The association between poor diet and obesity is strong.
From a dietary perspective, obesity is primarily connected to a diet high in sugar and complex carbohydrates.
Americans have become conspicuous consumers of sugar and sweet-tasting foods and beverages.
Per capita consumption of caloric sweeteners, mainly sucrose (table sugar made from cane and beets) and corn sweeteners (notably high-fructose corn syrup), increased 43 pounds, or 39 percent, between 1950–59 and 2000.
In the year 2000, each American consumed an average 152 pounds of caloric sweeteners.
That amounted to more than two-fifths of a pound, or 52 teaspoons per person per day.
This is something unheard of in human history.
Dr.
Thomas Cleave did a historical survey after World War II of indigenous cultures to which white sugar and white flour had been introduced.
He found that in every culture in which there was an outbreak of Type-2 diabetes, the disease occurred approximately 20 years after white sugar and white flour were introduced.
That’s a very clear statement.
Although it is commonly thought that diabetes is a blood sugar imbalance, it is actually a chronic degenerative disorder that affects protein metabolism, fat metabolism, and carbohydrate metabolism.
This metabolic imbalance is interwoven with diet and lifestyle characterized by obesity and lack of exercise primarily combined with high processed sugar and high carbohydrates in general and secondarily with high animal fat and protein and low-fiber foods.
A much greater percentage of the uneducated and lower classes develop diabetes, and more specifically, a great many Native
Americans, African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics suffer from it.
We only have to go back a little bit in history to see that this pandemic is relatively new.
We have been on the planet for perhaps 3.2 million years.
The Pima Indians had only one single documented case of diabetes by 1920.
Their cousins, the Tarahumaras, who have stuck with a natural diet, have only 6 percent incidence of diabetes.
Meanwhile, their genetic relatives the Pimas have up to 51 percent incidence, and in 2011, the unofficial estimate is as high as 90 percent incidence.
In 1970, the Pimas’ ability to fish was compromised by some river dams, and they turned more to Western culture junk foods.
The rate skyrocketed when genetics and a diabetogenic Western diet merged.
The rate of diabetes is dramatically affected by the genetics for diabetes in a particular culture, and many scientists believe genetics may explain the obesity problem among Native Americans.
The first U.S. researcher to learn about the Mexican Pimas was Leslie O.
Schulz, professor of health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
With the cooperation of the tribe, she has established a clinic and research site to test several hypotheses about this contrast in diabetes rates.
Since 1991, she has made some 15 trips to Maycoba, as well as many visits to the Gila River reservation.
Her “thrifty gene” theory is as follows
Before food preservation and transportation methods were developed in the United States, indigenous populations in North America relied exclusively on locally produced food, in the same way indigenous Mexican populations such as the Pimas do today. When the harvest was poor, people ate less. Long periods of drought and famine were especially common in desert regions, such as the area the Pimas inhabit.
“The theory is that Native Americans have what is called the ‘thrifty gene,’ ” Schulz explains. “They’re genetically geared to conserving and being thrifty in terms of their calories, so that they don’t waste it in case a famine comes along. They’re going to be the ones to survive.”
The continual availability of food in the United States today appears to have contributed to the Pimas’ problems with obesity, Schulz says. The thrifty gene, which allowed Indians to survive long periods of
famine in Mexico, works against them on the Gila River reservation. “All of a sudden, there’s this constant food supply, like we have now, 24 hours a day. We never have the famine, so that’s why they become so much more overweight. Then, being overweight, they develop the Type-2 diabetes that goes with that.”
Total Prevalence of Diabetes by Race/Ethnicity
Non-Hispanic Whites: 13.1 million, or 8.7 percent, of all non-Hispanic whites age 20 years or older have diabetes.
Non-Hispanic Blacks: 3.2 million, or 13.3 percent, of all non-Hispanic blacks age 20 years or older have diabetes. After adjusting for population age differences, non-Hispanic blacks are 1.8 times as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.
Hispanic/Latino Americans: After adjusting for population age differences, Mexican Americans, the largest Hispanic/Latino subgroup, are 1.7 times as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.
If the prevalence of diabetes among Mexican Americans is applied to the total Hispanic/Latino population, according to the CDC, in 2006, about 13.5 percent of Hispanic/Latino Americans age 20 years or older would have diabetes.
Sufficient data are not available to derive estimates of the total prevalence of diabetes (both diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes) for other Hispanic/Latino groups.
However, residents of Puerto Rico are 1.8 times as likely to have diagnosed diabetes as U.S. non-Hispanic whites.
American Indians and Alaska Natives: 99,500, or 12.8 percent, of American Indians and Alaska natives age 20 years or older who received care from Indian Health Service (IHS) in 2003 had diagnosed diabetes. Some 118,000 (15.1 percent) American Indians and Alaska natives age 20 years or older have diabetes (both diagnosed and undiagnosed). Taking into account population age differences, American Indians and Alaska natives are 2.2 times as likely to have diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: The total prevalence of diabetes (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) is not available for Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders.
However, in Hawaii, Asians, native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders age 20 years or older are more than twice as likely to have diagnosed diabetes as Caucasians after adjusting for population age differences and are more susceptible than Caucasians to being overweight.
Similarly, in California, Asians are 1.5 times as likely to have diagnosed diabetes as non-Hispanic whites.
Other groups in these populations also have increased risk for diabetes.
FIGURE 8. Estimated age-adjusted total prevalence of diabetes in people age 20 years or older by race/ethnicity, United states, 2005
Cities
New York City is an amplified microcosm of this information.
There are 800,000 people with diagnosed diabetes in New York City—one in eight people.
It is the only major disease in the city that is growing.
The percentage of diabetics in New York City is about a third higher than the rest of the nation and cases have been increasing about twice as fast as nationally.
In the past 10 years, New York City has seen a 140 percent increase in diabetes.
The proportion of diabetics is higher than that of Los Angeles, Chicago, or Boston.
In New York, the diabetic rate is highest where there are ethnic groups with high genetic tendencies.
FIGURE 9. Diabetes rates in New York City (Source: NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene)
It is worst in East Harlem, where the health department survey shows that 16–20 percent, or up to one in five, adults had diabetes around the turn of the century. The only place that is higher is among
the Pima Indians in Arizona, where approximately 50–90 percent suffer from diabetes. In East Harlem, diabetes-related amputations are also higher than in any other part of the city. And of course that is also the location of the highest percentage of people who are overweight—people who have bad food habits, exercise very little, and have significant poverty.
According to the CDC, one in three children born in the United States is expected to become diabetic in their lifetimes. New York is not the only place where diabetes is epidemic. As quoted in The Daily Texan in 2005, “In President George W. Bush’s home state of Texas, state health services commissioner Dr. Eduardo Sanchez said, ‘Half of Texas children born after the year 2000 will develop diabetes.’ ”
Age as a Factor
Diabetes also increases with age. It could almost be considered a marker of accelerated aging.
In 2005 one in five New Yorkers 65 years and older had diabetes, but by 2010, 25 percent of all people in the United States over the age of 60 have developed Type-2 diabetes.
New York is not even the most overweight.
In New York, 20 percent are overweight, while 20–30 percent are overweight in the rest of the country.
But it is in New York, as in England, that Type-2 diabetes is very much connected with race, genetics, and money.
It seems to have an inverse relationship to income.
Poverty seems to be associated with less access to fresh fruits and vegetables, exercise, and health care and more empty carbohydrate calories.
New York’s poverty rate is approximately 20 percent, which is higher than the nation’s 12.7 percent.
African Americans, Latinos, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans have a diabetes rate close to twice that of white people. In England, we see the same kinds of racial ratios. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders also appear more susceptible, and they seem to develop diabetes at lower comparative weights. There is no question that genetics plays a role, but our lifestyle is the determining factor. Our collective world lifestyle is one big Crime Against Wisdom.
FIGURE 10. Diabetes rates in men and women, up to age 80 or older (Source: American Diabetes Association, Inc., Diabetes Care ,2004)
In New York City—home to a pretty educated group—a 2002 health department survey found that 89 percent of diabetics didn’t know their HgbA1c levels.
The HgbA1c is called the glycosylated hemoglobin test; this important test measures the level of sugar that binds nonenzymatically to hemoglobin and thus helps monitor the degree of diabetes.
Any HgbA1c result above 5.7 is considered diabetic.
In New York City, half the grade schoolers are overweight, and roughly one in four are obese (more than 20 pounds overweight).
While the state was trying to promote more exercise, the city actually passed a school budget with less exercise.
According to the CDC, nationwide daily participation in gym class has dropped to 28 percent in 2003, from 42 percent in 1991.
The federal government of the United States had actually made proposals to cut the exercise time even less.
Diabetes reflects the imbalance of the culture.
American kids are watching 20,000 hours of commercials for junk food per year. They can buy junk food readily from machines in their schools. We act as if this is not really happening, but data of the diabetes pandemic show the hard-core reality. The dramatic increase in Type-2 diabetes among children is an ominous symptom of the Culture of Death lifestyle. How much more suffering and disability do we need to wake up from this deadly lifestyle and diet of the Culture of Death?
Costs to Society
By 2025, the largest increases in diabetes prevalence will take place in developing countries. Each year an additional seven million people worldwide develop diabetes. An even greater number die from cardiovascular disease made worse by diabetes-related lipid disorders and hypertension.