Medical News

It’s commonly claimed that the cause of diabetes is not well understood. While this may be true of the less common type 1 diabetes, for type 2, by far the most common type, this is simply not true. The cause is clear.

There are two type of diabetes – type 1 and type 2.

Type 1 accounts for only 5-10% of cases and is where the islet cells of your pancreas get destroyed by your own immune system. It’s true that the cause of this kind of diabetes is not well understood.

Type 2 makes up 90-95% of all cases in the western world and the cause of this is clear and simple: Eating excess carbohydrates and refined toxic junk food combined with a lack of physical activity.

Some experts attribute type 2 to obesity. They say if you just lost weight you would no longer have the diabetes. But really obesity and type 2 diabetes both come from the same cause. If you were to surgically remove the fat cells from a person with type 2 using liposuction, they would still have diabetes. It’s not the obesity causing the type 2 and it’s not the type 2 causing the obesity. In fact, it is the same cause of both: excess carbohydrate consumption (sugar and starch) and being sedentary.

Yes there are also some other contributing factors including stress and pesticide exposure and while these are important, the primary direct cause is bad diet and not enough exercise.

The high-carbohydrate foods that cause type 2 diabetes are also the same ones that are remarkably lacking in nutrients and loaded with toxins. The list of main offenders include softdrinks (including so-called energy drinks), sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, white bread and biscuits. These are all high in carbs and very low in vitamins and minerals. Combine them with trans-fats, refined vegetable oils, artificial sweetener, pesticides, hormones and grain-fed meats and you have the perfect combination for making type 2 diabetes.

Some people are certainly more susceptible than others. Say Joe and Jim both eat exactly the same high-carb diet and do the same levels of exercise and Joe becomes diabetic but Jim does not. Genetics plays a big part here. But really, if you looked more closely, you’d probably find that Jim is actually pre-diabetic meaning he doesn’t meet the criteria for diabetes yet but may well do so in the future. And being pre-diabetic doesn’t mean you are safe from the complications of diabetes either. In fact, people with pre-diabetes run the risk of the exact same complications as those with diabetes only less frequently. This includes heart disease, eye disease, nerve damage and kidney disease.

So don’t blame genetics. That’s not the cause.

It’s A Public Health Issue

The truth is that we need a massive public health campaign to let people know the facts: Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes are caused by high-carb, low-exercise lifestyle and can be reversed. This kind of public health campaign has finally happened with smoking but look at how long that took and how much of a fight the tobacco industry put out to resist this change.

Today we see children of 10 and 12 years of age getting diagnosed with type 2 – a disease that used to be called “Maturity Onset Diabetes” because it only affected older adults. It’s caused by high-carb foods and amongst the worst of these are softdrinks. These are marketed to children in high-energy advertising full of fit-looking young people. Why not require a disclaimer: “Excessive consumption of softdrinks will make you fat.”?? Why not? It would be more honest if the ads were filled with slow-moving obese people. Guess it wouldn’t sell so well then, eh? If we really want to stop this epidemic of diabetes and obesity, it’s simple: ban advertising of high-carb junk food and require a public health disclaimer like on cigarette packaging.

Of course, part of the problem is that the business of diabetes is booming right now. But I’ll save that for another day.

In the meantime, the single most important thing you can know right now is that type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes can be reversed. Type 1 can also me made much easier to manage while reducing the risk of complications.

If you have not already started my recommended program to reverse diabetes, you should get it as soon as possible. The principles are simple but with the right program, you can save yourself hundreds of hours of research working it out.