Years ago I announced to the world that the ADA who are made up of diabetes doctors were on a path full of hidden agendas. This group is litterally keeping people with diabetes on an eating plan which keeps them diabetic then pushes drugs to control the sugar. Mens Health Mag wrote an article on this subject which will blow you away; Here's the article;
The Cure for Diabetes, By Adam Campbell, Posted Date: November 3, 2006
What if the American Heart Association endorsed the trans-fat diet? Problem, right? Look at what the American Diabetes Association is spoon-feeding people with diabetes: sugar. Not to worry: We've got the solution right here.
As insulin resistance worsens over time, your pancreas has to pump out enormous amounts of insulin to force glucose into your cells. (Hey, let's use a sledgehammer!) Eventually, your pancreas has trouble keeping up, leaving you with chronic high blood sugar, a.k.a. hyperglycemia -- the defining marker of diabetes and the root cause of the calamities that arise from it. Alas, it only gets worse from here: If the resistance continues to mount, some of the insulin-producing beta cells inside your pancreas can "burn out" and stop working altogether. (In type-1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder destroys most or all of the beta cells.) Once beta cells burn out, you're looking at a lifetime of daily insulin injections.
Or not, if you believe Dr. Vernon.
Unlike protein, fat, and fiber -- which have little if any impact on blood sugar -- carbohydrates such as starch and sugar are quickly broken down into glucose during digestion, which is then absorbed into your bloodstream. The more you eat, the higher and faster your blood sugar rises. Therefore, if you have diabetes, it would make sense to control your blood sugar by limiting your carbohydrate intake. Another benefit of consuming fewer carbs is that you often end up consuming fewer calories, and that can help lower weight, which, in turn, reduces insulin resistance.
By contrast, the American Diabetes Association suggests that people with diabetes build their diets around bread. Okay, not just bread. In explaining the foundation of its Diabetes Food Pyramid, the ADA Web site -- the public face of the organization -- states, "This means you should eat more servings of grains, beans, and starchy vegetables than of any of the other foods." And while high-fiber whole grains are emphasized, a slice of whole-wheat bread is still more than 80 percent starch.
Granted, sweets are at the pinnacle of the pyramid, though so are "fats" and "oils," which makes it appear that the ADA's main focus isn't on high blood sugar at all but rather on a different affliction.
"Long-term, what you're really concerned about is heart disease," says Marion Franz, R.D., a member of an 11-person team of experts who coauthored the ADA's 2006 nutrition recommendations. "It's the major cause of death for people with diabetes." In other words, they use food as a weapon against a complication of diabetes, rather than diabetes itself.
When it comes to controlling blood sugar, the ADA seems to push drugs as hard as diet. An ADA position statement published in August 2006 advises that people newly diagnosed with type-2 diabetes immediately commence taking metformin, an oral medication that slows the body's internal production of glucose, helping to lower blood-sugar levels. With total sales of metformin having neared $1.1 billion in 2005, according to IMS Health, this recent recommendation must have brought a big smile to big pharma -- and a look of utter disbelief to the faces of the ADA's critics.
"They're contradicting themselves," says Richard Feinman, Ph.D., director of the Nutrition & Metabolism Society and a professor of biochemistry at SUNY Downstate medical center, in New York City. "They want diabetics to take medication to lower their blood sugar, but recommend a diet that has the opposite effect."
At least the ADA's recommendations are pointing in the same direction in the case of overweight people with diabetes -- pop metformin, but also cut calories and add exercise to reduce insulin resistance. What's odd here, however, is that they don't advise giving the lifestyle component a chance to work before reaching for the pill bottle.
"Metformin is insurance for people who aren't following their diet and exercise plan," explains John Buse, M.D., Ph.D., president-elect of medicine and science for the ADA.
The message to insulin-resistant America: We don't think you're going to help yourself, so here, take this
