New type II diabetes cause found...

Today's post: Friday, 2-1-2008

Type II diabetes has plentiful causes in the modern economies many people now live in.

More & more people have sedentary jobs & do little walking. And, unfortunately, some do no regular exercise to help compensate for this. Further, the amount of time many people have spent away from work watching TV has been going up.

Also, until recently, fewer people have been eating an amount & variety of vegetables necessary to sustain optimal or even good health. Further, more & more people have been consuming the health NOT OK snacks like transfat & refined grain snack foods & the soft drinks that we did a post about yesterday. Even worse, until recently this trend was increasing.

Combined, these two factors almost always make people fat & tend to cause type II diabetes over time.

But, it seems that there is a third major cause that has also been increasing in our culture that may be responsible as well for the sharp rise in type II diabetes, now found even among children, that we have been seeing.

I found part of the clues to this cause in the health article I read in the health article in the Early To Rise email I get. (This was in last Monday’s, 1-28-2008 issue.)

Since it’s so convincing, I’ve reprinted it here.:

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com

“One Damn Good Reason to Eat Organic

By Shane "The People's Chemist" Ellison

"Eating organic" isn't just a good way to support your local farmers. It can also help you avoid Type II diabetes.

In a study released by the American Diabetes Association, scientists discovered that herbicide exposure poses a real threat to our health. It can cause high levels of blood sugar and insulin, for example, both of which can lead to Type II diabetes and drastically decrease lifespan.

The biggest culprits are classes of compounds known as organochlorines. Excess exposure among pregnant women leads to a 2.2-fold higher risk of developing gestational diabetes.

Men showed a 47 percent increased risk.

The most commonly used organochlorine in the U.S. is atrazine. Banned in Europe, 76 million pounds of it are dumped on U.S. foods each year. Non-organic corn and coffee can have particularly high levels of atrazine.

To limit the health risks of herbicides, buy organic foods whenever you can. Choosing organic versions of corn and coffee in particular would be damn smart.

[Ed. Note: Shane "The People's Chemist" Ellison is an internationally recognized authority on therapeutic nutrition. ….”

Coffee is a tough one to deal with as many people do rely on it. And, organic coffee so far is quite expensive. Also, I’m not sure that this source is behind the surge in type II diabetes because people have been drinking a lot of coffee for a LONG time.

(Two ways to drink less non-organic coffee that can work are:

1. Drink organic green tea since you can buy it at reasonable cost at Whole Foods Market stores & likely elsewhere. And two or more cups a day of green tea also have separate health benefits.

2. Buy organic coffee & instant coffee for part of your caffeine intake. I saw a really good looking organic instant at my local Whole Foods Market. And, there may be other sources.

That way, you can drink a lot less non-organic coffee & keep up enough caffeine intake even if you still drink some non-organic coffee.)

Unfortunately, corn is a different matter entirely. THAT is the likely smoking gun in the surge in type II diabetes besides the first two factors.

Here’s why.:

John Robbins, a vegetarian health expert, explained in his book, Diet for a New America, that most people ingest far more pesticides & herbicides from the animal fat they eat than they do from the produce they eat. It seems when those animals ingest food that has even low levels of pesticides & herbicides, they bioconcentrate it in the fat in their bodies.

Secondly, our beef cattle, dairy cattle, & poultry have been overfed corn instead of allowed to graze naturally & eat grass and the other foods they are evolved to eat.

(I’m indebted to health expert & author Dr Al Sears & to reporter and book author Michael Pollan for educating me as to the extent of this practice and its other health damaging effects.)

Since people in the United States have been eating these foods in abundance; & they clearly contain these herbicides, that is really scary. According to John Robbins, that virtually guarantees you a high intake of these herbicides from the bioconcentration effect.

Further, this may even mean that people who do not eat corn directly or who do avoid excess sugars & junk food and who exercise may be affected as well.

This one is important to work on.

This means that it is important to minimize the amount of animal fats from corn fed animals you take in to successfully prevent type II diabetes.

Since doing so also reduces your intake of saturated fat which protects your heart and it helps avoid or lower high blood pressure, it’s an extremely good idea.

What are OK substitutes?

Beef fed only grass. (That’s, mercifully, becoming gradually more available.)

Wild caught fish other than those high in mercury.

Nuts, beans, & lentils. And poultry that has only been pasture fed or only fed organic feed.

Protein supplements made from whey may be OK. And those made from egg whites clearly are. I’m much less familiar with them; but hemp based protein supplements may be OK also.

It also likely helps to trim off all visible fat from any corn fed beef or pork that you eat.

Not eating any hamburger that comes from corn fed cattle also is likely to be wise. (Ground beef using only grass fed beef is probably OK.)

This is also another reason to have most of your dairy intake be of nonfat & very lowfat versions only.

Please consider eating this way. You will definitely protect your health that way.

And, if enough people do that, more of these health OK choices will become available.

Even better, it will help stop the over-feeding of animals with corn & corn that has herbicide residues in it.