Retrospective #486: Too depressing not to write about.

I have been haunted for the last few days by the memory of a luncheon my wife and I recently attended 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 had been a long-term, non-obese type 2 diabetic, 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 of the 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, not 9 months…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 diabetic hubbies, should know better than to eat the very foods that essentially caused their type 2 diabetes and which now make their diabetes worse: carbohydrates!

But these conscientious couples are apparently unconscious of the dietary cause of type 2 diabetes and the dietary strategy to prevent progression. If you pay attention to what you eat, type 2 diabetes does not have to be “progressive.” Instead, they (as most patients) pay attention to what their doctors tell them. THAT’S A BIG MISTAKE.

Doctors treat the symptoms of disease, including type 2 diabetes. When they diagnose a symptom, they prescribe a medicine to treat it. Anti-diabetic meds help control high blood sugar by lowering it. Some medicines force the pancreas to make more insulin to deal with Insulin Resistance. Then, when the pancreas eventually fails from overuse, they 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. The doctor 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 people rely on their doctor’s guidance.  Both the former nurse and her husband told us at lunch how wonderful his doctor is and how well she treats him. But she is only treating the symptom of this  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. These are all the “diseases of modern civilization,” of simple sugars and other processed carbs, and manufactured vegetable oils—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.