Gut Bacteria Can Control Diabetes

Shipud writes "Insulin resistance is the harbinger of metabolic syndrome. Insulin resistance is when the body cannot use insulin effectively. As a result, blood sugar and fat levels rise. Therein lies the path to morbid obesity, diabetes, stroke, and heart problems. A group of Brazilian researchers have taken a strain of mice normally known to be immune to insulin resistance, and made them insulin resistant (pre-diabetic) by changing their gut bacteria. They then gave the mice antibiotics, and by changing their gut bacteria again, reversed the process, curing them of the disease. Their research shows just how influential the bacteria living in our gut can be on our health."

Comments

so

[hypergreatthing]

I think i'm missing something here. Obviously the cure for diabetes is giving people antibiotics so they reset their gut bacteria? I mean, i know i'm going out on a limb here trusting a slashdot editor approved summary submission but...

Re:so

[khallow]

Two problems. First, I imagine there are a variety of causes of diabetes. Changing gut bacteria need not help. Second, you need also to replace the gut bacteria with something better or the reset will just result in the old bacteria coming back.

Re:so

[vlm]

I think i'm missing something here. Obviously the cure for diabetes is giving people antibiotics so they reset their gut bacteria?

gut bacteria depend, in part, on what you eat. The easy way to change them is to flamethrower out your intestines with antibiotics and transplant a new selection, but the ratios can be influenced by food, which is no great surprise I guess. That would be a very interesting follow up paper.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it would've been better if the research had shown that giving diabetes-prone mice new bacteria reduced their insulin resistance.

Of course, "eat this yogurt and you'll get better" doesn't sell as well as "hah, we can cause people to become diabetic, our treatment division is going to take off like a rocket"

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably a bit more complicated than that. Bacteria tend to be quite specialized as far as their environment goes, to the point where you have different species of bacteria living in your armpit, the side of your arm, the outside of your elbow, and all of those are quite a bit different than the ones that live on your face. I'll go out on a limb and suppose that maybe different diets have an influence on the bacterial populations in your stomach and intestines (I've heard it suggested that the appendix might function as sort of a "storm shelter" when you have food poisoning or some sort of diarrhea) too.

Perhaps in the future, you might be able to get treatments of beneficial stomach bacteria, maybe even in pill form, to help treat diabetes. I doubt this particular strain found in mice will work though, you would probably have to find a human analog or genetically engineer a bacterium more at home in the human digestive tract.

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[Mashiki]

There is, genetic being one of the big ones. Along with diet, age, obesity, thyroid, medication related, pregnancy, etc. And where it's genetic and it's childhood inflicted, a lot of diabetics still hold out for partial pancreas transplants or something else, otherwise it's live with it. It does work, but compatibility is the real pain. A lot of people though these days it's simply age + lifestyle. Then again, they've changed the definition of what diabetic is too. What was diabetic 10 or even 20 years ago, isn't what it is today. So a whole new broad range of people fall into it.

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[dintech]

Actually, you can transplant human gut bacteria to treat disease. It's called Fecal Bacteriotherapy. It's a procedure carried out under the supervision of a doctor where you put a donor's shit up your ass. Unappealing certainly, but at least it's not 2girls1cup style.

Re:so

[Attila Dimedici]

No, what they discovered is actually a flaw in existing research into insulin resistance. To summarize the linked article: There is a strain of mice that did not develop insulin resistance from any of the usual procedures used to induce insulin resistance in mice. This particular group of researchers noticed that these diabetes resistant mice were typically housed in isolation from normal mouse micro-organisms. These researchers housed a group of these mice in "conventional facilities" (as opposed to "germ-free" facilities, which was normal) where they were exposed to various bacteria. These mice then developed insulin resistance. When the gut bacteria from these mice were transplanted into other mice, those mice, also, developed the symptoms of insulin resistance. Finally, if these mice were given broad spectrum antibiotics (presumably killing off the microbiota that had developed in their guts) they lost their insulin resistance.
In summation, what they discovered is that the micro-organisms that live in your intestines play a role in whether or not you develop Type 2 diabetes.

Re:so

[b4dc0d3r]

Got it backwards. Getting the right bacteria can apparently cure diabetes, or at least remove the symptoms. Killing all the bacteria with an antibiotic won't magically introduce the correct bacteria. (I retained the plural because it's not clear if there is just one strain, or if they have to work together with others)

There is no 'reset' with bacteria, only killing some or nearly all and hoping you get the right replacements. You have to put the right ones in there.

Re:so

[dgatwood]

There are over-the-counter Lactobacillus acidophilus tablets that contain cultured bacteria already. Why in the world would anyone do it the way you describe? I suppose there are other helpful bacteria in your gut, but that seems to be the most significant variety in terms of its effect on everything from serum cholesterol levels to lactose intolerance....

Re:so

[ShieldW0lf]

There are over-the-counter Lactobacillus acidophilus tablets that contain cultured bacteria already. Why in the world would anyone do it the way you describe? I suppose there are other helpful bacteria in your gut, but that seems to be the most significant variety in terms of its effect on everything from serum cholesterol levels to lactose intolerance....

They're also useful if you want to make plastic out of potatoes.

Interesting factoid: Humans are born with a "gut bacteria" backup solution. It's called your appendix. Very useful if you eat something harsh enough to kill your gut bacteria during a 12 week overland march when you're too far to replenish them in the traditional way by shaking hands with strangers and touching your lip.

Re:so

[dgatwood]

Perhaps in the future, you might be able to get treatments of beneficial stomach bacteria, maybe even in pill form, to help treat diabetes. I doubt this particular strain found in mice will work though, you would probably have to find a human analog or genetically engineer a bacterium more at home in the human digestive tract.

You already can. http://www.wholehealth.com/health-articles/probiotics-may-have-role-in-and-diabetes-management.

The natural medicine practitioners that so many folks on Slashdot seem to bash and ignore have been aware of the connection between L. acidophilus and a number of medical conditions for several years. It has just taken this long for the medical community to be sufficiently convinced that they were right through the use of double-blind studies.

Acidophilus pills are available at pretty much every pharmacy and health food store (at least in the U.S.), from CVS and Walgreens to that weird place on the corner that smells kind of like incense, but not quite. I think if I had diabetes, I'd certainly be tempted to give it a shot. In the worst case, it doesn't help your particular form of diabetes, and you wasted a few dollars for a bottle.

Consuming L. acidophilus is also known to reduce serum cholesterol, reduce lactose intolerance in many people (because it produces some of the enzymes that break down lactose), and reduce the incidence of diarrhea in many situations by crowding out the bad bacteria that cause it. Frankly, it's about as close as you can get to a miracle drug, at least when it comes to digestive health, and it's available over the counter for just a few bucks per bottle. And because each pill contains living bacteria that multiply on their own, you don't necessarily need to keep taking it, unlike drugs.

Re:so

[wisty]

Fun fact - Koalas eat eucalyptus (gum tree) leaves, which are pretty toxic to all other animals. They have a special bacteria in their gut which helps break the toxin down. Guess how the bacteria is passed on to the next generation?

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

"giving people antibiotics so they reset their gut bacteria"

You need to get a good flora of bacteria. The best way for that is Fecal bacteriotherapy. You will die without bacteria, so you need to immediately replace them.

Wiki: "The procedure itself sometimes involves a 5- to 10-day treatment with enemas, made of bacterial flora from feces of a healthy donor"

Re:so

[dgatwood]

Unfortunately, doctors are quick to remove your appendix upon infection instead of trying antibiotics first.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

The healthiest people have the widest range of bacterial flora, usually established as a child and turn into a life long symbiotic relationship. A tablet could never cover the full range of bacteria for an optimal flora.

Re:so

[PCM2]

Another fun fact: Guess how gut flora are "seeded" in humans? Hint: It's more effective with natural childbirth.

Re:so

[Lumpy]

The over the counter is for the rich. Here in the USA the doctor uses fecal matter and a pointy stick.

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[denis-The-menace]

The appendix.

Re:so

[batquux]

Because it can kill you very quickly if it explodes.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the bacteria needs to get into your intestinal tract. It's very difficult for a delivery system that consists of a oral-pill to do this, becasue it has to go through the extremly bacteria-hostile environment of your stomach first. They make supplements that are supposed to overcome this and not open up until they get to your intestines, but they are not the norm.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Several years back I picked up an infection which ended up being penicillin resistant. So they put me on a second non-penicillin based antibiotic. This back to back dose of antibiotics wiped out my gut bacteria and caused severe diarrhea. I had enough complications they even had to remove my appendix.

Now, I take digestive enzymes and probiotics: Lactobacillus acidophilus LA5, Bifidobacterium lactis BB-12, Streptococcus thermophilus (STY-31) and Lactobacillus delbruekii subsp. delbrueckii (LLBY-27).

When I first started taking these it made a large difference, but I've never been able to return to normal.

I've often wondered why these probiotics are only oral. If Fecal Bacteriotherapy is effective, why wouldn't there be a probiotic suppository as well? Is it possible my gut flora is being corrected but some harmful bacteria further along in my intestine is still able to hold on?

Re:so

[PCM2]

Not quite. The appendix is believed to harbor useful bacteria, but how do they get there in the first place? The placenta shields a fetus from most bacteria while it's in the womb, and keeps its blood supply separate from the mother's.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Antibiotics to kill off the bacteria currently infesting your guts, then introduction of the proper strain of bacteria to correct type-2 (insulin resistant) diabetes.

In my case, my type 2 is exacerbated by my cancer producing eosinophils which bind to the insulin receptors. Keep the cancer under control and the diabetes stays under control. watch the white cell count rise, means a1c rises as well.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

The proposed mechanism for treating lactose-intolerance doesn't stack up. The effects of lactose intolerance are not a result of having lactose in your gut per se, they're a product of gut-fauna consumption of lactose - in essence, your gut picks up an enormous amount of sugar which is not absorbed, and thus you get over-development of normal gut fauna which leads to all the fun symptoms.

Re:so

[ShawnDoc]

You also forgot to mention the painful gas and bloating that it causes.

Re:so

[Pope]

Natural medicine practitioners have a very high woo-woo to fact ratio, which is why double-blind tests are needed in the first place. The stuff that works is medicine, no superfluous adjective needed.

Re:so

[crmarvin42]

I'd love a source for that claim. I've never before heard of the appendix described as a gut microbiota reservoir. I've also never heard of someones gut going completely sterile because of a long march.

As long as their is something to digest in your gut, their will be gut microbes. And considering that many of the gut microbes survive primarily on Host synthesized mucus carbohydrate or sloughed Host enterocytes, I'm tempted to call "Bull Shit!" on the entire premise you are suggesting.

The appendix is a regressed cecum. The cecum, in species where it is not regressed, it is a site of fermentation of dietary fiber for the production of volatile fatty acids like Acetic, Proprionic, and Butyric acid, which are then absorbed in the cecum. During fermentation amino acids and vitamins are also synthesized, but are unavailable for absorption in most species. Notable exceptions being poultry, who use reverse peristalsis to push cecal digesta back into the small intestine (primary site of nutrient absorption), and some animals like rabbits who excrete what is called a "Night pellet" consisting primarily of cecal digesta which is then ingested orally, giving the small intestine a second attempt to absorb these cecally derived nutrients.

The key being that the microbiota profile of the cecum, in species where it is fuctional, is very different from the microbiota profile of the small or large intestine.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

The natural medicine practitioners that so many folks on Slashdot seem to bash and ignore

The reason they get bashed and ignored is because natural is meaningless. There is medicine that works, and medicine that doesn't. Natural is irrelevant. Maybe if they learned what a fallacy, and promoted their views with scientific evidence instead of the fallacies and conspiracies they typically use, is people would take them seriously. Of course, if they did that, they'd just be promoting medicine, not 'natural medicine.'

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing this, I wondered why the probiotic supplements are not offered in suppository form. Turns out the rectum is too low on the digestive tract for the little buggers to migrate North. They would pretty much have to be administered by snaking a tube up there a good 2-3 feet. Which need not be such a horrifying thought. The administration tube could be much smaller and more flexible than a colonoscope. But that leads to perforation concerns, which is why nothing of the sort has been brought to market. Yet.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

So can your aorta.

Re:so

[crmarvin42]

The medical community has known about prebiotics and probiotics as a means of changing micrbiota populations for exactly as long as the natural medicine practitioners. The difference is that medical community does not over sell the value as a means of treating disease.

And you are only partially right about not needing to continue taking it. The point of a prebiotic like an acidophilus pill, is that it increases the population above what was present. The initially low population could be an aberration, the result of disease or sudden diet change for example. The low population could also been the "norm" for that individual based on the interation between host genetics, common environmental exposure, diet, or other factors. In the later case, continuing to take the pill would absolutely be necessary to maintain the benefits of the prebiotic. My sister is on a prebiotic regemine because she has a genetic predisposition to the development of certain instinal disorders that respond well to probiotics. Stopping taking the pills results in severe abdominal cramping, and gastric ulcers in a very short period of time.

Re:so

[asoukup]

Here's a link via scientific american
http://io9.com/5872507/the-appendix-might-actually-be-the-bodys-bacteria-storehouse

Google "appendix gut bacteria" and there are loads of articles even from 3-4 years back.

Re:so

[daremonai]

They would pretty much have to be administered by snaking a tube up there a good 2-3 feet. Which need not be such a horrifying thought..

I disagree. This needs to remain a horrifying thought.

Re:so

[demonlapin]

Appendicitis is caused by a blocked appendix, not one full of bacteria. And rupture leads to gut bacteria running loose in the abdomen, which is a Bad Thing.

Re:so

[scubamage]

A far better method would be to ensure that they ingest a number of foods which contain live probiotics. And get people to stop talking about goddamned cleanses which throw off the balance of intestinal flora.

Re:so

[JoeMerchant]

The natural medicine practitioners that so many folks on Slashdot seem to bash and ignore...

It's not just here, Scientific American is another great place to find religious fanatics who worship at the altar of the double-blind placebo controlled study.

It's a tool - it can be used and misused like anything else. It's often so damned expensive to do a proper scientific study that the community simply freezes out ideas they find unappealing by not funding "proper" study of them.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

As a lactose intolerant individual myself, I can assure you, if I stop taking "milk pills" (as everyone calls them) then I stop being able to eat dairy. I've taken them for years with lactose containing meals, and while they mostly work (sometimes they only serve to lessen the symptoms) the occasional time I forget I am reminded about a few hours later with the usual gas (the kind that makes people in the office ask if I've seen a doctor), cramps, bloating, and horrific diarrhea.

Re:so

[acidreverb]

Aortectomy! STAT!

Re:so

[sjames]

A potential cure for SOME forms of diabetes might be antibiotic treatments and inoculation with a better bacterial culture.

Re:so

[sjames]

Since killing them again reversed the condition, they could be said to be the cause of some cases rather than just a trigger for developing the condition.

I wonder if this will end up as another case like H. Pylori where we find that a a bunch of people have been long subjected to only moderately helpful treatments, needless special diets, a lot of suffering, and a considerable amount of victim blaming over what was actually just a chronic infection.

Re:so

[Grishnakh]

Not totally related, but if you have any friends with rabbits, go visit and look at their cages carefully. They have two kinds of turds (and they make lots of them!). One of them is waste, the other one they eat. They're basically like cows (which have 4 stomach compartments), except they don't have a way of regurgitating their partially-digested food to chew on it some more (cud), so instead they crap it out and eat it again.

Not such cute little animals any more, are they?

Re:so

[Grishnakh]

Someone else a few comments up said that suppositories wouldn't work because the bacteria can't get from your rectum all the way up to your small intestine where it needs to be. However, a surgical procedure should be able to do that pretty easily.

Have you looked into this?

Re:so

[dgatwood]

A blocked appendix is typically caused by inflammation due to infection.

Re:so

[dgatwood]

They make supplements that are supposed to overcome this and not open up until they get to your intestines, but they are not the norm.

What you're missing is that it is not a requirement that all the bacteria survive, only that some of the bacteria survive. It's like trying to injure somebody by throwing a baseball at him or her. If you throw one baseball, that person will probably catch it. If you throw a million baseballs in the course of a half a second... you get the picture.

Re:so

[dgatwood]

Lactose intolerance is generally believed to be caused by insufficient levels of lactase, which breaks down lactose. L. acidophilus produces lactase. Now admittedly, the lactose intolerance is not caused by the lack of bacteria, but rather by the particular human not producing enough lactase. However, introducing additional lactase-producing bacteria does help some people.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched a program only last night that suggested that what the mother ate during pregnancy could also be crucial. It was based on research on birth weight in children in the west and on people in India where there are high rates of heart disease and diabetes despite over-eating and lack of exercise not being on the agenda. Basically they found that lots of Indian kids were skinny but still had elevated fat levels. This could be ameliorated by changes in the mother's diet to include the usual suspects, green leafy vegetables, protein etc.

Re:so

[demonlapin]

Or a fecalith, or mechanical kink. Lymphoid hyperplasia is a frequent culprit, but the treatment for appendicitis is surgical excision. The antibiotics are too late once you have symptomatic appendicitis, because the blockage is due not to bacteria in the appendix but to cell proliferation (in response to bacteria that may be in either the colon or the appendix) that will not resolve with mere killing of the bacteria that caused it. Meanwhile, the bacteria in the appendiceal lumen are multiplying rapidly, and will eventually produce pressure necrosis of a portion of the appendiceal wall and rupture.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like bullshit. Studies like this are usually done using specious statistical practice, and due to their cost, they often aren't repeated in other more scientific ways, to validate the claim.

Based on what you've said above, it's extremely unlikely that's true.

Re:so

[MaskedSlacker]

Ah yes, the time honored "wall of balls" method of execution.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Try VSL#3 (vsl3.com) - a powerful probiotic (has to be kept refrigerated). I had a similar experience. That, Saccharomyces Boulardii and Psyllium Husk powder (insoluble fiber) really helped me and I'm getting back to 100% now after a year of suffering.

Re:so

[staalmannen]

What has been discovered lately is that we have a very complex ecosystem of bacteria in our gut and only a small fraction of those bacteria can be cultured (which caused an underestimation of the complexity). Thanks to the high-throughput sequencing technologies of today, we now have a far better idea of this complexity, which will give us a better idea of which specific species that may be useful for treatments. Unappealing as it may be, we will have to accept "shit transplants" until we figure out a way to identify and culture those specific bacteria that we need to transplant.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooops! You appear to have linked to a content-free linkbait site. Let me help you find the original article.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/01/02/your-appendix-could-save-your-life/

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

People in the same household tend, over time, to share gut bacteria. How does this happen?

On a possibly completely unrelated note, did anyone see that study where they dyed fecal matter, stuck it in a WC and then flushed it? Pretty colours all over your toothbrush. Didn't make any difference if the lid was shut as flushing effectively pressurised the bowl...

Re:so

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

Not so. Using anti-biotics is like using a nuke against all your bacterial life and this may give room to some really nasty other micro-organisms like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candida_albicans. Candida Albicans can influence production of serotonine thus causing mood swings, cause irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome and will feast on sugars entering the bowels, thus causing hypoglycemia, which is like diabetes but in reverse.

Re:so

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

There are over-the-counter Lactobacillus acidophilus tablets that contain cultured bacteria already. Why in the world would anyone do it the way you describe?

Because "over-the-counter" usually translates to "overpriced shit that does little if anything at all".

Re:so

[Courageous]

I suspect that whatever else is true, one should not hope that there is just one cause of insulin resistance.

Re:so

[ShieldW0lf]

I didn't suggest that long marches will sterilize your cut. Try reading the comment first:

Very useful if you eat something harsh enough to kill your gut bacteria during a 12 week overland march when you're too far to replenish them in the traditional way by shaking hands with strangers and touching your lip.

IF you kill your gut bacteria AND you are surrounded by your fellows, THEN you can make do without your appendix BECAUSE you can rejuvenate your gut by shaking hands and touching your mouth.

IF you kill your gut bacteria AND you are carrying a message to a remote settlement on foot for 12 weeks THEN you cannot rejuvenate your gut from your fellows but you're going to be ok BECAUSE you can rejuvenate your gut from the culture in your appendix.

IF you pay me enough, I will conduct a google search for you so you can see the substantiating research. OTHERWISE, I'm not your student. Go find the research yourself.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe they found some mechanism that may prove helpful but type 2 diabetes can also involve a reduced beta cell count in the pancreas, not just insulin resistance. Since you can't grow new beta cells the body may not be able to produce enough insulin regardless of the level of tissue resistance.

It will be interesting to follow the work of this lab and others as they explore this more fully.

Re:so

[sjames]

Why not, it would make treatment much easier!

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

All you have to do is move to another country to experience how this can work directly. A large part of it is that in the US all food has sugar added. Compared to other parts of the world, the quantity of unavoidable sugar is starkly enormous.

I had metabolic syndrome living in the US. Moved to Asia where sugar is pretty rarely consumed or added to food and "voila!", metabolic syndrome pretty much disappeared. Move back to the US for a few months - it reappears (weight, symptoms of insulin resistance, etc.). Move back to Asia, its disappears again. It's all very real and demonstrable.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

OTHERWISE, I'm not your student. Go find the research yourself.

"Go look up evidence for my claim yourself!" is always an admission that you never actually did any research yourself, and that you were just repeating something that you heard somewhere (and probably fucked up the meaning of it as well).

Re:so

[Courageous]

Well, one might hope, it's just not likely to be true. :-P

Re:so

[sjames]

Agreed.

Re:so

[lsatenstein]

Why is it that heavy alcoholic drinkers do not appear to be diabetic? Sure they succumb to the consequences, but rarely have I read about it being due to diabetes. Mostly, I read about liver and kidney failures. Can someone comment please?

Re:so

[sonamchauhan]

From a creationist perspective, also see:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v3/n1/human-veriform-appendix

Regarding rabbits and 'night pellets': after being excreted, these are eaten whole by the rabbit and redigested in a special part of the stomach. (source: wikipedia)

There was an old controversy regarding the Bible classifying rabbits as animals that 'take up' again what they first ate:
http://creation.com/do-rabbits-chew-their-cud

The discovery of this 'night pellet' redigestion process confirmed this.

Re:so

[crmarvin42]

From the article linked to by asoukup that discusses this hypothesis:

That falls into the category of an extraordinary claim that needs some truly extraordinary evidence to back it up.

This applies to you as well as the researchers who suggested this hypothesis.

Re:so

[crmarvin42]

WTF does creationism have to do with anything here? Not sure I see the connection.

Re:so

[Japie_H]

One of the reasons is that almost all bacteria you ingest (by pill, normal food or special yoghurt) die when they come in to contact with the stomach acid. Which makes the pills and yoghurt quite pointless!

Re:so

[marnues]

Since you asked so nicely. ;) Let me start by saying that my "research" is from a court ordered dependency program. About half of the material is propaganda, but the other half is real research. Also, thanks to mandatory AA meetings, I have plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the research.

Heavy alcoholic drinkers do suffer from diabetes. However, it is actually the lesser of evils compared to kidney and liver problems. Drinking with destroyed liver or kidneys will kill quicker than anaphylactic shock. Modern sanitation and understandings of poison prevent most causes of liver and kidney damage, so it's particularly interesting when someone dies of liver or kidney failure.

Drinkers who may not fall under the "heavy alcoholic drinker" category are much more likely than non-drinkers to suffer diabetes. And since they are not "heavy alcoholic drinkers" we as a society do not single out alcohol as the cause of their problems. Which is probably fair given the other parts of the average American diet that also promote diabetes.

Find it, eat it

[RCC42]

Like all things in life, the solution to this problem can be found through eating (beneficial gut bacteria)

Re:Find it, eat it

[Anonymous Coward]

Google fecal transplant. It's a real thing.

Re:Find it, eat it

[Anonymous Coward]

Google fecal transplant.

That doesn't sound like a kid-safe thing to do. :-)

Re:Find it, eat it

[blueturffan]

Google fecal transplant. It's a real thing.

And I thought Google Wave was a bad idea. I don't care how many invites I get, I'm not trying Google Fecal Transplant.

Re:Find it, eat it

[Anonymous Coward]

Google fecal transplant.

All it's yielding are Japanese .xxx results...

Re:Find it, eat it

[crossmr]

Especially now that they're going to customize the results to your social network. I wonder how they got those pictures..

To be pedantic

[Anonymous Coward]

Therein lies the path to morbid obesity

Not quite therein, as the conditions also have to include the person eating an amount of calories far greater than he expends from physical activity, and continuing to do so long after obvious changes in his body.

Re:To be pedantic

[MightyYar]

That's not pedantic - it's a simple fact that seems to be lost on people. Sure, there are factors like diabetes and glandular issues that can make it easier to put weight on... but you still have to eat more than you use!

Re:To be pedantic

[dfghjk]

Which are conditions that exist for virtually the entire population already.

Re:To be pedantic

[sjames]

Actually it's a bit of over-simplified claptrap. The 'simple' fact is that absorbing and converting more calories than you use will cause weight gain. The complex part, generally ignored by people who for some reason love to claim that losing weight is easy, is that eat != absorb. Some people don't absorb very much of the calories that they eat. Others absorb practically all of them. The next complexity is that some people have a much higher resting metabolism than others to the point that they may go through more in a day just being a couch potato than others who actually do things.

Then, of course,m there's metabolic disorders where the consumed calories are stored as fat even when the body is short on energy. That will sure make you fatter AND cause you to have to eat more just to not feel like a famine victim. Technically, it's still true that they are absorbing more calories than they are burning through, but it's also true that they cannot avoid that without actual starvation.

Re:To be pedantic

[dudpixel]

That's not pedantic - it's a simple fact that seems to be lost on people. Sure, there are factors like diabetes and glandular issues that can make it easier to put weight on... but you still have to eat more than you use!

I disagree. It may be more correct to say "you still have to eat more than your body uses", but its misleading to think you can eat whatever and just work off the extra calories. It doesn't work that way, despite science ignoring the rapid increase in the number of overweight people since the 1980's when they changed their advice from "fats are good" to "fats are bad, eat carbs". Humans have been eating meat and fatty foods since the dawn of time, yet in the 21st century we declare fat as the enemy and then wonder why so many people are putting on weight...??

the eat less/do more thing doesn't seem to be working very well does it? With so many people on diets, how come none of them have any willpower?

I'll give you a clue, people get food cravings because their bodies tell them they are hungry. Is there body trying to hurt them? no, its trying to stay alive.
Why would people feel hungry when they are actually not starving? from eating carbs. our bodies are not designed to eat the amount of carbs we do - it just cannot cope, so the mechanisms that tell us when we are full/hungry are not working properly. Start eating real food, not processed stuff, and you can bring your body back to life - and find out what it is really capable of. It can burn its own fat, it doesn't need your help. You just need to give it a chance, by stopping the carb intake which is what's making you fat in the first place...

Read this: http://www.zoeharcombe.com/the-knowledge/weight-gain-is-about-fat-stored/

There are much better articles on that website too, spend some time reading that and you'll know more than most dietitians/nutritionists in the world.

If it really was just about how much you eat vs how much you do, then how do we have people who are thin who can eat loads of food without weight gain, and others who are fat who will put on weight eating half that amount?

Starvation diets will plateau, as your body always adjusts its energy needs to match energy available. If you eat less, your metabolism slows down so you use less. There is nothing you can do about this - your body will keep itself alive at any cost. If you continue to eat less, your body thinks you're on a desert island, and attacks your muscles since these are more "expensive" than fat, and this can reduce your energy needs further, thus keeping you alive longer.

Do the opposite - eat the right amount, but eat well. Eating well means limit carbohydrates to only the amount your body will actually use, which unless you're an athlete, will be under 100g per day, probably under 50g per day.

Its easy - carbs increase your blood sugar, which in turn causes your body to produce insulin, which then causes your body to store fat.

No carbs, no blood sugar increase, no insulin, no stored fat. Actually there may still be some blood sugar increase from proteins but not enough to be worried about.

Your body can live without carbs. It cannot live without fats, and it cannot live without protein. it can turn protein into glucose when needed (so you get exactly the right amount, not a flood of it), and it can get energy from fat. in fact fat is more energy-dense than carbs, so this is why your body stores its own excess energy as fat - hint: its not trying to kill you. it just stores energy in case you might need it later.

also, no carbs = no bloating. fat/protein helps you feel fuller for longer, so you wont crave sweets (after a week or two). keep off the sugar, it is killing you.

read some more from zoe harcombe - i hope you find this useful :)

Re:To be pedantic

[Anonymous Coward]

eat less/do more thing is the only diet that worked for me. i lost around 30kg (66lbs) ten years ago and i can assure you that if i stop running 2 times/week or start eating fat again at the dinner i will return to my previous weight. also saying that by eating less your body will reduce your body metabolism is false if you practice sport because sport increase your metabolism. the counterpart is that i have a huge appetit and i feel constantly hungry, despite being very energetic.

Re:To be pedantic

[MightyYar]

I disagree. It may be more correct to say "you still have to eat more than your body uses",

Now THAT is pedantic!

Re:To be pedantic

[MightyYar]

Technically, it's still true that they are absorbing more calories than they are burning through, but it's also true that they cannot avoid that without actual starvation.

I'm not familiar with this condition, but I think it is safe to say it is an edge case.

Re:To be pedantic

[sjames]

Yeah, diabetes almost never happens, I don't even know why we're talking about it.

Re:To be pedantic

[MightyYar]

Adult-onset diabetes? Type 2?

Considering that the first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes is exercise and diet management, I think you might have something mixed up about its mechanism.

Re:To be pedantic

[sjames]

Many diabetics end up overweight in spite of the diet and exercise. That's what they mean by metabolic syndrome. I think you just don't have the whole picture.

Re:To be pedantic

[MightyYar]

Many diabetics

That's the edge case I was talking about. Most type-2 diabetes is itself a result of obesity (and a genetic predisposition), irreversible though it may be. Most type-2 diabetics who actually try it see their condition improve as a result of exercise, and to a lesser extent perhaps diet - though that area is quite contentious. There are also drugs, of course - and insulin.

Re:To be pedantic

[sjames]

If you want to call it an edge case, OK, but that's not usually what it means.

Re:To be pedantic

[MightyYar]

I just don't think untreated or untreatable type 2 diabetes is that common. The only way you will have elevated glucose that is unusable is if you aren't treating your diabetes or if you have some form that is untreatable. In general, a diabetic that is gaining weight is either not treating his condition properly or is eating more calories than he is burning (though it is more likely to be a she).

Re:To be pedantic

[sjames]

I never claimed there is no treatment, only that the treatment is only partially effective.

Re:To be pedantic

[MightyYar]

Well, that's certainly true - though even type 1 patients aren't trapped in some endless spiral where they all end up obese. Then again, type 2 patients tend to be obese to start with when their diabetes begins.

Can we just agree that diabetes sucks, so try not to get it by avoiding too much in and not enough out?

Re:To be pedantic

[sjames]

That's reasonable enough.

Re:To be pedantic

[dudpixel]

a small distinction on the surface, but a huge one in practice.

Your body may well use more or less energy regardless of what you do and regardless of what you eat. You can eat more food, and your metabolism may increase to match it, even without exercise. If you eat less food, your metabolism may slow down...the fact is we just dont know enough about metabolism to simply say "eat less energy than you use" in order to lose weight - because we just dont know how much energy we actually derive from what we eat (vs how much is discarded) and we dont know how much energy our body is using at any given moment.

instead of trying to use more energy than you consume, thinking that will create a net deficit and force your body to burn fat for energy, one should instead think of food as fuel, and allow the body to do its job effectively without trying to overthink it.

The fact is, if you do try to create an energy deficit, rather than start burning fat, your body will instead get very tired once you run out of glycogen (energy from carbs, stored in your muscles) and you will have very little desire or ability to keep on exercising. The body is a bit lazy, in that if its used to getting energy from carbs, then it will refuse to get energy from fat, and instead it will just try to slow you down and make you hungry for more carbs.

Once you realise that the cravings are just your body's survival mechanism telling you to eat more food (which is why you crave sweet things, or foods high in fast energy, ie. refined carbs/sugar), you will be able to resist them with that knowledge, and turn to more wholesome food instead.

I'll cut it short: Want energy? Eat protein/fat. Meats, fish, eggs, yoghurt, etc will give you far better energy and will keep the hunger away longer than any carbohydrates will, and the best part is they will not make you fat.

No sir, its impossible to get fat from eating meat, fish or eggs. Eat as many as you like. No carbs, no insulin, no stored fat. It really is that simple. It just takes your body a few days/weeks to get used to getting its energy from fat/protein rather than carbs. Its easier to get energy from refined carbs, but we know the energy doesn't last long and makes you feel worse afterwards. Get used to fat/protein as an energy source, and you'll never have weight problems again.

Still think you can eat that burger and then exercise it off? You might like to try and calculate just how many hours on the treadmill it takes, or how far you'd have to run - hint: you'll be gone a while. long enough that you'd need to think about packing your next meal...oh wait - that's what we're trying to burn off...

Its far easier to just not eat the bad stuff to begin with. And by bad stuff I mean refined carbohydrates (sugars, white bread, flour, white rice etc).

I hope I have got you thinking (anyone who cares to read it). The health officials have it wrong. If they didn't then the obesity rate wouldn't be skyrocketing. Do you really think people suddenly stopped being active in the 1980's. Rather, I'd say that they started eating unhealthy on a large scale, but without realising it. How? because they were following the diet advice given to them by the health officials, telling them to base their meals on carbs, and "eat less". As a result they get hungry, and eat more carbs, putting them on the path to rapid weight gain, and no idea how to reverse it.

Its time to spread the word. Fat = good. Cholesterol = vital for life (look it up). Protein = good. Carbs = ok. Refined carbs = bad.

Re:To be pedantic

[dudpixel]

you need to change your thinking.

you will lose weight by starving yourself, that is evidenced by viewing any people who are literally starving.

However, that is not healthy and really not what you want.

The reason you get hungry is because your body is wanting more fuel. Its food cravings - and if you read zoe harcombe's blog you'll find enough info to work out what those food cravings are. It isn't normal to be hungry all the time.

If you get your energy mainly from carbs, then you may feel energetic but you will need to exercise to use the energy, or it will be converted to fat.

When you say that if you eat fat you will return to your previous weight, I assume you mean "in addition to carbs". Because fat on its own cannot make you fat. It is impossible. The ONLY reason you get fatter is because your body produces insulin, and the job of insulin is to convert your excess energy reserves to stored body fat. Without insulin your body will not store excess energy as fat.

And the only reason your body creates insulin because your blood sugar level is increased, and the easiest way to increase your blood sugar level is to eat carbs. Nothing else affects your blood sugar level enough to make a difference. Only carbs will.

The only downside to not eating carbs is that you will find it difficult to do intense exercise. For sports, or any intense exercise, you need carbs - because your muscles cannot get the energy fast enough from fat for intense exercise. glucose energy is delivered much faster than ketones (energy from fat) so this is why athletes need carbs. The rest of us do not need carbs, and any time you are not exercising, carbs will only give you energy you wont use and it will turn to stored fat.

Eating less will reduce your metabolism, and if you think you can play sport on less energy than your body needs, you're fooling yourself. Sport does increase your metabolism, so your energy will be burned up faster (simple isn't it?) , which means you'll get hungry for more energy sooner. Your body wont let you starve, which is why you get hungry. Its your natural survival mechanism kicking in. You'll get lethargic, and you'll need to eat. Actually, many people turn to energy drinks, which is a big shot of refined carbs, instant energy, and your muscles will go crazy for it, but it will not last and afterwards you'll feel more lethargic.

If you do switch to protein & fat, you will get massive withdrawals from sugars and carbs. Many articles claim that high fat/low carb diets leave you without energy, but the side effects they list are almost all withdrawal symptoms from sugar and refined carbs. Stick with the low carb/high fat diet long enough, and the withdrawal symptoms pass, your body learns to derive energy from fat and protein, and you'll feel more healthy and more vibrant than ever before.

I'll sum it up by saying the only people who need carbs are athletes and people who do intense physical exercise. I'm not talking about a walk down the road or a jog around the block either...

For the rest of us, our bodies actually work better on fats and protein, which is what people have been eating most for many thousands of years. We have done a diet u-turn in the last 30 years and then are scratching our heads wondering why the world is getting fat.

Re:To be pedantic

[dudpixel]

btw, I forgot to congratulate you - 30kg is a very good achievement and one you should be very proud of. If your diet/exercise is working for you then stick to it, but please dont feel you need to starve yourself to stay slim. Never before in history have people been so madly trying to cut down on food in order to stay in shape - it is a problem unique to our day and one I believe we have created by our insistence on eating so many carbs.

Re:To be pedantic

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

NO.

Listen, in the end, we're limited by thermodynamics. If you use more energy than you eat, you lose weight. PERIOD. That is 100% of the equation. Do not get confused into thinking that eating less and doing more can't be a solution if that's how you want to do it. It will ALWAYS work because you can't escape physics.

However, there are real-world issues to take into account, like hunger, caloric density, caloric measurement, absorption, etc., etc.

I've been on high protein, low carb diets, and induced ketosis (the point at which you're burning basically no glucose for energy; it's all protein and fat) and those diets worked no better than anything else. I'm a competitive cyclist; I play with my intake and diets several times a year. I've looked at a lot of factors, and the single most effective thing that I've ever done is weighed my food.

If I weigh my food and monitor my intake for 8 weeks, it resets my notion of how much food I'm eating and how many calories are in the food that I'm eating. It also tends to keep me hungry for a little while, until my body adjusts.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that you CAN eat whatever and burn it off. The devil, however, is in the details. Knowing your intake and output aren't trivial, and the availability of cheap, high-calorie-density foods tends to foil our natural systems for figuring out how much we're eating. But you can have a 100% carb diet, or 100% protein, and provided you've accounted for essential nutrients, you will survive just fine. Study after study after study bears this out. You just have to pay attention. That might be too much to ask of some people, but it will work. Every time.

(Search for the professor that did the junk food diet recently. He LOST weight.)

Re:To be pedantic

[MightyYar]

Not that I disagree with what you said, but the same advice doesn't work for everyone's body. Humans are not immune from evolution, and depending on your ancestry you might be predisposed to a different kind of diet. Your body also responds to food and exercise differently as you age. I'm lucky because I can just reduce the quantity of what I eat and the pounds go away (the reverse is also true...). Other people don't have the same reaction. When I don't alter diet but just exercise, I don't get any weight loss but I feel much better. Probably this is because whatever muscle I gain offsets the fat weight reduction, but I don't really know. As you point out, it is very hard to alter diet AND exercise at the same time - exercise makes you hungry. If I try this route, I usually drink a ton of water or tea to keep my stomach full - but you need to be prepared to visit a bathroom every 30 minutes!

Re:To be pedantic

[dudpixel]

If thermodynamics worked the way you think, then try creating a 500 calorie deficit every day for a year, and then add up the kilos you lost.

calorie theory says that 1lb of fat = 3500 calories, so I'd assume that after 1 year on this diet you should lose exactly 52 pounds, or 23.6kg.

If 10 people ate a 500 calorie deficit diet every day for a year, they should all lose the same amount of weight right?

in fact experiments have been done - where the weight lost was barely even a 10th of what calorie theory says.

http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2009/12/the-calorie-theory-is-everywhere-and-wrong/

Basically you're interpreting thermodynamics wrong.
Sure, energy in = energy out. But how do you know exactly how much energy your body is taking in? if your cells dont absorb calories because you have food intollerances, or if something isn't working, then there is no energy in.

You have no way of knowing what your body does with the food you eat. Will it glean the nutrients from all of it? half of it? how much will it discard as waste?

Also, you have no way of measuring "energy out" either. What if your metabolism speeds up - that's greater "energy out" right? even without you doing any exercise...

thermodynamics is true, yes, but you just cant relate it to food in vs usable energy out (ie. exercise/sport). if you have a metabolic disorder, then i'm pretty sure you could eat lots of energy foods and still not feel energetic...and some people can eat a lot of food and still lose weight rapidly if they have a disorder.

Re:To be pedantic

[dudpixel]

um, a 100% carb diet will see you dead in a day or two.

actually there's no such thing - there will always be protein.

but you also need fat, and cholesterol. Without fatty acids you will die quickly. without cholesterol you wouldn't even be alive to begin with, let alone have a chance to die...

you can live without carbs - but you absolutely cannot live without protein and absolutely not without fat.

Re:To be pedantic

[Anonymous Coward]

um, a 100% carb diet will see you dead in a day or two.

OK, I admit - I actually laughed out loud. If that was your intent - good job. If not - I call BS.

Re:To be pedantic

[dudpixel]

um, a 100% carb diet will see you dead in a day or two.

OK, I admit - I actually laughed out loud. If that was your intent - good job. If not - I call BS.

its actually probably impossible to find anything that is 100% carbs, so really the point is moot.

But it is true that you cannot survive without a sufficient quantity of both protein and fat (or "essential fatty acids" to be precise).

Protein is great for muscle and fat is great for overall wellbeing and health. carbs are good for giving you sickness, heart disease, and diabetes...
Well, you can eat well on carbs (no refined carbs like sugars, white bread/flour etc) but who really does in practice? athletes need carbs for instant energy release, but the rest of us can get plenty from mostly protein and fat, and 50-100g of carbs a day.

Re:To be pedantic

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not arguing with you. I'm just saying, your comment was preposterously overstated.

Perhaps you meant "week or two" rather than "day or two".

first principles

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's just me but the obvious question would seem to be: what causes insulin resistance in the first place?

Re:first principles

[ColdWetDog]

Maybe it's just me but the obvious question would seem to be: what causes insulin resistance in the first place?

Voltage(insulin) / Current(insulin) ??

I have a gut feeling about this.

[sgt scrub]

Insert spam for gut bacteria pills that cure diabetes here.

Re:I have a gut feeling about this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit Jim I'm a doctor not a doctor.

Will this need to be FDA approved?

[wisebabo]

As a pre-diabetic myself I'm wondering if this will need to be FDA approved?

I mean aren't active yeast cultures okay in non-FDA approved yogurt? Since these are (I presume) non-pathogenic bacteria, couldn't they also be made available over the counter in pill form (packaged as dried spores?).

I guess you'd still need a prescription for the anti-biotics to clear out the existing flora in your gut though.

Re:Will this need to be FDA approved?

[gnasher719]

As a pre-diabetic myself I'm wondering if this will need to be FDA approved?

What makes you think this would help one bit? They created an artificial problem in mice, which as a result leads to the same problems as Type 2 diabetes, then fix the artificial problem. If you are not a mouse, then this is unlikely to work for you. And if your condition isn't caused by someone changing your gut bacteria to something very unhealthy, they have nothing that could help you.

Re:Will this need to be FDA approved?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can start the process without anti-biotics. They just kill everything and you start fresh. You can introduce new "good" bacteria on your own. There was a product called Florastor that I took for a while that did help. It wasn't for this specific problem so you'd have to locate something with the proper one.

Re:Will this need to be FDA approved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not feeling like reaching hard today huh?

It's not like they could identify the bacteria that reduced their insulin resistance, determine what's different, move that difference to E. Coli in human gut and get lower insulin resistance.

Re:Will this need to be FDA approved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC since I'm at work...
 
1: pathogenicity of a bacteria is more complicated than just a species name. It has to do with the location of the bacteria (i.e. E. coli in your intestines is just fine; getting it in your eyes is pinkeye, and can cause more severe problems other places in your body), and the receptors on the surface of that particular strain (for instance, many strains of E. coli won't make you sick if you eat them, but get the O157H7 strain, and it has the receptors that allow it to colonize places in your body which will do you harm). The right mixture of bacteria will also be essential for maintaining health, and is a complicated mixture to get right once, much less controled production on a large scale. Also, not all bacteria are spore-forming, and storage conditions vary widely; (though -80C aliqots stored in a nutrient rich cryopreservative are fairly fool-proof - but that would make shelf life and distribution difficult).
 
2: Since pathogenicity of the bacteria is dependent upon administration route, these are very unlikely to be able to be sold over the counter as they could be considered pathogenic when used incorrectly. Ensuring proper storage conditions and administration put this pretty squarely in the medical treatment category, which consequently will need FDA approval. Honestly, the fecal tranplant from a healthy individual treatetment others have mentioned here is probably the better way.

Re:Will this need to be FDA approved?

[drinkypoo]

As a pre-diabetic myself I'm wondering if this will need to be FDA approved?

I mean aren't active yeast cultures okay in non-FDA approved yogurt?

You're witnessing the beginning of the end. Ordinary foods are starting to be required not to make health claims even when supported by science. Meanwhile if you say your milk doesn't contain rBGH they want you to print lies about how the government can't tell the difference between BGH and non-BGH milk, which has been conclusively proven false in a federal court.

Re:Will this need to be FDA approved?

[arkane1234]

TEST. This is a TEST.
It's what labs do before it's tested on humans.

That reeks of poo transplants

[kanweg]

Dutch scientists found something similar. They transplanted poo:
http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2010/10/19/6914/transplanted-feces-from-thin-people-improve-insulin-sensitivity-in-people-with-pre-diabetes/

Bert

Re:That reeks of poo transplants

[NatasRevol]

That sounds just like it, but with lazy scientists who didn't want to identify the specific bacteria.

Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome are so easy to prevent by not eating the wrong kinds of foods that it's more accurate to refer to those conditions as lifestyle choices rather than diseases.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[nanospook]

What came first? The chicken or the egg? You see it as lifestyle choices but may not realize that the life style is being impacted metabolically behind the scenes. A person may act like a slug because they don't have energy. Its a cycle and it's hard to change. I'm a diabetic. But I exercise and eat fairly well. But when I was younger all I did was crave sugar constantly. 2/3's of my family tree going back 3 generations is diabetic. I don't think it's quite so cut and dry. To play devil's advocate, yes eating good and exercising will help tons! But it just doesn't always change the WHY of it happening.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

Part of the problem is that so many people have been taught that "eating well" means avoiding saturated fat and eating lots of grains and vegetable oil, despite the evidence that such a diet has the exact opposite effect of what is claimed. Once you figure out that eating well means almost the complete opposite of what the government-sponsored experts have been telling us for the last 30 years it becomes very easy to reverse the process.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Belial6]

Unfortunately, the foods that are standard recommendation for 'healthy' eating are exactly the foods that many people should not be eating, and many of the foods that they are told to avoid are the ones they should be eating.

Of course the myth that weight gain is all about eating and exercise is both ridiculous and obvious in being ridiculous. Look at these people that are 350-400 pounds. Could you get to that weight if you tried? I doubt it. I know that if I put an effort into it, I MIGHT be able to reach 300 pounds. There is no way that I could reach 400, even with effort. Conversely, I could also never reach 150 lbs without resorting to amputation. There is simply a range that my body is genetically capable of achieving. The same applies to everyone else.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

Conversely, I could also never reach 150 lbs without resorting to amputation. There is simply a range that my body is genetically capable of achieving. The same applies to everyone else.

I've seen and experienced for myself far too many success stories with low carb/primal eating to take claims like that at face value. My personal experience corresponds to Mark Sisson's claim that diet is 80% of what determines your body composition.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Anonymous Coward]

While eating less saturated fat is a good step it is not a solution and eating lots of any oil is bad, and not a serious issue unless you have high cholesterol(which can also be controlled with exercise). Eating whole grain bread and other goods as a substitute for white-bread and processed carbohydrates does spread out the sugar release and help to control hunger pangs and chocolate cravings, but you are supposed to swap them in as a substitute not eat "lots" because they are healthy which is counter-productive. I have in short never heard a real expert advocating the diet you are proposing it is an oversimplified caricature, but one oftern peddled by semi uniformed "nutritionists".

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

I lost 50 lbs by eliminating sugar, starches and grains (and byproducts) and replacing those with saturated fats, green vegetables and meat without even bothering to think about calories and without spending nearly every waking moment exercising. The primal/paleo diets work for a lot of people, far more than are able to make a low-calorie, low-fat diet work for any substantial period of time.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Pope]

Look at these people that are 350-400 pounds. Could you get to that weight if you tried? I doubt it. I know that if I put an effort into it, I MIGHT be able to reach 300 pounds. There is no way that I could reach 400, even with effort. Conversely, I could also never reach 150 lbs without resorting to amputation. There is simply a range that my body is genetically capable of achieving. The same applies to everyone else.

Not with attitude.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[gnasher719]

Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome are so easy to prevent by not eating the wrong kinds of foods that it's more accurate to refer to those conditions as lifestyle choices rather than diseases.

Now if you told us what in your opinion the "wrong" kinds of food are. As an example, take this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Bread which sounds very healthy, but is just about the worst stuff you can put into your body.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

Now if you told us what in your opinion the "wrong" kinds of food are.

Grains, sugars, hydrogenated oils.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that not being overweight is a major issue. However, other than that, you sound just like that crank from "Healthy Skeptic." I tried having a conversation with him once and it quickly became obvious that he had a completely closed mind to any discussion whatsoever that contradicts his views. All of the adverse effects of the medically-approved diet advice he detests so much are overcome once you realize that, many years ago, nutritionists didn't pay enough attention to the need for essential omega-3 fats. A diet rich in saturated fat diet overcomes that, because your body can convert this into fats for the brain, but at the cost of creating unhealthy fatty build-up in the blood vessels. Even though nutritional scientists corrected this a decade or more ago, he insists on acting as if they haven't. He also keeps claiming they are ignoring the problem with refined sugars and flours, which they don't. They universally recommend against refined sugars and flours, and recommend for whole grains as PART (**not all!!**) of a BALANCED diet, the concept of which Mr. "Healthy Skeptic" seems incapable of understanding. If you listen to him, it seems you can consume unlimited amounts of saturated fats, and nothing else, with no ill effects. I found it quite telling that when he showed up on Dr. Oz, he refused to allow himself to be tested for factors that would indicate fatty build-up in his arteries.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, "eating right" can't cure it if you've already gotten it.

What people always seem to forget is that diabetics have to also be *very* careful about exercise. Exercising the wrong way can spike your blood sugar in the wrong directions just as easily as food can..

So I'm sorry, but "omg just eat better and exercise!" isn't helpful advice for diabetics.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[soleblaze]

whole grain bread generally has about the same glycemic index as white bread. (It depends on how the bread is prepared, but the standard whole grain bread you see on the shelf is within 5 points of white bread.) Generally this is ~70 for whole grain and ~73 for white bread (Compared to table sugar, which is ~65). Overall your blood sugar doesn't act any different if you eat white bread vs if you eat whole grain bread. Either way it still spikes about the same (certain factors affect how high) then dives. One of the more interesting things I see regarding regular diet books vs paleo/primal diet books is the use of scientific studies to back up their advice. I don't really see any traditional diets back up anything they say with facts. Generally it's more of a 'well, everybody knows this' mentality, which isn't science. On the other hand, if you look at books that promote the higher fat, low carb/no grain diets they end up having bibliographies 17+ pages long that cite scientific studies. There's a lot of science that backs up the whole low carb diet. However, there's not as much money in it as processed food. To take a recent example, Michelle Obama tried to get schools to take out some of the potato and grain products and replace them with vegetables. This was blocked, mostly due to the Potato board lobbying the politicians and giving them campaign contributions in return for blocking the bill. (This is how our political system works these days.)

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[soleblaze]

holy wall of text batman. Reposting this.

whole grain bread generally has about the same glycemic index as white bread. (It depends on how the bread is prepared, but the standard whole grain bread you see on the shelf is within 5 points of white bread.) Generally this is ~70 for whole grain and ~73 for white bread (Compared to table sugar, which is ~65).

One of the more interesting things I see regarding regular diet books vs paleo/primal diet books is the use of scientific studies to back up their advice. I don't really see any traditional diets back up anything they say with facts. Generally it's more of a 'well, everybody knows this' mentality, which isn't science. On the other hand, if you look at books that promote the higher fat, low carb/no grain diets they end up having bibliographies 17+ pages long that cite scientific studies.

There's a lot of science that backs up the whole low carb diet. However, there's not as much money in it as processed food. To take a recent example, Michelle Obama tried to get schools to take out some of the potato and grain products and replace them with vegetables. This was blocked, mostly due to the Potato board lobbying the politicians and giving them campaign contributions in return for blocking the bill. (This is how our political system works these days.)

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

Can you point me towards the evidence that saturated fat intake results in adverse effects when high insulin levels are not present?

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Belial6]

I eat a low carb diet. Lower than most. My body reacts immediately to any sugar that I eat. If I eat pizza, I will literally put on 2 pounds by the next day. I fully acknowledge that diet plays a part in your weight. That doesn't change the fact that your genetics will determine uppper/lower weight boundaries, what kinds of food will give you the best results, as well as how much food your body needs on a daily basis.

Of course, the part that is determined by environment gets screwed up because people are frequently told to eat exactly the opposite of what they should be eating.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

That doesn't change the fact that your genetics will determine uppper/lower weight boundaries, what kinds of food will give you the best results, as well as how much food your body needs on a daily basis.

Sure there's variations but the basic role of insulin in signaling fat cells to start storing sugars in and leptin in appetite regulation don't vary a whole lot for most of the population.

My experience with genetics is that I have a family history of obesity, diabetes and thyroid problems from both parents. I've got two brothers and two sisters. Two of us eat focus on eliminating sugars and starches and replacing them with healthy fats, meat and vegetables. Both of us have gone from being overweight to being healthy and don't have any sign of those problems. The other three eat a standard diet and look more like our parents every year. So maybe I have a genetic propensity towards obesity. It doesn't matter though because all that it means is that I can't "cheat" as much as other people might be able to get away with.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[pgward]

If I eat pizza, I will literally put on 2 pounds by the next day.

I think I've found your problem. Assuming conservation of mass, you must be eating at least 2 pounds of pizza.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Belial6]

Sure there's variations but the basic role of insulin in signaling fat cells to start storing sugars in and leptin in appetite regulation don't vary a whole lot for most of the population.

That is a HUGE assumption. I would ask for a citation, but your entire premise, (even the parts that I agree with) is directly contrary to "scientific consensus". In fact, it doesn't take much effort to show that it varies widely between people.

You are falling for the same fallacy that the "Eat primarily sugar by another name." and "Eat less, Exercise more" groups make. You are assuming that human biology is dramatically more consistent than it actually is. It seems kind of silly to think that genetics will effect how much hair or nose you grow, but has no effect on how much fat you grow.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Belial6]

Only if I were an otherwise closed system.

Hint: I am not.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Em Adespoton]

If you look at the list of ingredients for standard supermarket-purchased whole grain bread, you will find that the first ingredient is almost always bleached white flour. Whole grain bread as mass-produced usually only contains around 25% whole grain flour. This is due to the fact that economies of scale and subsidies make bleached white flour significantly cheaper to procure. If you want to find the bread that's better for you, first look at the pricetag; if it is 4x the price, it is more likely to have the proper balance (compared to a loaf that's only slightly more expensive).

Many "artisan" breads were 100% whole grain, until the marketing departments caught on that the term "artisan" had no regulatory control. Now a lot of unhealthy carb products are using the word, which means you really have to look at the ingredients and nutritional info on the package, even within a specific brand.

That said, overfeeding our bodies ANY kind of food will have an adverse reaction to the bacteria in our stomachs that are expecting something else. The whole equation is extremely complex, and has to do with genetics, symbionts (the bacteria that help us to live and live off of us), and diet. You have to take all three into consideration.

Due to lobbying and subsidies, many food-related industries are currently out of balance with actual need -- and we can't consume this large an amount of processed potato, corn and dairy and still be healthy. This doesn't mean we need to avoid these products, but it does mean we need alternatives in our diets.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Graff]

Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome are so easy to prevent by not eating the wrong kinds of foods

Which is what this article is all about, the demands that your body makes upon you when there is a metabolic/digestive disorder.

Yes, you could eat less or eat better. The problem is that some, perhaps many, people get the wrong kind of signals from their metabolic and digestive systems. These confused signals create cravings very similar to a drug addiction. You WANT to eat less and better but the cravings derail you.

Some people are able to get on top of this and get their metabolic/digestive system back on track, some people are not as lucky. If there were a way to restore some of the balance by changing your gut culture then that would HELP people to break the destructive cycles.

Very few people choose to be overweight and sick. Some people just need a bit more assistance in avoiding/correcting it than others.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[dudpixel]

stop eating carbs - they are causing the cravings.
no need to exercise excessively - it just makes you hungrier and uses up your precious energy quicker.

want energy? eat protein and fat. fat is more energy dense than carbs and both protein and fat will leave you feeling fuller for longer.

oh, and no carbs = no insulin, so problem solved.

sure, its more complex than that, but look up the harcombe diet and I hope you find it useful.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[dudpixel]

um, saturated fat is not a problem at all, and has never been proven to cause heart disease.

worried about cholesterol?

read this: http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2009/09/forget-cholesterol-and-statins/

its not the baddie we've been made to think it is. its actually vital for life.

have a look at statistics sometime...the higher the cholesterol, the longer you live. google it - zoe harcombe has already done the research.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

I agree that there's a feedback interaction between your gut culture and what you eat/want to eat. Every time I've made a sudden change to the content of my diet, due to a deliberate decision, or international travelling, or due to financial reasons there are always... side effects as the gut flora that thrived on the previous diet are suddenly deprived of their preferred food source while other bacteria that prefer the new food source grow to replace them.

The bacteria that live off of starch and sugars will die off if you stop eating those foods and other species will take their place that are adapted for a healthier diet. I don't see anything wrong with probiotic techniques to help this process along.

I have a feeling though that most people aren't going to look at that headline and think, "Ah. If I change my gut bacteria it will make it easier for me to change the content of my diet because those bacteria won't be using chemical signals to adversely affect my appetite any more." They are more likely to say, "Great - another pill I can take that will allow me to continue eating whatever I want but without the consequences".

Very few people choose to be overweight and sick. Some people just need a bit more assistance in avoiding/correcting it than others.

I look at choice from an economic viewpoint. People know when they are overweight and by now everybody knows what the long term risks of this condition are. I do not believe that in the general case that correcting obesity is beyond the capability of anyone - it's just a matter of how many resources they must allocate in order to achieve that goal. If they decide not to devote the necessary resource to achieve the goal and instead spend their resources on something else well then that's just a choice. It's neither right nor wrong - nobody can tell another person how they should allocate their own time, energy, finances, health, etc. Every choice has both positive and negative side effects so it's simply a matter of letting people know what those side effects are so they can make their own decisions.

If someone would prefer to disregard their long-term health and enjoy life in the present who am I to tell them they are "wrong" for doing so and need to be corrected? I'll tell them why I don't make the same choice, if they're interested, and explain the likely outcomes of their choices but the decision of how to use or abuse their own life is entirely theirs to make.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[pac109]

What makes you attribute the weight gain to "sugar"? Don't you think it's much more likely that you're seeing water retention due to increased sodium intake? Why blame carbs on this?

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Belial6]

Because increased sodium intake doesn't cause the same kind of weight gain. Pizza is just one example. The same think happens if I eat noodles, plain bread, or any other foods that are primarily sugar.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the Inuit eat over 50% of their diet as fat which is oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_diet#Nutrition

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[pac109]

Increased sodium really does cause that amount of weight gain - I'm 2lb heavier today than yesterday after eating at a restaurant last night. The other foods you list are also notoriously high in sodium content (just because you don't taste it doesn't mean it isn't there). I bet the weight comes off in a day or two if you return to your regular diet. You simply can't put that much fat on so quickly without making an incredible effort to do so.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Rich0]

I think that many people who are overweight would rather die at the age of 70 with 20 million in medical bills than chain themselves up in a cage and be fed the required number of calories to avoid health issues. You or I might think that sounds odd, but chances are the reasons that we aren't underweight isn't because we are good people and they are bad people, but rather that for whatever reason our brains are wired differently.

Telling overweight people to lose weight is like telling people who are bad at math to do better on a math test. Easy to say, hard to do.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Wonko the Sane]

Telling overweight people to lose weight is like telling people who are bad at math to do better on a math test. Easy to say, hard to do.

I disagree.

I've been both obese and fit and the difference is a matter of eating different foods rather than eating less food. There are certain foods that I really enjoy that cause me to gain weight rapidly. I no longer eat them because I decided that my long term health was more important than my short term enjoyment. Losing the weight was a choice

I could have decided that the effort of changing and the loss of immediate enjoyment was not worth the long term benefit and continued what I was doing before. That would have also been a choice.

Either way I would been choosing the outcome. It's not a matter of being right vs wrong, it's just choices and consequences. Some people may prefer to take the enjoyment now and not worry about the long term but that's a perfectly valid choice too.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Anonymous Coward]

My body reacts immediately to any sugar that I eat. If I eat pizza, I will literally put on 2 pounds by the next day.

How much pizza? (Typical slice is 300 calories and 500-700 mg of sodium.)

And what's your daily caloric intake? (Typical recommendations are 2000 for women, 2500 for men. Sodium RDA is 2400 mg.)

If you're denying that the weight gain is due to water retention, that's about 7000 calories for two pounds of fat.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Belial6]

Yes, if I return to a no sugar diet, the weight comes off. If I continue to eat sugar, the weight continues to pack on. At what point do you stop blaming salt and water. 10 pounds? 20 pounds? 40 pounds?

To be fair, after the first few days, the speed that the weigh adds on drops to closer to a pound a day. The reverse is also true. If the weight is on, it can be taken off by avoiding sugar. And, I am pretty sure that foods like bacon have more salt than foods like bread.

There seems to be this religious need for people to deny that high sugar diets make people gain weight. Even though the "Eat less, Exercise more" mantra has been debunked hundreds of thousands of times, and avoiding sugar can consistently be shown to work, there is always someone claiming "Nuh Uh!"

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[pac109]

I'd stop blaming salt and water when it becomes evident that the weight is due to fat and not water retention. One's weight is an inherently noisy measurement, and you're confusing this noise for fat (and for some inexplicable reason blaming sugar rather than the obvious candidate). What's with *your* religious need to proclaim that high sugar diets make people gain weight? I've lost 40lb on what you would call a high sugar diet by maintaining a calorie deficit. I lost weight at the exact rate predicted by the calorie deficit (to within 15%). Tens if not hundreds of thousands of people do the same every year. It's how people who "don't diet" but who are a healthy weight maintain their weight. I don't doubt there may be a tiny proportion of people who whom this isn't true, but for the majority of people it evidently works.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Belial6]

Your confusing maintaining weight through diet with having a metabolism that keeps you at a particular weight. I have no confusion between fat and water retention. I have gone so far as to do my weight via hydrostatic weighing. YOU are the one who jumped to the "It's salt" argument.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[pac109]

After asking a couple of questions to better understand the weight gain - yes, I concluded that your supposed sugar weight gain, due to being temporary and apparently coincidental with your eating high sodium foods is likely due to increased sodium intake and associated water retention. I'd be interested to know your hydrostatic results before and after these large weight changes (along with error margins of course). Do you really believe that several ounces of carbs turn to two pounds of fat overnight? And that your metabolism subsequently burns it off over the next day and night (without you noticing a marked increase in your body temperature?)

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Belial6]

I think that the human body is more complicated than you are trying to make it out to be. Your body does not take in a specific amount of material, and then ingest no other materials until the first has completely passed through your system. If you have consume a pound of food over the course of the day, and you eat a food that kicks your body into storage mode, it isn't just that last bit that gets stored. You do realize that you can remove weight from your body without increasing your temperature, or burning the calories away at all, right?

Your definition of high sodium foods is also BS. Pasta and bread are not foods that would be categorized as "high sodium". Bacon on the other hand, that is a high sodium food. Yet, bacon doesn't cause the weight gain you attribute to sodium.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, more than likely that weight is all packed in your intestines. Once it evens off, the pound or so per day you gain is the amount of actual weight you're gaining.

As soon as you quit eating the empty carbs that block you up, you will probably lose about 5 pounds of literal crap in the following couple of days.

Re:Or you could just not be overweight

[pac109]

Last reply; this is getting painful. The overly simplistic viewpoint was for your benefit. The whole point was that your "sugar" weight gain was temporary...so who cares? I'd have been more interested if you'd debunked my own weight loss. Take a look at the twinkie diet; it's obviously not for peope to follow, but it further proves the point: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/06/health/la-he-fitness-twinkie-diet-20101206 Regarding sodium, is subway a neutral enough nutrition source for you? I can pick out other sandwiches which have literally double the sodium content for the same size serving of bread, but I don't need to. Tell me again that bacon is higher sodium than bread (I can only assume you meant for similar serving sizes...even if you up the mass of bacon by 50%, the bread still comes out higher). Hint - you can't always taste the sodium in food. http://www.subway.com/nutrition/NutritionList.aspx?id=breadtop&Countrycode=USA Also bear in mind that people tend to include other things when they eat bread; it's not a direct swap out. There are many confounding factors.

Story of a woman who lost all gut bacteria...

[pebbert]

Here is a story of a woman who lost all her gut bacteria and almost died because she couldn't digest her food. They injected some of her husbands and cured her almost instantly. http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/26178/

Homeopathy

[GeneralTurgidson]

And the homeopathic crowd goes wild!

Re:Homeopathy

[schitso]

"A system for the treatment of disease by minute doses of natural substances that in a healthy person would produce symptoms of disease" How is this homeopathy? Just because something doesn't suggest that the only way to help someone with a disease is to throw pills at them until something happens, doesn't make it homeopathic.

Re:Homeopathy

[arkane1234]

Homeopathy has nothing to do with trying to fix the problem directly.

Re:Homeopathy

[soleblaze]

And the homeopathic crowd goes wild!

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Make sure you are hungry? What?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Of many animals both available in abundance and ones that people don't feel too bad about possibly killing, mice and pigs share enough DNA and inner workings to make them both adequate test subjects. Animal testing works very well for many drugs, though of course we won't know how it will exactly react with people just as reactions will differ from person to person. Unlike animals, we interact with other drugs, activities, eating habits, and existing conditions.

But I'm sure people with Diabetes are happier with your "[make] sure you are hungry" remedy. /sarcasm

Just out of curiosity, are you also an antivaxxer? Psuedo-science is not "like" science. It is the opposite of real science.

Re:Make sure you are hungry? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

But I'm sure people with Diabetes are happier with your "[make] sure you are hungry" remedy. /sarcasm

Just out of curiosity, are you also an antivaxxer? Psuedo-science is not "like" science. It is the opposite of real science.

Ah, yes, we can't possibly suggest personal responsibility in this day and age. No, instead, it's obviously the fault of gut bacteria, that - despite working just fine for everyone else - suddenly makes the guys who eat nothing by McDonalds all day balloons. It's clearly not the fault of the guy shoving Twinkies in his face all day.

No, it's the fault of GUT BACTERIA. Based on mouse studies. And nothing else.

Who's using pseudo-science here? It's pretty well established science that eating more calories than you burn will make you fat. You can even view that on a fairly simple physics level, via the "conservation of energy/mass." Pretty basic SCIENCE, and certainly NOT pseudo-science by any means.

Re:Make sure you are hungry? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do your homework and read about causes of diabetes type 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus_type_2

The gut bacteria research is not suggesting a cure (while there might be cases where it is indeed caused by them). It is a possible pathway to discovering how this illness "works", because something this bacteria produces could be activating the same mechanisms that're responsible for any other kind of type 2.

...in mice

[Hentes]

While mammals have many things in common the gut fauna of humans is different of mice's. They were immune to diabetes to begin with, so I think they are not a good model at all for these studies. Sure, the researchers found a way to give them diabetes, but that doesn't mean that human diabetes has the same cause.

Re:...in mice

[arkane1234]

However, it sure deserves trials in humans to qualify it as non-working.

Re:...in mice

[aztracker1]

I would suggest they start with mice already diabetic, then do a reset of their flora, and see how they react... far before any human trials.

Quatrotriticale?

[wrencherd]

Whenever I read something like this (from TFA):

Think about it: all the McCrap you can eat, yet your blood sugar level remains normal (although you still grow fat).

I think about how closely the description of "McCrap" and HFCS resemble the grain that starved the Tribbles to death on Star Trek.

Re:Quatrotriticale?

[geekoid]

Please stop. Contrary to what stupid people say, there is nutrition in Mcdonalds burger. Plenty, in fact. there is also a load ton of fat and salt.
And HFCS is no different then Cane Sugar or beat sugar.

Re:Quatrotriticale?

[StikyPad]

Is that beat as in rhythm, flogging, or the thing cops walk?

Re:Quatrotriticale?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's short for beatnik. Like before the hippies came. You know, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs.

Re:Quatrotriticale?

[Anonymous Coward]

McCrap - now with added fecal microbiota.

Re:Quatrotriticale?

[soleblaze]

Please stop. Contrary to what stupid people say, there is nutrition in Mcdonalds burger. Plenty, in fact. there is also a load ton of fat and salt. And HFCS is no different then Cane Sugar or beat sugar.

HFCS has 5% more fructose and 5% less glucose than Cane sugar ;)

Re:Quatrotriticale?

[julesh]

Please stop. Contrary to what stupid people say, there is nutrition in Mcdonalds burger. Plenty, in fact. there is also a load ton of fat and salt.
And HFCS is no different then Cane Sugar or beat sugar.

HFCS has 5% more fructose and 5% less glucose than Cane sugar ;)

HFCS is a name given to a wide variety of different mxtures of glucose and fructose. What you say is true of HFCS55, but 42% of the production of HFCS is HFCS42, which has 8% less fructose. This means that on average, HFCS has about the same amount of fructose as sucrose does.

inefficiency causes waste - fat

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not so sure. Let's say your body's metabolism degrades such that you can only convert to useful energy 20% of the food you eat, as opposed to before when you could 60% (numbers just pulled out of my ass). Your body still needs the same amount of energy, but now you need to eat three times as much just to survive. A lot of that excess becomes fat and I see no way around that happening under these conditions.

Re:inefficiency causes waste - fat

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of that excess becomes fat and I see no way around that happening under these conditions.

Easy: poop more.

Re:inefficiency causes waste - fat

[NatasRevol]

You so missed an ExLax brownie joke there.

Re:inefficiency causes waste - fat

[Anonymous Coward]

If your body can only convert 20% of the food you eat to energy, what would it be doing with the other 80% that it can convert it to fat? Processing the food is a prerequisite to converting it to anything..

Re:inefficiency causes waste - fat

[arkane1234]

it's fine, let him rant. It's always the same argument, without thought.
If the human body was a perfectly working machine, it'd be just what's said. It isn't, unfortunately.

Re:inefficiency causes waste - fat

[MightyYar]

Let's say your body's metabolism degrades such that you can only convert to useful energy 20% of the food you eat,

Your body has to convert it to "energy" before it can build fat cells. If you are only processing 20% of the calories that you eat, you will have to eat more or lose weight.

Re:inefficiency causes waste - fat

[MightyYar]

It's not perfect, but it's also not a free energy source. The energy to build fat cells has to come from somewhere - and that somewhere is food.

Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a common oversight in reporting about Diabetes not to recognize that there are two separate diseases with the same name. Type I ("One") Diabetes, also called Juvenile Diabetes, is caused largely by genetics and some unknown environmental factors. It is an auto-immune disease in which the immune system attacks the pancreas, causing the body to produce no more insulin. It's the type that requires insulin injections multiple times per day as well as constant monitoring.

Type II ("Two", Adult) Diabetes is caused by genetics in combination with unhealthy lifestyle habits such as unhealthy diets. It's triggered when the body forms a resistance to insulin, normally due to its high concentration in the body resulting from unhealthy eating. It can often be managed by improving diet and/or oral medication, though in some cases it requires insulin injections.

Both diseases result in high blood sugars, and thus the same symptoms, which is why they share a name.

As a Type I Diabetic, it's frustrating when people assume I had an unhealthy childhood or poor eating habits as a young adult due to shoddy reporting that conflates the two diseases due to their horrible naming. I remember there being some call to rename one of the diseases to help avoid this confusion. But I can't seem to find a reference on the Wikipedia articles.

When discussing Diabetes in the future, please be careful to specify which type you are referring to as they are really separate diseases.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[metalgamer84]

I've been a Type 1 diabetic for almost 25 years now. I've never once taken offense or gotten frustrated when people unknowingly refer to Type 2 diabetes as "Diabetes". If anything, it opens the door on educating people on the differences as you have just done above. There are so many medical conditions with difference nuances and particularities these days that its not worth getting upset over the fact that an average person doesn't know the difference about a medical condition that you have.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[arkane1234]

*in simpsons laugh*
hah hah!

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Krater76]

My wife is a Type I and constantly gets annoyed when the two are used interchangeably. When some stupid TV personality talks about how you can control 'diabeetus' with diet and exercise it takes away from the other spectrum of individuals who can't control it that way. It reduces the visibility of the disease of Type I, making it look like a lifestyle disease, like alcoholism or an STD, instead of a chronic but manageable illness, like arthritis, Lyme disease, or MS.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

Type 1 here for 15 years or so, and I think he is refering how people judge you for the factors that cause type 2 when getting type 1 is out of your control(unless you move to type 1 from 2 for taking poor care of yourself).

I have heard talking behind my back before about how I got diabetes because I was a fat kid (when granted I was overweight, but not obese) when that has nothing to do with getting type 1. The amount of disinformation and preconceptions about diabetes are so awful I generally find that I just avoid letting people know I have it, which is technicly dangerous in itself if I get low blood sugar. People don't understand that a healthy diet (actually healthy, not "healthy" as most people do with eating huge amounts of pasta and other carbs) is perfectly fine for type 1's.

I happen to have an insulin pump, which is either a choice, or in some cases doctors require you to be in good control to authorize you to get one. Pump users are generally in better control and need to test their blood sugars more times per day. But I hear all the time about "his diabetes got so bad they had to stick him on this permanent pump thing"(not in reference to me, and they didnt know I was diabetic/had a pump). I think people just want to gossip mainly.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

Type I as well, and people always ask me if I "ate too much sugar when I was a kid" :D But I just laugh it off. Not sure why you get so upset

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

So you want to separate lifestyle diseases from others because you want to feel better than them? Lyme disease is a lifestyle disease. Proper behavior can prevent it. It doesn't even exist in the southern hemisphere. So, why is it under chronic but manageable? I think you're just judging people. I know perfectly innocent people who have a chronic STD, because they fell in love with someone too stupid to admit they had an STD. Assigning guilt to health care problems only makes them worse. Maybe some day we'll find a way to blame your wife for getting Type I diabetes. Don't judged others, least you be judged as well.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Have Brain Will Rent]

You are correct that there are two different types of diabetes but they may not be as different as you think. I've read that there is now some suspicion that type II is also caused by an immune system reaction and Type II patients can also require insulin injections.

The urge to make type II all about "unhealthy lifestyle habits" should be resisted. Type II can occur without an unhealthy diet and without a large amount of visible fat. My father developed Type II in his late 50's and was less than 20lbs over ideal body weight for his height - hardly obese.

The urge to blame people for getting type II because they are overweight should also be resisted. Being overweight can be caused by a variety of things many of which are not under the control of the person, for example: medication side-effects, depression, sleep apnea etc. I'm not saying this accounts for the majority of case but it is not insignificant either so be careful about making assumptions.

Now "It's triggered when the body forms a resistance to insulin" isn't really correct - type II is not triggered by insulin resistance it is insulin resistance. Type II can also be from inadequate insulin production, for example from damaged pancreas - afaik this is still considered type II. With adults usually doctors say that type II is either insulin insensitivity or inadequate insulin production. There is a difference and you can be tested to see which it is but if you are an adult and diagnosed as diabetic health plans will not usually pay for a test to determine which it is.

A few hopefully helpful bits of info:

There is a genetic component to it.

It is not just being overweight but being overweight in the abdominal region. People whose excess weight is distributed over their body are at much lower risk than people who concentrate their excess weight in the abdomen.

Being diagnosed should require at least two tests on separate days that both show fasting (10 hrs+) blood glucose being over 7mmol/l - don't let yourself be diagnosed on the basis of a single test.

High blood sugar levels can be an indication of something else being wrong, for example the kidneys are supposed to start dumping blood sugar when the levels are more than (iirc) 8 mmol/L - if they are not doing their job then you will have high glucose readings. So make sure you get checked for all possibilities.

The cut off for diagnosis changes with time, it is now 7 mmol/L but used to be higher. Currently 6-7 is considered pre-diabetic but I've had doctors tell me there is no such thing as "pre-diabetic", i.e. if you are over 6 you are diabetic. If enough doctors believe that then 6 will become the new definition.

Make sure you are not dehydrated when the test is done.

Do not put much too faith in over the counter glucose meters - they are only required to be accurate to within 20% of what a lab test would give on the same specimen. In other words if it says 7 you could be anywhere from 5.6 to 8.4, i.e. perfectly normal or strongly diabetic. I have seen two very different readings from the same drop of blood, and very different readings from two different fingers etc. It's really shocking just how much variability there is.

If you test with an over the counter meter try to get a sample of venous blood not arterial blood.

Definitely do not diagnose yourself based on readings from an over the counter meter.

Perhaps most importantly, Diabetes type II is a progressive disease. Only some of the symptoms of diabetes can be managed by diet and weight loss. A specialist told me that nerve and capillary damage still continues even if you keep glucose levels within the normal range.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

As a "skinny" Type II diabetic that is often confused by doctors as being Type I (since I'm not fat, I have "normal BMI"), I'm frustrated that you don't understand that genetics play a HUGE role in Type II also and it's not always because you are fat, or "unhealthy" lifestyle.

Four generations of non-obese Type II's on my Father's side.. what can I say? Bad choices can cause it in "marginal cases"-- most of those will reverse themselves if the person fixes the lifestyle. But not all. I think your post is as much of an unfair generalization as you are yourself frustrated by!

And yes, I'm insulin dependent... I am happy it's just Lantus in the morning.. but that's because I eat well and exercise. I have to agree with the other posters that is can become a vicious cycle with Type II of not feeling good-->not exercising-->craving sugar, etc-->getting worse-->not feeling good. In that way it's very hard to control. Not as bas as Type I.. but trust me it's bad. It's also much more common. I'd love to see you Type I's cured.. but cureing type II first is like 90%+ of the cases.. there is more overall social benefit.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[tomhudson]

I've never once taken offense or gotten frustrated when people unknowingly refer to Type 2 diabetes as "Diabetes".

You should - even doctors have gone back to using the old terms "Juvenile-Onset Diabetes" and "Adult-Onset Diabetes" specifically because there are too many retards out there who use the fact that JD (Juvenile Diabetes) cannot be "cured" by dietary changes to avoid dealing with changing their own diet.

I know I've had my fill of people who try to lecture me about how because I have JD that I shouldn't be eating $INSERT_WHAT_I'M_EATING_AT_THE_TIME, even though it's obvious I am not fat, and the docs have said I can eat anything I want as long as I keep my blood sugar within normal levels.

Heck, it's hard enough getting people with JD to treat themselves properly, like one of my sisters. Target blood sugar levels are 4.0 to 7.0 (metric - 70 to 125 for USians). Her? Yesterday at lunch, it was 26 (468) and usually hits 35 (630) by the end of the day. "If I'm going to die of something anyway ..." Mine? 4.1 (73).

Her real reasons for not trying to control it? Same as everyone - the finger stabbing 3-4 times a day is worse than the 3-4 times a day needles, and the insulin reactions from trying to exercise the tightest control possible are hell, as is the "hangover" from a really bad reaction (below 2.2 or so). Only masochists would actually like dealing with it.

And then there's a sister with adult onset - won't do anything about her life-long addictions to (non-diet) Pepsi and cigarettes. Looks "like hell" (not my words).

Of course, it just goes to show the perverse nature of the "luck of the draw" that even though I'm the one who has taken the measures necessary to control the disease, I'm also the one who's got the proliferative retinopathy. At least nowadays we know that it's not just caused by poor blood sugar control, so there are fewer people being dumb-asses and assuming somehow it's my own fault.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an increasing body of research that suggests type II diabetes may have an autoimmune component. Keep in mind that lifestyle choices are influenced by hormonal and other signaling factors and genetic expression, and that in particular abdominal fat is an endocrine organ.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

You say you're not fat, and you may be quite skinny looking, but what is your proportion of body fat? The reason I ask is there is research on-going in India where there is plenty of diabetes and heart disease amongst people who look skinny but who actually have relatively high proportions of body fat. The theory they are working on is that it is derived from the mother's diet during, and immediately before, pregnancy.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[tomhudson]

Irrelevant. Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune disease that results in the destruction of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas - not like the vastly more common Type 2, that is related to the body's inability to use the insulin it produces effectively, and can in many cases be treated by losing weight.

Here's a clue - one of my sisters (also type 1) weights less than 90 pounds, and is totally out of control. Do you really believe she has some excess fat stored somewhere that is contributing to it?

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no.

Most diabetes would vanish if people cut all but a small amount of carbohydrates from their diet.

Convert to being a fat burner. Eat fats and meats. The more fat, the better. It takes about six months to fully convert your body's systems, but then you're super-person. I used to have early-onset diabetes, and it was getting bad. Sugar crashes all the time; needed a regular supply of sweet foods just to function.

Now I can get by on two meals a day with no problem. I feel GREAT! Shift your diet, and you can also say goodbye to a wide host of common diseases associated with the insulin roller coaster everybody eating the Western diet is on.

The mitochondria in our cells make us distinct from much other life, and they have one super-important function: Converting fat to energy. If you eat only leafy goods and breads, you're essentially trying to step back down the evolutionary ladder.

Consider: Bacteria and other pathogens, (including, interestingly enough, many types of cancer cell), can only thrive on sugars. So if you are living on fats, then while you stay fed and strong, what are those pathogens going to eat if you don't soak your system in sugars?

Also. . , consider: The human heart can only burn fat. Ever heard of 'heart cancer'? Me neither.

Seriously, we should all be eating only about 70 grams of carbs a day. The rest should be fat and protein.

Look up, "Life Without Bread"

Also look up why films like, "Forks over Knives" is a piece of BS. There have been some excellent deconstructions of that subject.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[jbengt]

I would just add to that that even Type II should not carry a stigma of it being the sufferer's fault. My mom was diagnosed with type II diabetes in her 60's in spite of a very active and healthy lifestyle. Fortunately she was able to keep her blood sugar levels down through diet alone. Many people develop Type II diabetes as they age in spite of healthy living.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[metalgamer84]

You might want to tell your sister with Type 1 goodbye, as she is significantly reducing her life span and her quality of life that she has left by letting her glucose levels run rampant like that.

Ive had plenty of people think that after I tell them I'm a Diabetic they think that I cant have sugar, like its a poison of some type. After I explain than I am a Type 1 and what that means and how it differs from a Type 2, they are properly informed and will hopefully pass on that knowledge if ever needed again.

Its my disease, not theirs. I'm not offended that they don't know the details of it, even at a high level. Then again, im a fairly private person that doesn't really care what people think of me. I left that crap behind long ago in high school. Some people on here are far too concerned that the general public doesn't know everything about their disease and are bent on changing that I guess.

To each their own.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[tomhudson]

You might want to tell your sister with Type 1 goodbye, as she is significantly reducing her life span and her quality of life that she has left by letting her glucose levels run rampant like that.

I tried that, and it's not a constructive way to deal with the situation. So instead I do what I can to say that I understand - because I do. Insulin-provoked lows are nasty, and if not treated immediately, they have been shown to cause long-term brain damage. They can happen at the most inopportune times, they can be extremely embarrassing depending on the circumstances, they can even result in you losing your job because you're simply not capable of doing it if a low blood sugar shock is going to endanger others.

And nobody likes to wake up in the middle of the night having soaked through the sheets from an insulin-provoked low, feeling like you've been worked over by the local street gang, and having to find enough energy to drag their sorry a** to the kitchen to scoff some carbs, then having to change the sheets, or if you're really zonked, just throw towels on them and crash.

And the finger stabs for the blood samples - sure, we need a LOT less nowadays in terms of the quantity of blood, but that doesn't change the fact that jabbing yourself in the fingers 4-5 times a day is painful - more painful than the actual injections.

Everyone I've talked to who has stopped treatment has named those two - the lows and the finger stabs - as the main reasons. Sure, we can stick ourselves elsewhere to draw blood, but it *still* hurts. And there's really no fix for when you over-exert and your blood sugar drops like a stone, or for when you have to increase the dose because of an infection, and you miscalculate, or for whatever random reason, the same dose has a much greater effect than normal.

So I "get it" why people discontinue treatment. For a lot of people, avoiding pain now is worth more right now today than any hypothetical future problems. After all, "they might get hit by a car and all that pain and hassle ended up being for nothing." So all I can do is listen, tell them I know exactly how they feel, and try to quietly encourage them to reconsider - anything else is just going to be seen as talking down to them.

Ive had plenty of people think that after I tell them I'm a Diabetic they think that I cant have sugar, like its a poison of some type.

I've run into people who refuse to believe that I can eat anything and everything that anyone else can, even after explaining the difference. They "know better". Sure, they didn't sit through courses with nutritionists, they didn't get coaching from a team of doctors, but they "know". And the meddling "know-it-alls" are dangerous, because they're the ones who will try to keep someone from getting their blood sugar levels back up to normal with the "oh they can't have anything sweet" don't-wanna-stupidity. But because type one are such a small percentage of cases, it's an uphill battle.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

U sound like the voice of experience on brain damage. U definitely are that tomhudson. I would say "dame bramage" cuz from what I see you're allegedly a woman yet u post as a male with tom as ur name. That's evidence you don't even know what you are due to your defective genetics and damaged brain due to abusing yourself pig. Then again, most guys wouldn't know if you're a woman or man either ya fat pig. U're just a diseased lump of lard and we all know it fat ass.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

Fat fuck tom put down the donuts and read this http://slashdot.org/journal/276234/im-a-sexist

Re:Type II Diabetes

[metalgamer84]

So letting your sibling kill herself quicker is nicer than having to stand up and tell her to manage her levels? Interesting. You and your sister both sound like quitters, "ehh, cant change for the better, so ill become complacent and tell myself im doing all that I can...".

Her quality of life with blood sugars in the 600's is far worse than having to prick your fingers everyday and take some insulin. Boo-hoo, you have a disease that requires supervision for the rest of your life. Grow up and deal with it. I was diagnosed when I was 3. Do you think I liked getting stuck with needles and having my fingers poked for my blood sugar checks? No, but Ive had it for so long that its become second nature. I check my numbers, I take my insulin and I maintain a A1C of less than 6.5.

As I said, your sister will live a much shorter life due to high blood sugars being very tough on internal organs. But it sounds like you are cool with that.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

This coming from the fat fuck Alexander Peter Kowalski. Get off the internet and find a treadmill, moron.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[tomhudson]

I'm using the same approach doctors now use, so if you're going to criticize, go for it.

It takes a lot more patience to keep the lines of communications open than it does to say "hey, you keep not treating this and you'll kill yourself." She already knows that. The last thing she needs is someone else dumping on her. That just makes people MORE, not less, likely to listen, or to ask for help.

At least this way we talk about it, and I've been able to give her a bit of advice on how to deal with the cramps in the lower extremities caused by poor blood circulation.

Nobody needs someone coming off with a "holier than thou" attitude, not for this, and not for anything else in life, so I put away the lectures, and I LISTEN. Once in a while, the opportunity presents itself to talk about maybe trying to do something about it.

That's not a quitter attitude on my part. That's "doing what it takes - including "shutting my mouth when I have to" simply because it's more likely to lead to a chance to effect a change.

At the same time, I also keep in mind that ultimately it *IS* her decision. It's not the decision you or I made, but that doesn't mean that you or I get to say how someone else should lead their life, not for ANY medical decision. Respecting someone's basic rights includes respecting their right to control their own body. That applies to treating or not treating their diabetes just as much as it applies to the pill or abortion.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat another candybar or donut you diabetes riddled 1 eyed cyclops sow, please. Just so you die faster and rid the world of your utter bullshit. You can try to deny you're a fat crap which caused your diabetes, however you show nobody your current photograph. Why's that? Afraid we'll see you're nothing more than a fat disgusting pig? Quit trying to play doctor here too. You're far from qualified on that note too.

Re:Type II Diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

however you show nobody your current photograph

you must have /. confused with facebook ... or in your case, myspace. What a maroon :-p

There - now you're all primed for wasting at least another 100 posts, like usual.

Re:Of Mice And Men

[drainbramage]

Wouldn't it be more like over charging a battery thereby damaging it?
To maintain the car analogy the battery could be in your chevy volt.

If you over fill a gas tank it splashes out at you, more like vomiting, perhaps more akin to a bulimic?

Re:Of Mice And Men

[Anonymous Coward]

Mice aren't people. Most animal testing doesn't work because humans are different from the animals experimented with. That is why phase 1 (human testing) trials are so dangerous.

As far as type 2 diabetes goes, it is the result of chronically overeating. It is like continuing to pump gas into your car long after the tank is filled.

You can prevent type 2 diabetes simply by making sure you are hungry ( stomach rumbling ) before you eat, not eating crap and getting some exercise.

That has got to be the most asinine statement ever.
If type 2 diabetes is the result of over eating; then explain all the non-overweight type 2 diabetics.

What's so cool about this is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, there are differences, but the principle is important because it should be both easy and safe to do follow-up research on humans to determine whether there's an analog. We could actually see clinical application in less than 5 years if folks get on the stick.

disclaimer: Just my opinion, IANACR.

Re:Of Mice And Men

[mjr167]

I'm sure that over eating is the only possible cause of type 2 diabetes just like it's the only cause of heart failure and smoking is the only cause of lung cancer and drinking is the only cause of liver failure. Do you also believe that AIDs is the wrath of God? Correlation != causation. While some people are able to control their diabetes through diet and exercise, there are plenty of fit, active people that cannot.

Hygenic Food

[Anonymous Coward]

When i was in India, we were clean, but not clean by American standards, i mean we didn't spray around chlorinated spray everywhere we touch, yes we washed hands after using the restrooms (typically took baths), cooked fresh food everyday etc etc.
But in USA, i have seen that we try to have almost sterile environments and because of that even minor infections get people down, the bodies here don't seem to have their own immunity, the gut bacteria's flora-fona is not that expansive (number of species) people have and another factor we have noticed is that the doctors are all to keen to prescribe antibiotics for minor infections which once ingested first kill the bacteria in gut and then kill the bacteria in the blood/other places. The kill is for all the (either gram positive or gram negative bacteria), regardless whether they are useful or harmful.
We also eradicated all the parasites we had in our intestines, maybe all of them were not bad, and our bodies had evolved to use the parasite's to have symbiotic relationship with our systems rather than misunderstood currently by scientists that all organisms in our intestines are parasites.
Before people jump on me and say that you need to have a entire zoo of animals in my rear, I'm saying that only worms/parasites which were NOT that harmful can be introduced back with much benefit to our bodies.
Recently i have heard on talk shows on NPR that lot of experiments have been recently conducted with regards to benefits not not have a sterile/clean intestines.

Re:Hygenic Food

[ZiggieTheGreat]

In other words --

kids, go outside and eat dirt like when I was a kid!

This isn't news to some

[flibbidyfloo]

I've read about similar results from fecal transplants to replace colon flora. If I understand it correctly, there are actually doctors that will "reset" your colon flora by giving you a high dose of antibiotics and then basically stick someone else's poop up your butt. I'm sure it's more scientific than that, but it supposedly repopulates your colon with different flora and the people that have undergone the procedure swear it made them lose weight or recover from other problems, etc.

Wired wrote about it too, but I haven't read that specific article yet: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/fecal-transplants-work/

Re:This isn't news to some

[BryanL]

Oh if it were only inserted through the rectum. The stories I have read have been people having fecal matter inserted through a tube down the throat. It appears to be an effective treatment though.

Not just eating

[Anonymous Coward]

The way we eat certainly impacts our blood sugar and can accelerate type II diabetes, but it is -not- the only cause.

Take a read here:
http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046739.php

There are LOTS of different types of diabetes, not just I and II.
Genetic disposition makes a huge, huge difference. A few examples:

(1) Identical Twin Studies: If one twin has Type 2 Diabetes, the chance that the other will have it also are 4 out of 5. This is even if they are raised in different households, so it's not just an environment issue. Also, non-identical twins did not see this correlation.

(2) Genetic markers - Beta cell glucose sensitivity is decreased by 39% in non-diabetic individuals carrying multiple diabetes-risk alleles compared with those with no risk alleles.

And lots more at that link I posted above. In short, eating high carb / sugars / fructose / etc accelerate type II diabetes for those that are genetically inclined to have it, but does almost nothing to those who have fully functional bodies.

That said, somewhere around 30% of the US right now is in a pre-diabetes range, so we need to address the food issue ASAP.

Re:Obligatory

[m1ndcrash]

in Soviet Russia people like you would be sent to concentration camp for posting this shit constantly

Autism seems to be linked to gut bacteria too

[gwn]

CBC TV in Canada aired a show focusing on Autism and links to gut bacteria. http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/The_Nature_of_Things The episode is titled The Autism Enigma.

Well worth watching.

Considering that the bacteria in our bodies outnumber our own cells (numerically) it should not be a surprise that when they get messed with we get messed up.

Fecal Transplants - Gross But Awesome

[LordNicholas]

Studies into the gut flora and how it impacts various aspects of our health is an exploding field. Diabetes, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohen's Disease, and c. Diff are all conditions that studies like this one are increasingly linking to imbalances in the gut flora.

Amazingly, actually fixing the imbalance seems to be both attainable and relatively easy in some cases- but the current strategies are... a little gross:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_bacteriotherapy

Basically you get poo from a healthy donor (usually a family member) with a "balanced" flora, screen for parasites, mix up a poo-enema, and squirt it up your butt. Seriously. In theory, the influx of properly balanced bacterial colonies replaces the depleted strains. At the moment this is not an FDA-approved therapy (obviously), and doctors in the US won't touch this except for a few small trials for specific illnesses, but some doctors in Australia have been experimenting with this for c. Diff with some impressive results (http://www.cdd.com.au/). This has the potential to be an extremely easy "fix" for variety of diseases that could significantly improve quality of life for many, many people; as a sufferer of Ulcerative Colitis myself, I'd be more than happy to squirt some poo up my butt instead of taking a cocktail of drugs with all kinds of unpleasant side effects for the rest of my life.

Sadly, the gross factor is probably turning off a lot of serious research. It'll be interesting to see if any of the US drug manufacturers can put this into a pill form, thus becoming incentivized to fund all the trials necessary.

Re:Fecal Transplants - Gross But Awesome

[NatasRevol]

Why couldn't they just identify the bacteria in the healthy poo and give you a pill, yogurt, drink of it?

Re:Fecal Transplants - Gross But Awesome

[geekoid]

Because, contrary to TV Commercial and people selling you any woo think to get your money, yogurt doesn't really help the gut.

Also, Fecal bacteriotherapy , is, complete crap. Pun intended. Their is no good evidence it works.

The gross factor does not turn off research. The fact that it keeps showing to be worthless is why ti doesn't get much research anymore.

Re:Fecal Transplants - Gross But Awesome

[geekoid]

Please stop spreading bullshit.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/fecal-transplants-getting-to-the-bottom-of-the-matter/

Re:Fecal Transplants - Gross But Awesome

[ShawnDoc]

There have been a number of studies since your link was posted (over 3 years ago) that are showing beneficial results, other people have linked to them in other comments on this story. We're still very early into the research on this, but it does appear to have some promise.

Re:Fecal Transplants - Gross But Awesome

[compro01]

Because there's this thing between your mouth and your intestines called your stomach filled with bacteria-destroying hydrochloric acid.

Re:Fecal Transplants - Gross But Awesome

[Em Adespoton]

I believe they've since found there's nothing bovine about that fecal matter....

Re:Fecal Transplants - Gross But Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, contrary to TV Commercial and people selling you any woo think to get your money, yogurt doesn't really help the gut.

Also, Fecal bacteriotherapy , is, complete crap. Pun intended. Their is no good evidence it works.

The gross factor does not turn off research. The fact that it keeps showing to be worthless is why ti doesn't get much research anymore.

The "popular science" reporting of fecal transplants that I have seen seemed to indicate the opposite. There have only recently been any attempts to do good controlled double blinded studies - one of the difficulties being that the procedure does not fit well within the classification system the FDA uses so it is challenging to get funding and approval for a study. The anecdotal evidence is reported to be positive.

I would be interested to see any links to any of the research "showing it to be worthless", as without that I am likely to be unduly influenced by the great story of "fearless researchers fighting against poop-stigma and the common wisdom of the medical community" and root for the underdog. It would be nice to be able to say at the next dinner party: "Oh I read about a good study in the Lancet, its all a load of crap".

Poop Pills

[gwn]

No joke. There are existing therapies where individuals who have seriously disrupted gut bacteria colonies basically take a poop pill. The idea is that you re-seed the GI track with the desirable flora in order to establish a healthy and balanced community. Of course the source of the donated flora is something that you might not want to dwell on too long.

Of course other animals do this all the time voluntarily.

Re:Poop Pills

[Pope]

Not a pill, a transplant from a close family member, since their genetics will more closely match yours. Not much to dwell on, really; if it'll save your life, you do it.

Re:Poop Pills

[dudpixel]

I thought I read somewhere that 90% of gut bacteria is unique to the individual?

Harbinger

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Eventually, pharmacology will focus on the use of indigenous microorganisms for treatment of most human ailments. It may not seem obvious now, but once the patents start churning out, it will become as plain as the snot-filled, puss-covered nose on your face.

Re:Harbinger

[geekoid]

" use of indigenous microorganisms for treatment of most human ailments."
complete nonsense.
IN some cases? maybe. But it will be a few, at best. Stop looking for a silver bullet.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell if you are trolling or you are an idiot, because the linked article is reporting on very interesting and well done basic biomedical research conducted by mainstream scientists working at respected institutions of higher learning and scientific investigation that contributes to the body of medical knowledge and insight into a very important cause of human morbidity.

Absolutely nothing in the linked article has anything to do with homeopathy, which is neither mainstream nor scientific.

Similar to other serious bacteriological

[spads]

conditions like ulcerative colitis, I don't think this is due to the accidental depletion of normal GI flora, such that it could be remedied by re-application. It is due to life-style issues which are non-conducive to those organisms. Just because we are willing to submit ourselves to some of the things we do, doesn't mean that certain critical passengers will be willing to. We need to pursue critical life-sustaining activities and quality rather than so-often depending in medical miracles, which are often temporary band aids at best.

well the bacteria in your gut

[geekoid]

does out number you. Seriously.

I almost believe we evolved to carry bacteria around~

Re:well the bacteria in your gut

[Anonymous Coward]

yes there are more "not-you" cells in your body than there are cells that are your body, infact there are more ON your body, even after a shower, than there are cells that are your entire body, and yes, the evolution of "us" was part of the co-evolution that includes our bacterias, our many bacterias.

feces is 60% bacteria by weight,

there have been studies where fat mice were made thin with a "fecal transplant" from a thin mouse, and the reverse [google it yourself]

We are are just scratching at the surface of "what" & "who" we are

Re:well the bacteria in your gut

[Anonymous Coward]

...and microbes, in turn, evolved to carry mitochondria around. What are they playing at!?

Re:Of Mice And Men

[Anonymous Coward]

You can prevent type 2 diabetes simply by making sure you are hungry ( stomach rumbling ) before you eat, not eating crap and getting some exercise.

I think the eating less crap and exercise more are the important bits there. There seems to be a lot of debate over the healthiest way to eat (smaller meals throughout the day is the one I subscribe to) but I think ultimately even if you only eat one huge meal a day, if you are exercising and eating reasonably healthy food, you are going to be fine.

I used to be fairly heavy, and I found that just cutting down on the most unhealthy stuff, paying a little more attention to what I was eating, and getting a little exercise every day started making a difference right away.

All the information around what you should eat and how much and when overcomplicates the simple fact that if you cram junkfood and sit on your ass all day, you get fatter. When you stop doing that, you get thinner. Once you are healthy and want to get to the extremely healthy category all that nutritional science probably has it's place.. but if you are 250 just cutting out the soda and chips is going to do a world of good.

Maybe it's genetics and some people are wired to have a much harder time losing weight.. but I personally found it surprisingly straight forward.

Re:Of Mice And Men

[RandCraw]

You need to quit giving medical advice. Type 2 diabetes has several causes, and those that you mention are simply not sufficient to identify the disease.

Many people will eat too many Calories, eat too many simple carbs, fail to exercise, and do so for 50 years and *still* not contract T2. In addition to diet, genetics and physical activity play very large roles in developing Syndrome X and T2.

For example, Arthur Ashe, Thomas Edison, Robert Guillaume, Billie Jean King, Jackie Robinson, Ernest Hemingway, and Ben Vereen are or were T2 diabetics. Halle Berry too is diabetic, and like many, her onset, symptoms, and therapy aren't classically T1 or T2.

Re:Of Mice And Men

[EXrider]

As far as type 2 diabetes goes, it is the result of chronically overeating. It is like continuing to pump gas into your car long after the tank is filled.

LOL... Wow, worst car analogy ever.

I tried it for IBS

[bigtrike]

Like almost all of the "natural" remedies, it didn't work at all. I've heard the same story from 3 other people. I wouldn't be surprised if the only people that reported it to work weren't just experiencing the placebo effect. Double blind studies seem to confirm that it doesn't help at all for cholesterol: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15841092

My prescription medicine for IBS started out as a "natural" medicine made from a plant, except that it works and is now western medicine instead of alternative medicine.

If you have diabetes, you should consult your doctor before you go experimenting with natural remedies. Some of them, like St. John's Wort, can interfere with the action of the medication that's actually doing something. "Natural" substances aren't inherently safe.

Re:I tried it for IBS

[Anonymous Coward]

My prescription medicine for IBS started out as a "natural" medicine made from a plant, except that it works and is now western medicine instead of alternative medicine.

Could you please tell what medicine it is? Lots of people have IBS, and while not truly dangerous, it really is a pain to live with.

Regarding what the other people are saying about gut bacteria transplant, there are actually other solutions to improve/regulate the gut flora. They're called probiotics. One that works particularly well for me is Saccharomyces boulardii.

Re:I tried it for IBS

[Anonymous Coward]

The natural remedy for IBS is to get a decent case of worms.

Re:I tried it for IBS

[Anonymous Coward]

My solution for IBS was dropping wheat from my diet. I was tested multiple times for wheat issues (blood, biopsy) and it always can back negative. I've been off wheat for nearly 5 months now and feel better than I ever have.

Interestingly, once I got off wheat, I had to stop taking Zoloft. I'd been given it for depression, but once my body was able to process food properly without all the inflammation wheat would cause, I discovered I didn't need it anymore. Continuing to take it was jumping my serotonin levels up and put me into serotonin toxicity. Once I stopped taking it, a myriad of other problems cleared up.

The experience convinced me of a few things. The medical industry is failure when it come to chronic problems. They rely too much on testing and forget experimental approaches. They don't fully understand the medicines they are giving us and the impact the medicine can have in environment of a radically changed diet (especially when it lets the gut heal).

As an engineer, I'm a bit ashamed I didn't apply my analysis skills to my situation years ago. But I stupidly figured doctors were as knowledgable about the human body as I was about computers. Bad assumption. They are just human after all...

Re:I tried it for IBS

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you please tell what medicine it is?

Why on earth would that matter? Go to a specialist, and work with her to get medication that helps *you*!

You are doing it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The headlines should say "Gut Bacteria can control TYPE 2 diabetes" Bug difference. As type 1 diabetics do not produce any of their own insulin, it does not matter whether they are insulin resistant or not because they have to inject insulin anyways.

Yep. All so easy.

[Hartree]

(BTW: Buidling your house inside out is hardly a qualification.)

But, hey, since it's so easy you should get a grant for your ideas and make billions (yes with a B).

You could show all these dummies in the several buildings around where I'm sitting (major university biomedical research departments) how easy it all is.

And to think, they had to get PhDs and work for decades in biochemical and medical research. The fools.

You just have to do is put everyone in a monitored and enforced lifestyle like lab rats are. So easy. All you have to do is ignore social rights, and the impact of a biological control system that's wired into both the survival and reward systems.

Who'da thunk it.

Re:Yep. All so easy.

[Wonko the Sane]

But, hey, since it's so easy you should get a grant for your ideas and make billions (yes with a B). You could show all these dummies in the several buildings around where I'm sitting (major university biomedical research departments) how easy it all is. And to think, they had to get PhDs and work for decades in biochemical and medical research. The fools.

Those grants are the reason for the bad advice in the first place. Government (and government-funded) nutritional advice is slanted to favor the special interest groups who are most successful at lobbying.

Alternative information is available to anyone who wants it so there isn't $billions to be made. I benefit personally in the form of improved health but I can't make choices for other people so all I do is point out that the information exists and works.

Re:Yep. All so easy.

[Hartree]

Ah yes. Just like the Atkins diet "works". Or the grapefruit diet. So simple.

And that all the researchers have been so wrong. We just have to listen to you and a website and be enlightened.

Here's a clue. Just about any reduced calorie diet "will work" and reduce weight related health effects provided it's maintainable.

Therein lies the rub. For whatever reason, many people in societies where scarcity isn't so much of a problem have trouble maintaining it. You can say it's due to lack of will, or a plot by the food industry or inhaling too much this or that or fairy dust, but it doesn't change the basic fact that a lot of people are developing these problems. And having the neolithic diet or whatever version available hasn't changed that.

Saying that belief or system X is the answer to all things may feel good, but if so, why hasn't it been widely adopted and thus succesful in defeating the problem? And saying it's all due to propaganda and conspiracy in established science doesn't count. That's just a mark of dubious science.

And not all of the problems are due to lack of willpower any more than disease is a result of being afflicted with evil spirits.

Re:Yep. All so easy.

[Wonko the Sane]

If you were interesting in the truth you'd actually examine the site and discover that he does in fact cite actual controlled trials and references known facts about endocrinology to arrive at his conclusions. Then if you actually had any facts to refute him with you'd present those instead of ad-hominem attacks.

I am convinced that there has been a cure all alon

[Anonymous Coward]

I am convinced that there has been a cure for diabetes all along. Drug companies just love to make money don't they.. and the freaking labwork.. if I didn't have this then hey no doctor visits every 4 months. Shit. I'm gonna try to cure myself. I'm active and have this. Wow. If this works then I am gonna get the whole world to know. Now All I need to do is get some broad spectrum antibiotic from Mexico, and exchange spit with the wife to get the GL Flora going.

kefir, again

[jago25_98]

  On my sideboard I have apple juice with kefir grains inside.
Over the course of a few days this bubbles until it is full of bacteria. It's tastes nice like cider! It has been revered as a gift from god in many cultures.

  I drink this.

I have never had any illness of any kind while drinking this at least every 3 days. No colds, no coughs. I always get coughs and colds around the season changes to and from winter.

Since doing this I have had no colds.

I am beginning to believe that practically every infection can be prevented to some degree by drinking this.

Yet everyone thinks I'm a health loon. No one will drink it when I offer it. And they suffer. Each to their own.

But I still don't understand how this relates to diabetes.

Re:kefir, again

[Courageous]

I have never had any illness of any kind while drinking this at least every 3 days.

"Anecdote is not the singular of 'data'"

I am beginning to believe that practically every infection can be prevented to some degree by drinking this.
Yet everyone thinks I'm a health loon.

Yep.

Re:kefir, again

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anecdote is not the singular of 'data'"

Yes it is. Data is the plural of anecdote. Anecdote is the singular of data.

You can't discount an anecdote simply by saying it doesn't constitute data. Nobody said it was data, but it's a data point, and any theory that expects to be taken seriously has to explain outlying data points.

Re:kefir, again

[Courageous]

In this case, the most natural explanation for such things is a wide variety of different forms of biases that humans have when processing information. I.e., the described facts are not actually true.

So in that sense, no. "Anecdote" is not the singular of data.

Same old magic for sale:

[Hartree]

Studies that have generally failed to be replicated in others or are quoted out of context. The paleo diet doesn't stand up terribly well under scrutiny compared to others. As before, Any diet with sufficient vitamins and nutrients that reduces calories will work if stuck to. That's the problem.

Paleo's been around since the 70s, and hasn't shown the revolutionary benefits claimed. Primal is the same thing. It's a new name but still the same old magic.

Sisson's also saying that much of the reason for the problems are the agra/food industries and the FDA being subborned by them. Again, that's a mark of dubious science.

Of course, just like a devotee of a religion, my arguing against it likely makes you more determined that's it's the answer.

A better clue to the motivation behind it is indeed on Sisson's site prominently displayed:

"This post was brought to you by the Damage Control Master Formula, independently proven as the most comprehensive high-potency antioxidant multivitamin available anywhere." yada, yada...

Add to that the paleo diet cookbooks, etc.

But wait, he's different because you said so.

Well, I've heard that about the Maharishi as well.

Re:First

[madmayr]

oh come on .. why do all these 'i for one ..' comments get modded down? of course this meme is a little bit old and maybe slightly overused, but still no reason to mod it down i think

I had the same idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same idea about a year ago when i was on sitting on the toilet, scribbled it on some paper and asked my wife`s opinion on it.

Her words where "Never in a million years that works, stop talkin BS while doin it"

Well, that are good news for me hehe. Time to take out my Smugsuspenders...^_^

Glossary of diabetes

[jawahar]

Worth skimming if you're diabetic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_diabetes

The fat cunt actually knows something here

[Anonymous Coward]

She's a fat ass with diabetes, right cunt? Die already u fat slut.

another way to keep diabetes under control

[alancore2duo]

i give my mother cucumber,which has drastically controlled and reduces her sugar level in blood, another way is to drink curry leaves boiled in water

Best. Comment. Ever.

[opencity]

mod: hall of fame

Diabetes cure diet

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a study done in 2010, I believe, where 11 type two diabetics were put on a 600 calorie a day diet for approximately two months. The results: 7 out of 11 were completely cured of the disease. The extreme diet seemed to reset insulin "clocks" so to speak. It's worth trying, even if you just want to lose weight.

Quit eating wheelbarrow full portions fat ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing can help a diseased washed up cunt like you because you ruined yourself young. You know it and we know it.

another way to test it?

[jago25_98]

The real test would be for me to eat a load of it and then see if eating someone elses infected crap would effect me.

But I can't bring myself to do it.

Can you think of an easier way to test?

Re:Of Mice And Men

[assertation]

The power of -1 for a true ( that is why it is unpopular ) and unpopular opinion. I can't get a lower score. I'm free from harm. LOL.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman on Diabetes

[Paul Fernhout]

Please read this: http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Diabetes.aspx

Re:Dr. Joel Fuhrman on Diabetes

[Have Brain Will Rent]

It's amazing that the diabetes association(s) don't seem to have heard of this purported cure.

BTW since type I is juvenile diabetes and the good doctor says that type II is insulin resistance NOT lack of insulin what would you call someone who, during their 40's or 50's, has pancreas that become unable to produce sufficient insulin? According to the good doctor that wouldn't be diabetes type II.

Re:Dr. Joel Fuhrman on Diabetes

[Paul Fernhout]

"Dr. Fuhrman Cures Type 2 Diabetes - But Drug Companies Object"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46_GInjBeQU

Still, true, some few people might have another immune disorder affecting the pancreas. Also, for anyone who does understand the diabetes field, it is clear that there are indeed two types (though they can be misdiagnosed) as far as whether the pancreas still is working much, so yes, some adults could get type-1 diabetes related to a failure of the pancreas (and I'm sure he would acknowledge that). He is very clear that his approach does not cure type-1, but can still give type-1 diabetics a vastly improved quality of life, including a longer one with much less complications.

Do you get the right amount of vitamin D?
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/diabetes-and-endocrine-diseases/

Do you eat enough vegetables?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx

Do you still eat sugar, refined grains, and refined oils, or essentially, nutrient-free calories of any type?

Anyway, maybe you could do more of your own research, given how much money is on the line with conflicts of interest, in terms of making a profit out of selling you medication and related services?

Pretty much nobody would substantially profit by curing you.
http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science
"The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. (Marcia Angell)"

Anyway, best of luck managing a difficult condition. My father took care of my mother's diabetes for more than a decade (with no significant complications) when she had diabetes and would even forget/deny she had it. But I still wish I knew then what I know now, about how it was most likely curable rather than having four finger sticks a day and three insulin shots a day (and I did that for a while for her after he died).

We told u 2 do ur fav thing, fatass? DONUTS!

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & STFU already blimp! Cuz we KNOW u LOVE ur donuts, lol!

My name's tomhudson (w/ current photo)

[Anonymous Coward]

"GIVE ME DONUTS!!! -> http://images.wikia.com/monster/images/4/40/Cyclops_plasticine.jpg Hahahahaha