense, cooking damages the fats, and on and on. It just isn't the optimal source of the nutrition that it does provide. A diabetic needs better nutrition than the diet that lead to their problem.

In developing an anti-diabetes program, Dr. Cousins has been much more interested in what can be controlled than in what can be gotten away with. Excess weight takes time to get rid of. Reducing accumulated toxic metals can be done, but it takes time. While you can't instantly undo a lifetime of bad practices, you can change your diet at the next meal. Well, actually, you can pay him $9000 for his 3 week residence program where he provides the food. If you just read his $20 book, it will take longer to figure out what the program is.

I'm still only halfway through the book, so I'm limited in how much I can present about the information in it. Since I'm not diabetic myself, much of the discussion is less critical for me than it would be for actual diabetics. But I do have a good friend who is diabetic, and has been receiving the most modern, even some experimental, medical care for his diabetes. I'd eat cardboard rather than put up with what he's had to go through. But he likes his meat, and the idea of him meditating is beyond comprehension. Life in the fast lane.

 

I think you'll approve. His research is very thorough. His bibliography is 66 pages long. He's reviewed an enormous amount of material for this book. Whatever you think of his conclusions, you have to give him credit for his effort.

 

The trick, however, is that type 2 diabetes was a pretty rare disorder until the late 1800's. Since then the incidence of it as risen dramactially... this has been observed in western societies as well as societies that have adopted a western diet. I know that Americans and Europeans were cooking their meat. The meat was also grassfed before WW2 so I still don't see the connection. There's a very strong connection between the rise of refined carbs and type 2 diabetes. That doesn't mean causality, but other studies have done a good job of establishing the causality. Given the history of the disorder I'm don't see how cooked meat (or even corn fed meat) can be implicated.

Does he provide any chemical pathways for the meat theory? How does fibre affect diabetes? Research has failed to show that a diet high in fibre reduces the risk of colon cancer, heart disease, or any other chronic disease. The only thing that can be said about fibre is that it helps constipation. Again, if you look at many different populations, eating traditional diets, you see that they have very low fibre diets and no diabetes.

 

So madler, have you cracked the book yet?

 

Your worried about meat consumption and environmental health but are in europe on vacation and a gadget freak? Did you swim there? Is there any environmental impact from your gadgets?

 

Nope. I'm on travel. Maybe when I get back. I'll post back here after I read it.

 

You foul temptress. Enjoy your travels. Hopefully holiday not work.

 

This thread has been a fascinating read. What I think is most interesting about the whole diet/health connection is how "fad diets" track current research. In the 80's, low-fat was all the rage. Remember all those snack foods that were fat free? Problem was that they had a lot of calories and sugar, so people still gained weight. Then the low-carb craze began, which wasn't that bad until a plethora of processed low-carb snacks began to hit the shelves. Now people are focusing on glycemic index and good fats. What most people don't realize is that one needs to take the body of reseach as a whole, rather than focusing on the most recent advance. Sound ideas withstand the test of time. Just because research is new doesn't necessarily mean it's better than something 30 years old, IYKWIM.

I know for me personally, I feel best when I eat a diet with a lot of vegetables and whole grains (think brown rice rather than white bread), some lean meat and fish. I always feel "off" when I travel and am more or less forced to eat fast-food and restaurant meals. Right now I'm struggling with reducing processed sugar in my diet, which is a challenge since I have a sweet tooth. I also love my morning poor-man's mocha (hot cocoa mix + coffee = YUM!).

To bring this back to an environmental discussion, has anyone read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle? It's about her family's experience eating only locally produced food for a year. If they didn't grow/raise it or if it wasn't grown in their county, they didn't eat it. I've got it on hold at my library, so I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Eating locally is environmental because of the fuel and resources it takes to ship fruit from Chile etc.

 

The problem is that the low-carb diet was never based on conclusive science. The studies that "support" theory actually don't support anything. There has never been a conclusive study linking fat consumption to heart disease, diabetes, or obesity. There have been numerous studies, as well as a vast amount of anecdotal evidence that supports the theory that carbohydrates, and in particular refined carbohydrates are at the roots of these problems (actually, it's chronically elevated insulin levels, but the carbs are the cause of that).

 

damnation! dupe post.

 

Huh. I guess I was under the impression that the diets were based on something. I'd love to read what current research actually is showing, but I don't have access to a university library anymore.

 

Holt's work has been criticised because she apparently didn't measure the glucagon response to meat consumption. So while it's true that insulin levels will increase when meat is consumed, glucagon increases as well and it's the ratio of insulin to glucagen that is (supposedly) important. Carbs raise insulin levels but don't increase glucagon and so the ratio is thrown off.

 

I don't know if that's a pre-req. Try googling around and you'll probably find a fair amount of interesting stuff.

 

Yeah, but if you happen to find peer-reviewed articles, you can only read the abstract at most, usually. I'd like to read the whole article for myself. I tend to not trust a science journalist's take on primary research. (I have degrees in biology and environmental science, so I like to think I know more than someone with a journalism degree on the topic. )

Even good sites like WebMD tend to rely on the American Heart Association's guidelines in their evaluations of different diet/food plans, and I'm not convinced the AHA's recommendations are based on the best science out there.

 

You're right. The peer reviewed stuff is often quite flawed an buys in to the group think that dominates the field. In a way it gives my pause about the climate stuff, because you see some similarities in the way the arguments are going and the "demonizing" that has happened. In both cases the problems are complex and aren't terribly accessible to the lay person.

If you wanna hear Gary Taubes talk see this video. It's a lecture he gave at Berkeley in NOV 07.

 

It is my impression that diabetes is primarily an issue of the rate at which insulin can be supplied. If this is true, then ignoring anything (like meat) that triggers insulin release has got to impact the level of glucose control. Is glucagon production impaired like insulin?

When meat triggers insulin release, what happens to the insulin? Is it used up by something, or does it just sit around waiting for some carbs? If it just sits around, then maybe it becomes a cause of insulin resistance.

If the pancreas has limited insulin production (as in diabetes), then it would seem to follow that you would want all of that production to be used effectively. Which means to process carbs, and not to be wasted by the false trigger of meat.

I'm aware of two successful treatment protocols for curing diabetes. The first is the multi-facet approach by Dr. Cousens. Another is the use of the Byetta drug. Both seem to either grow new beta cells, or at least awaken cells that were not producing insulin. In the case of Byetta, my endocrinologist says that he has one Type-1 patient who now maintains normal glucose levels without the use of insulin. I think Dr. Cousens also mentions a similar case. Both treatments are rather tough. Byetta causes nausea, so much so that about 20% of those who try it stop. Dr. Cousens approach is a major lifestyle change that many people would find impossible. But they both have cured diabetes.

 

No. Glucagon is not inhibited so the ratio of insulin to glucagon remains about the same. Carbohydrates do not cause a glucagon response, to the ratio is much larger. Protein is broken down much more slowly than carbohydrates are so it doesn't cause an insulin spike like carb rich foods to.

It's probably used to handle the glucose that's produced from the breakdown of amino acids in the meat.

Type I diabetes is caused by a lack of insulin which means that the body is not capable of storing fat. It's very different to type-2, which is mainly what I'm arguing about.

There are plenty of other successful trials that simply limit the carbs and have a high fat, protein diet. The ADA never backed these because they feared the high fat would increase the risk of heart disease more than the diet would help the diabetes. They have never shown this to be true however, and have simple fallen back on the "conventional wisdom" which also stands on no conclusive evidence. I would argue that Cousens is successful because he's limiting the refined carbs. The meat restriction could be removed and he'd have similar results (again, I'm talking about type-2 here).

 

Do you have a public library card?

My local public library has online databases every bit as good as the university library. I can access them for free with a library card and a pin number. I get the pin number for free from the library, just like the card. The library website has a page of databases and i can take my pick.

You can also try scholar.google.com

 

Thanks!! I'll try that next time I'm at the library.

 

My understanding is that there is a continuum of insulin production capacity between youthful normal and Type-1 diabetes. As people age, their insulin production capacity goes down. At some point along that continuum, symptoms develop and there is a diagnosis of diabetes. Type-2 diabetes is the midrange between normal and Type-1 diabetes. Normal people die before they develop diabetes, but they are still on the same downslope.

There is a related condition of insulin resistance with high insulin. People with this condition don't have obvious symptoms, but may proceed to diabetes as insulin production goes down with age.

I certainly agree that highly processed, high glycemic foods are the biggie. But there are also lesser contributors that need to be controlled. The protein in modern meat may not be a problem, but the fat imbedded in it does seem to be a problem. I suspect that extremely low fat meat such as buffalo would be much less of a problem than higher fat beef.

One interesting diet is the vegan diet promoted by Dr. John McDougall. It is extremely low fat (less than 10%), zero animal products (no meat, no fish, no dairy, no eggs), and uses starchy foods such as potatoes and brown rice. Even with the consumption of relatively high glycemic whole foods, glucose control is vastly improved over a standard diet. I think that Dr. Cousens' protocol is more effective, but Dr. McDougall's is more practical for most people. Both allow Type-2 diabetics to get off all drugs and insulin, and the constant monitoring required to determine dosages.

Another diabetes control protocol worth mentioning is that of Dr. Bernstein (See the book "Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution"). He is a 73 year old Type-1 diabetic who has achieved a HbA1C of 4.6. What he does is to check his glucose before and after every meal, and take enough insulin to maintain the glucose in the range 70-100, with an average of 83. Food is carefully selected for low glycemic index, and weighed to maintain the expected glycemic response. He acts like his life depends on such tight control, and he's right.