Type-2 Diabetes – The Expected Adaptation to Over-Nutrition: Introduction
A Vegan Health Article from All-Creatures.org

These vegan health articles are presented to assist you in taking a pro-active part in your own health.

See All-Creatures.org Health Position and Disclaimer

From John McDougall, M.D.
http://www.drmcdougall.com

Sixteen million people in the United States have type-2 diabetes, which shortens lifespan by up to 15 years, leads to almost 300,000 deaths annually, and costs about $100 billion annually. Since 1980 the incidence has increased by

30%. Born in the year 2000, your male child’s lifetime risk of developing type-2 diabetes is nearly 33%, and a female’s risk will be 39% when following the Western diet.[1] Worldwide, 135 million people have type-2 diabetes and by 2025 the incidence is predicted to reach 300 million people worldwide.

This form of diabetes was once referred to as “adult-type diabetes” because in the past, type-2 diabetes was rare in children. However, over the last two decades, there has been a 10-fold increase in incidence of type-2 diabetes in children, because of the rapidly growing numbers with obesity from an escalating exposure to rich foods, compounded by a lack of exercise.[2]

The general state of poor health of Westerners, as reflected by diabetes, escalates unchecked for 3 important reasons:

1) This growing epidemic of type-2 diabetes and obesity is fueled by huge profits generated by a food industry super-sizing everything by stuffing their irresistible morsels with fat, sugar, refined flour, and calories.

2) Medical doctors continue to prescribe remedies that have never cured a single case of diabetes. Furthermore, the usual “poly-pharmacology” of medications they rely upon promotes weight gain, heart disease, and hypoglycemia, along with other serious adverse effects. From all these expensive medications there is a small reduction in complications, such as kidney and eye damage, which still fails to offset the tremendous harm done by their efforts.

3) The American Dietetic Association has remained steadfast in their recommendation of a portion-controlled version of the Western (American) diet – an impossible diet to follow (because of its complex rules and semi-starvation nature) – made up of ingredients, like fat, sugars, refined foods, and cholesterol, that caused the patients’ problems in the first place.

In 1927 Dr. E. P. Joslin, founder of the famous Joslin Diabetic Center in Boston, suspected a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet might favor the development of diabetes and its major complication, atherosclerosis.[3] He prophetically wrote: “I believe the chief cause of premature atherosclerosis in diabetes, save for advancing age, is an excess of fat, an excess of fat in the body (obesity), an excess of fat in the diet, and an excess of fat in the blood. With an excess of fat diabetes begins and from an excess of fat diabetics die, formerly of coma, recently of atherosclerosis.” And now, 75 years after Joslin’s farsighted message, diabetes is the fastest growing disease in the world.

Go on to Type-2 Diabetes: A Runaway Epidemic Caused by Rich Foods
Return to Type-2 Diabetes – The Expected Adaptation to Over-Nutrition

---

Return to Vegan Health Articles
Visit Food Hazards in Animal Flesh and By-products

All-Creatures.org Health Position and Disclaimer

We began this archive as a means of assisting our visitors in answering many of their health and diet questions, and in encouraging them to take a pro-active part in their own health. We believe the articles and information contained herein are true, but are not presenting them as advice. We, personally, have found that a whole food vegan diet has helped our own health, and simply wish to share with others the things we have found. Each of us must make our own decisions, for it's our own body. If you have a health problem, see your own physician.