Or, You Could Just Stop Eating Sugar.

The most e-mailed article from yesterday’s New York Times was this little ditty about diabetes:

In Diabetes, a Complex of Causes. (pardon the link, I realize not all of you are registered with the New York Times)

You’d be forgiven if your first thought upon reading this article was about how wonderful it is that we live in the technological age where medical breakthroughs happen by the day.

But let’s examine this article a little more closely, shall we?

This article belies the “gee whiz” mentality that scientists and medical professionals tend to display when confronted with results or findings that don’t fall in lockstep with the prevailing medical orthodoxy – kind of how all the low-fat supporters were left scratching their heads when major longitudinal studies on low-fat diets tend to show worse health and longevity for folks on low-fat diets.

I’ll pin down the relevant passages from the article for you here (with corresponding commentary):

1. “The defining feature of diabetes is elevated blood sugar. But the reasons for abnormal sugar seem to ‘differ tremendously from person to person,’ said Dr. Robert A. Rizza, a professor at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.”

The common thread in Type 2 diabetes is chronic elevation of insulin levels. While there may be many different mechanisms that lead to this hyperinsulimia in different individuals, one thing holds true: the less sugar you eat, the less insulin your body has to dump into the bloodstream to ferry that sugar into the cells. That holds true for all human biochemistry and it’s something that’s within the reach of every person to control (whereas I think controlling the rate of bone secretion of osteocalcin or punching little holes into your brain is beyond the yen of your average Joe or Jane).

2. “Drugs that increase (insulin) production tend to make insulin resistance worse.”

More than being an interesting coincidence, this makes logical sense. If the underlying mechanism of insulin resistance (and ultimately, Type 2 diabetes) is the “deafness” of the body’s cells to the call of insulin, then drugs that serve to amplify the call of insulin would hasten the progression of insulin resistance. Which just goes to show that treating the symptoms of a disease without an appreciation of the disease’s overall scope is short-sighted indeed.

3. “A deficiency in osteocalcin could also turn out to be a cause of Type 2 Diabetes, Dr. Karsenty said.”

To use a tired analogy, just because fire trucks are usually at the site of a fire doesn’t mean that fire trucks cause fires.

4. “If osteocalcin works similarly in humans, it could turn out to be a ‘unique new treatment’ for Type 2 diabetes, Dr. Malozowski said.”

…or, instead of spending billions trying to make a brand new drug to treat Type 2 diabetes, you could just tell patients to eat less sugar. And to strength train, since strength training improves insulin sensitivity.

Now, I’m not poo-pooing the furthering of science, nor am I against the use of allopathic solutions (Read: drugs) for medical problems. But let’s face it: this nation has a diabetes problem because it has a sugar problem. And it’s irresponsible to promote drug-based solutions (and to profit handsomely from them) if a less invasive lifestyle alternative Sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution (and the cheapest, to boot).

Maybe you could try telling people to eat less sugar. Just a thought.