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1. Not all potatoes are equal. Some have much higher glycemic loads than others. Russets are the worst common ones. Sweet potatoes aren't even comparable to what most Americans are eating.

Glycemic index and glycemic load is not an index of healthiness, it's just one characteristic of food.

An average Chocolate Cake has an index of 30 while Shredded Wheat has 83 and Carrots have 92. Is carrots going to give you diabetes?

Inuit/Eskimo diets didn't have a lot of carbs until recently, and then their health went to hell along with everyone else.

The Inuit were healthy myth was propragated by researchers Band & Dyerberg:
"The fact is they never examined the cardiovascular status of the Eskimos; they just accepted at face value this notion that coronary atherosclerosis is almost unknown among the Eskimo, a concept that has been disproven over and over starting in the 30s. In fact, going back over a thousand years, we have frozen Eskimo mummies with atherosclerosis. Another from 500 years ago, a woman in her early 40s – atherosclerosis in her aorta and coronary arteries. And these aren’t just isolated cases. The totality of evidence from actual clinical investigations, autopsies, and imaging techniques is that they have the same plague of coronary artery disease that non Eskimo populations have, and actually have twice the fatal stroke rate and don’t live particularly long."

The fact is the Eskimo died relatively young, had high rates of atherosclerosis, heart disease, and strokes.

"Such dismal health that the Westernization of their diets actually lowered their rates of ischemic heart disease. You know your diet’s bad when the arrival of Twinkies improves your health."

Even today they live 10 years shorter than the surrounding population.

Fat isn't the problem; at least not for diabetes.

Look up diabetes and lipotoxicity. Dietary fat converts readily to body fat with somewhere around 97% conversion rate. Carbohydrates do not (very low conversion even on moderate overfeeding) but an excess of carbs will signal to the body to story any dietary fat. Important thing is to eat carbs as grown, and less from a package, since it's more calorie dilute. Pasta with it's water content is the one exception I know, although whole foods still is better. Try to minimize fats, vegetable or animal, as they're much more rare in nature.

Yeah, the source says dairy consumption, so that includes butter and cheese and yogurt.

Anyway, the 1940s Okinawan diet had, like, 85% of calories from carbohydrates. Diabetes was very low.

Your post is completely idiotic. B12 is the only thing I can think of needed, and it doesn't even originate in "meat" but in soil bacteria. The reason modern vegans don't get it is because people don't drink stream or lake water anymore and they wash their vegetables from dirt. In fact, cows are fed so sterile diets, farmers now have to give them b12 tablets!

Now stop spreading bullshit fat is good for you.

Yeah, about that, read this.

And then, when you're done, you can watch this.

Then read up on human heritage, specifically our ~60 millions years of herbivourous heritage. Indeed, I have only heard one factor more compelling than saturated fat in relation to heart disease, consumption of animal proteins. Satfat and Animal proteins are often married together though.

Like the Tobacco Industry of the 1950s and 1960s, meat/dairy/egg industry loves funding studies to confuse the issue. Tobacco had near a thousand studies on its side when the surgeon general made his landmark 1964 report (something like 6,000-7,000 studies on the other side).

Less of some types of carbs, yes, but more other stuff too: https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
"Excess weight interferes with insulin's functions, and is the primary risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. Therefore the most effective treatment for type 2 diabetes is significant weight loss. However, the primary mode of treatment by physicians today is glucose-lowering medication. These medications give a false sense of security, providing implicit permission to continue the same disease-causing diet and lifestyle that allowed diabetes to develop in the first place. Many of these medications promote weight gain -- making the patient more diabetic; most importantly, these medications do not prevent diabetes from progressing and causing complications. ...
The key to diabetes reversal is superior nutrition and exercise. It may take a little extra effort, but avoiding the tragic complications of diabetes and a premature death is well worth it. My diabetes-reversal diet is vegetable-based with a high nutrient to calorie ratio, containing lots of greens and beans, other non-starchy vegetables, (such as mushrooms, eggplant, tomatoes and onions), raw nuts and seeds, and limited fresh fruit with no sweeteners or white flour products. When diabetics eat in this style, they lose their excess weight -- the cause of their diabetes -- quickly and easily, reducing or eliminating their need for medications and they also flood the body with disease-protective and healing micronutrients and phytochemicals that aid the body's recovery and self-repair mechanism."

For Type II diabetics, such a diet with weight loss brings the body's ability to respond to glucose in line with the remaining capacity to make it as needed. Exercise that builds more muscles and that is done when sugar is spiking can also help in managing glucose levels.

For Type I diabetics however, where the body can't produce much glucose at all if any, this improved diet/exercise is not enough, even if it can improve the situation some what as far as reducing complications. For Type I diabetics, this sort of breakthrough with stem cells, if it works, would be truly amazing.

Sometimes type I diabetics are really misdiagnosed type II, and vice versa, so there is a small level of confusion here where sometimes diet works when you would not expect etc..

BTW, vitamin D deficiency (from lack of natural sunlight) may be involved with the autoimmune response that could cause type I diabetes or perhaps make type II worse.

More from Furhman:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
http://www.amazon.com/The-End-...

More from others:
http://www.rawfor30days.com/
http://www.fatsickandnearlydea...
https://www.drmcdougall.com/he...
http://articles.mercola.com/si...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea...
http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/0...

The deeper issue is that our brains and microbiomes are adapted for a scarcity of refined carbs, and we struggle with the abundance of cheap ones:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/libra...
"Scientific evidence suggests that the re-sensitization of taste nerves takes between 30 and 90 days of consistent exposure to less stimulating foods. This means

"The few weeks of discipline crap has been disproved, both scientifically and by human experience over and over again"

Citations needed... Examples where it can work:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/hea...
http://www.heartattackproof.co...
http://www.healthpromoting.com...

I would agree that it can be a difficult path to walk sometimes in our society -- especially when the entire family does not make the change at once, and so essentially keeps re-infecting each other with bad eating habits by bringing junk food into the house. The battle of the "bulge" is generally lost or won in the supermarket, since food brought in to the home is pretty much guaranteed to be eaten in reverse order of healthfulness. As Paul Graham said in his essay:
http://paulgraham.com/addictio...
"Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly."

How can talking about better urban planning be a "fantasy"? Communities can improve themselves. See for example, Albert Lea, MN:
http://www.bluezones.com/progr...
"Our team of experts Dan Burden, Dr. Brian Wansink, and Dr. Leslie Lytle, empowered the community to make a few small lifestyle and environmental changes. Citizens improved in four areas: eating better, becoming more active, connecting with one another and finding a greater sense of purpose, and reaped the positive benefits of revitalizing their bodies, their spirits and their town. The community made a variety of changes including adding workplace wellness policies, revised restaurant menu and vending machine offerings, community gardens, walking clubs, walking school buses and new hiking trails.
Community Successes
* Life expectancy increased an average of 3.1 years
* Participants lost a collective 12,000 pounds
* An average 21% drop in absenteeism by key employers
* City employees showed a 40% decrease in health care costs"

Many cities in Europe have zoning policies that encourage walk-ability and discourage sprawl that leads to automobile dependency.

Also, for your other comments, it sounds to me like you're mostly just being pessimistic without really looking at alternatives such as I've outlined. We may lack the political will to improve ourselves, but for the most part, we collectively know how if we wanted to. Much of the stuff I've outlined is about moving forward. For example, with dish washing machines, high-powered blending machines, ceramic knives, improved heating devices and pots, home grocery delivery in many areas, YouTube example videos, and so on, home cooking is probably a lot easier than it has even been. And that is even before talking about the potential for home gardening robots and home cooking robots. Or even purchased prepared meals that are just prepared *better*.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

As for women specifically, compared to a basic income, how is it "freeing" an individual to for her to separate her from her young children she cares about and move her from a position of great autonomy in the household and part of a distributed network of peers to one where she is statistically a bottom-ranked person on a hierarchy who has a boss staring at her back all the time and is subject to other degrading regulations (like when she can go to the bathroom)? And for the most part ultimately for little economic gain after paying for child-care expenses, a business wardrobe, more purchased meals, and a second car?

http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
http://www.heartattackproof.com/

Don't let the naysayer comments get you down.

Also, if arteries in you heart are all clogged up, then what about arteries in you arms, legs, liver, and brain? Cardiovascular disease affects every system in the body -- it is just that heart problems tend to be more tragically obvious than other clogs. So, the best approach is not to unclog a little part of the hearth that will just clog back up soon, but to unclog everything by eating differently.

A story from:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/stars/stars-written/robert-cross/
-----
Robert Cross: Formerly Dying from Heart Disease ...

Further research led me to Dr. McDougall, and registered dietitian Jeff Novick. All these people gave hope for arresting, and perhaps reversing, my condition through diet and lifestyle modifications. In contrast, neither my internist, nor my cardiologist, was aware of these doctors or their programs or any significant benefit to lifestyle modification. They discouraged me from delaying the surgery, but accepted my decision to at least give diet and "medical management" a try.

My early results were promising. My first blood test on the diet showed my cholesterol was now down to 120 mg/dL and my LDL was 60 mg/dL. My internist was astounded. Medication had only lowered my numbers slightly. I was on Dr. Esselstyn's exact program, which is virtually identical to that of Dr. McDougall, and I hired the McDougall Program dietitian, Jeff Novick, RD, as my coach. I found that everything I needed was available immediately and for free through Dr. McDougall's website. I learned that my results would directly reflect my compliance with the program. I resolved that I would do this program 100 percent. If I could not be 100 percent on my own or failed to get my doctors' support, then I was going to go to the McDougall Live-in Program without delay. (I still plan on going.) I owed that to myself and my family.

Almost immediately, my chest pain went away. My internist asked how I had accomplished this and my dramatic cholesterol drop, and then became quite interested in my program. I needed his help because of the side effects of the medications that occurred once I changed my diet. I had to quickly get off my blood pressure medications because my readings were extremely low and I was feeling light headed. My blood sugars came way down and I had to terminate my diabetes medication. I eventually stopped all of my Lipitor, yet my total cholesterol stayed at 160 mg/dL (my LDL cholesterol remained at 60 mg/dL). I have lost over 60 pounds since beginning my new diet and exercise program in January of 2008, and I continue to lose as my energy increases. I have had no more kidney stones.

After following my progress for almost a year and a half, the cardiologist wanted to repeat the nuclear heart scan. My internist agreed. He was also sure that I was wrong when I had told him that many clinical trials have shown no important benefits other than pain relief for the surgery they had proposed for me more than a year and a half ago. Despite my many obvious improvements, the cardiologist still believed that coronary artery disease is always progressive, and told me not to get my hopes up about the new test. I repeated the exercise nuclear heart scan on May 5, 2009.

This time, I felt great running on the treadmill. I took my heart rate beyond the maximum expected for my age, and had no pain. The monitors I was connected to indicated no problems. Immediately after the test, I spoke with my cardiologist, who seemed somewhat perplexed. He chose his words very carefully. He wanted to know if I had felt chest pain on the first exam in 2008. I think he did not believe the prev

http://www.bluezones.com/programs/blue-zones-communities/albert-lea-mn/
http://www.bluezones.com/live-happier/thrive-centers/
"Our team of experts Dan Burden, Dr. Brian Wansink, and Dr. Leslie Lytle, empowered the community to make a few small lifestyle and environmental changes. Citizens improved in four areas: eating better, becoming more active, connecting with one another and finding a greater sense of purpose, and reaped the positive benefits of revitalizing their bodies, their spirits and their town.
The community made a variety of changes including adding workplace wellness policies, revised restaurant menu and vending machine offerings, community gardens, walking clubs, walking school buses and new hiking trails.
Community Successes
* Life expectancy increased an average of 3.1 years
* Participants lost a collective 12,000 pounds
* An average 21% drop in absenteeism by key employers
* City employees showed a 40% decrease in health care costs"

Yes, people are up against tough odds. But isn't the point of a "health care" as opposed to "sick care" system to help people succeed in implementing known effective solutions towards greater health?

Related resources on diabetes reversal with various slightly different approaches -- McDougal may be easier for many than Fuhrman as far as diet -- and medically suprvised fastign may work for others:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/med_hot_diabetes.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Diabetes.aspx
http://www.rawfor30days.com/
http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/05/20/5-steps-to-reversing-type-2-diabetes-and-insulin-resistance/
http://drbass.com/disease-cure.html
http://www.healthpromoting.com/condition/diabetes

All have similarities. By reducing foods with high glycemic loads, in the diet, while also reducing a person's body fat, and also improving the nutrient density of the food so the human body works better in general, and also getting adequate vitamin D and exercise which also help improve bodily functioning, most Type 2 diabetics can reach the point where they do not need supplemental insulin or other drugs because their needs for insulin have fallen to what their bodies can manage without aid.

But yes, it can be hard. Maybe the biggest part of the issue is that doctors are trained to write permission slips for unhealthy behavior (called prescriptions) instead of being trained in how to help patients change their lifestyle. How many hours of training does the typical MD have in lifestyle discussions? Especially in the ten minutes at most a typical doctor will spend with a typical patient. More than ten minutes, and a doctor's partners will yell at him or her.

And where is the sick care system's profit in curing diabetes? There is so much money to be made in glucose test strips, drug prescription renewals, insulin pump operations, amputations, and so on. There is a fundamental conflict of interest here.

Meanwhile, when a patient does not make the change, the doctor can just blame the subsequent health problems on genetics and the patient's lack of willpower to follow whatever advice was haphazardly given. Convenient for the well-paid doctor.

Contrast with the advice from the True North Health Center which includes training on how to cook healthier ood (as do other like McDougal's approach):
http://www.healthpromoting.com/
http://www.drfuhrm

Both for false positives and ineffective treatments: http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/july/050700physical.htm
" The annual physical exam is an intensive, well-orchestrated, experience designed to make apparently well people, sick (with good intentions). You walk into the doctor's office as George or Francine and you leave as a breast cancer, prostate cancer or heart-disease victim. The initial exams commonly lead to more tests â" some of which are painful, disfiguring, and dangerous, such as mammograms, breast/prostate biopsies, colonoscopies, and angiograms. Ultimately, the costs of all this meddling can make you homeless and take away your life savings.
    The annual physical is supposed to be a means of prolonging your life â" and it could have been, except for the fact that the treatments that follow the initial exam are at best useless, and at worst, dangerous. Let me give you two fundamental reasons why the annual physical is doomed to failure, and because of lack of real life benefits all major health organizations have recommended against it: ...
The goal of every patient should be to remain out of the health care system. This is accomplished by staying healthy. This highly desirable state is not simply a matter of good luck, but rather a result of your behaviors; more specifically, following a low fat, plant-food based diet, getting moderate exercise and having clean habits. ..."

However, note that such advice is also in the context of teaching people how to avoid most disease through better nutrition.
"3 Biggest Mistakes People Make in Their Diets - Dr. John McDougall"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF7Uanr-lYA

See also on why we don't change because we're invested in a belief system (cognitive dissonance):
"Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts"
http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986

"The Food Pyramid of the Insane"
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/debunking-diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html

Not that these doctors all agree, but there is a lot of overlap and they cover the essentials (typically lots of organic veggies, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, maybe fish, vitamin D, and very little processed foods or factory farmed meats):
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
http://www.drmcdougall.com/
http://www.drweil.com/
http://www.mercola.com/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

Occasional fasting may help some conditions, too:
http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/PleasureTrap.htm

This is a good video about the future of medicine based on nutrition, including teaching people how to shop at the grocery store, how to cook at home, and how to order in restaurants to stay healthy:
    http://www.drmcdougall.com/health_10_day_program_video.html

Another video on curing disease by better nutrition:
    "Eat For Health - Joel Fuhrman, M.D."
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw

Someone (not a doctor) who puts a lot of these ideas together into cooking advice:
    http://www.andreabeaman.com/
"Read Andrea's inspiring story, The Whole Truth - How I Naturally Reclaimed My Health, and You Can Too! A story you can relate to as you make diet and lifestyle changes in your own life. Learn how to make health-promoting food taste absolutely scrumptious with the Eating and Recipe Guide. Infused with humor, in depth knowledge about food, and over 120 easy recipes, this is a wise tool to have in your kitchen."

A group helping communities be healthier by changing their public infrastructure:
    http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about

Anyway, most disease in the USA could be prevented by better nutrition, moderate exercise, less stress (like through meditation), good sleep, adequate vitamin D from sunlight, more and better community interactions, more positive thinking, and a few other similar basic things.

"The Food Pyramid of the Insane"
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/debunking-diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html

Not that these doctors all agree, but there is a lot of overlap and they cover the essentials (typically lots of organic veggies, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, maybe fish, vitamin D, and very little processed foods or factory farmed meats):
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
http://www.drmcdougall.com/
http://www.drweil.com/
http://www.mercola.com/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

Occasional fasting may help some conditions, too:
http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/PleasureTrap.htm

This is a good video about the future of medicine based on nutrition, including teaching people how to shop at the grocery store, how to cook at home, and how to order in restaurants to stay healthy:
    http://www.drmcdougall.com/health_10_day_program_video.html

Another video on curing disease by better nutrition:
    "Eat For Health - Joel Fuhrman, M.D."
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPiR9VcuVWw

Someone (not a doctor) who puts a lot of these ideas together into cooking advice:
    http://www.andreabeaman.com/
"Read Andrea's inspiring story, The Whole Truth - How I Naturally Reclaimed My Health, and You Can Too! A story you can relate to as you make diet and lifestyle changes in your own life. Learn how to make health-promoting food taste absolutely scrumptious with the Eating and Recipe Guide. Infused with humor, in depth knowledge about food, and over 120 easy recipes, this is a wise tool to have in your kitchen."

A group helping communities be healthier by changing their public infrastructure:
    http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about

Anyway, most disease in the USA could be prevented by better nutrition, moderate exercise, less stress (like through meditation), good sleep, adequate vitamin D from sunlight, more and better community interactions, more positive thinking, and a few other similar basic things.

44 is awful young to be suffering from arthritis. Arthritis is not inevitable. I use to have arthritis and psoriasis. Now I do not. Skeptics abound, but see: http://www.drmcdougall.com/med_hot_arthritis.html

You would probably enjoy this book and this website.

Protein diets Atkins can be dangerous and can reduce your problem solving abilities.