I have been haunted for the last
few days by the memory of a luncheon my wife and I recently had at the home of
friends. There were six of us, and we were told not to bring any food; the hostess
would prepare everything. I knew her husband has been a long-term, non-obese
type 2, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving the menu entirely up to her, so I
decided at the last minute to make a new keto recipe I had seen the day before.
My sausage and cheese meatball appetizer is made with ground-up pork rinds instead of the
usual bread filler. I used hot
Italian (ground pork) sausage, grated Pecorino Romano cheese, and Epic BBQ pork
rinds. I made and tasted them the night before and thought they were a bit dry,
so I made a garlic aioli to serve with them.
The hostess reheated and
graciously served my meatballs before lunch (with other zero-carb offerings),
and it’s a good thing I ate more than my share. Lunch was what appeared to be
instant rice and a chicken casserole covered in breadcrumbs. The side was fruit
jello. Rolls and butter completed the offerings. Dessert was a (very good)
store-bought cheesecake (brought by the other couple)! I had a little chicken
casserole and dessert.
In table conversation the other
male guest asked to know the time. It seems his doctor had called him the day
before and said she wanted to see him as soon as possible. He had a 2:30 pm
appointment. He said he didn’t know what the rush was all about. I asked him if
he was diabetic. He nodded yes. “That makes 3 of us,” I said.
This nice man is in his early
eighties and looks 9 months pregnant. He carries his “baby” high. He’s a poster
boy for visceral adiposity. Both of these guys carry
their fat inside. The difference is
our host husband looks only 6 months pregnant…and he doesn’t have a “command”
appointment to see his doctor that day!
Here’s the depressing part. The poster boy’s wife is a retired
Registered Nurse. And our hostess spent her work life as an administrator
in a retirement “village.” These women, and their hubbies, should know better than to eat the very foods that essentially caused their type 2 diabetes and
now make it worse: carbohydrates!
But these conscientious couples
are apparently unconscious of the dietary
causes of type 2 diabetes and the dietary
strategies for preventing progression. If you pay attention to what you
eat, type 2 diabetes does not have to
be “progressive.” Instead, they pay attention to what their doctors tell them. That’s a big mistake.
Doctors
treat the symptoms of disease.
When they diagnose a symptom, docs prescribe a medicine to treat it.
Anti-diabetic meds help control high blood sugar by lowering it. Some meds
force the pancreas to make more insulin to overcome Insulin Resistance. When
the pancreas eventually fails from overuse, docs prescribe injected insulin,
making the Insulin Resistance worse. These therapies only treat a symptom of type 2 diabetes. That is the current Standard of Medical
Care. The doctor is just doing what he has been taught and paid to do. She would probably be censured by her
medical association and Medicare if she did not treat the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes as she does. Note: she is not paid to
treat, or understand, the cause
of Type 2 diabetes.
Most folks rely on their
doctor’s guidance. Both the former nurse
and her husband told us how wonderful the doctor is and how well she treats
him. But she is only treating the symptom
of this one disease, and type 2 diabetes is just one of a galaxy of diseases with the same symptoms: visceral adiposity,
high blood pressure, dyslipidemia (characterized by high triglycerides and low
HDL-C), type 2 diabetes, and a host of others.
In addition, people who have
these disorders – symptoms, really, of Metabolic Syndrome – have double the
susceptibility to heart disease (CVD and
CAD), stroke, fatty liver disease, many types of cancer, and even macular
degeneration. They are all the “diseases of modern civilization,” of vegetable
oils and processed carbs and added sugars—in the words of Weston A. Price,
all the “displacing foods of modern commerce.”
It’s so depressing. That is why I had to write about our recent luncheon
experience. I had to get it off my chest.
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