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Caffeine vs Type II Diabetes
OctaneZ writes "New research out of the Harvard School of Public Health indicates that coffee may lower your risk of Type II Diabetes. Men who drank 6 cups of coffee a day lowered their risk by 50%, while womens risk dropped 30%. The release also includes audio discussions about the suprising findings."
RTFA, they aren't sure it's just the caffeine. Decaf had a similar, but lesser, effect. It could also have something to do with all of the antioxidants in coffee.
There actually is a pretty good rationale for low carb dieting. I'll try to sum up two major lines of evidence:
First, carbs didn't make up a large part of the human diet until the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. Sugars and starchs are simply not available in large consistenet quantities to hunter/gatherers dominant for the previous 90,000 years. Studies comparing the remains of pre-agricultural people and agricultural people show that diabetes and heart disease only appear in populations once agriculture is introduced. The correlation was shown not to be an effect of lifespan. today, cultures such as the Inuit exist on nearly carb free diets and show a similar absence of diabetes and heart disease.
Second, carbs are nearly instantaneously converted to glucose by the digestive system. Where the digestive system easily discards unneeded fat and protein, glucose enters the blood stream very quickly. Excessively high glucose levels are toxic to the brain, so glucose triggers an insulin response. Insulin triggers the fat cells to remove glucose and store it, and it triggers the liver to remove glucose and store it as cholesterol. By removing the carb component of the diet, the body needs to produce its own glucose. The glycogen response triggers the fat cells to release stored glucose into the blood stream and it triggers the liver to convert cholesterol to glucose. Low carb dieting causes the body to spend most time in a glycogenic state, which means the body is burning fat and cholesterol as fuel. Hence, less fat and cholesterol.
Less than 5%?? If you are female, you would have so many other health problems to worry about at that point that not getting diabetes wouldn't do you much good!
Even for males, that's so low as to be almost unachievable...
To be healthy, a woman _needs_ at least 10% body fat, and men at least 5%, and to get that low you need to be working really, really hard. Ideal percentages body fat for _athletes_ run more like 12-18% female / 6-15% male.
Even if you ignore the 5% figure, a person of normal weight has a low but not non-zero chance of developing type ii diabetes.
I prefer to be called Evil Scientist.
This AC makes a good point that you can't lump all carbs together. What really causes the problem in today's diets is that most food is processed very heavily. Grain products have the bran and germ (the most nutritious parts) stripped out of them. Fats have been extracted from their raw sources using heat and chemical solvents which fundamentally change the character of the fatty acids (typically breaking down any double bonds between carbon atoms and allowing more hydrogen to get attached leading to saturated fats). Grain products that retain most of the original nutrition such as barley, wild rice, whole wheat bread, etc. should not be lumped together in the class of 'evil' carbs. The heavily processed sugars and starches in our typical diet are bad because they are simply empty calories.
A balanced diet really is the way to go because your body needs so damn many things to work well and counteract the effects of other things you eat. I know some people don't bother eating fruits because they 'can get their vitamins from a pill'. Fruits provide much more than vitamins, however. Pectin, for example, helps your body deal with excess cholesterol. Atkins' dieters love to eat tons of fat and brag about how healthy they are. I know someone who eats fried eggs and bacon every morning for breakfast. Listen, that is not healthy by any stretch of the imagination. First of all, frying eggs hydrogenates them (if you love eggs, try soft-boiling them so that they yolk isn't exposed to the air). Bacon is cured and processed and filled with saturated fats. Good nutritional practices are not as simple as 'eat more fat and less carbs'.
Many of us have seen first hand how people follwing the Atkins and other fad diets lose weight. But the real key to being healthy (as opposed to just fat loss) is to eat a balanced diet filled with fresh, nutrient-dense foods. You can eat a fair meat of meat on such a diet but you had better (a) trim off excess visible fat, and (b) suppliment with essential fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6 acids found in flax oil, hemp oil, nuts, seeds) to provide your body with the ability to deal with all the cholesterol and saturated fats you'll be taking in. Don't shy away from all carbs but make sure that any carbs you DO decide to take in are from nutrient dense sources. Never eat any type of bread except for 100% whole wheat. Don't use jasmine, white, basmanti or other highly processed rice -- use brown rice, wild rice, or barley. Skip pasta. Don't go crazy on fruits but definitely include some of those every day. And vegetables are essential. That's probably the most nutritious stuff you can find.
Bottom line: good nutrition is quite complicated. Much more so than you will ever hear about in USA Today or CNN. The best thing you can do is eat a balanced diet and reduce your consumption of highly processed foods. I'm not saying you have to run out and starting buying organic produce (lord knows I sure don't) but do realize that our modern society has traded nutrient value of foods for ease of processing and consumption.
GMD
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