Type II diabetes....this is ridiculous

OK, so now I hear that diabetes is costing the NHS an absurd amount of money (£760m per year) accounting for 40 million or so prescriptions of drugs to control diabetes per year (1). This, of course, is now set to rise to some unmentionable sum in the next 20 years, and it seems that no amount of nagging is going to stop us.

What is so wrong about this is how completely avoidable this condition is (type II diabetes, that is, which is very different from type I). Even the NHS will tell you that you can by and large avoid having to endure this condition by keeping fit and eating well (2). Now why is it so hard for people to achieve this? Well there are many reasons, but a key indicator is sugar consumption. In fact research has shown that excess sugar consumption can lead to a fatty liver, which in turn promotes insulin resistance and eventually type II diabetes (3).

And yet where is the campaign to tax sugar? Why is sugar added to everything, from juices to cereals, bread, pasta, pasta sauces, almost all ready meals, meat products, heck, even table salt has sugar. When even the "health" foods that are sold to us are nutrient poor and have added sugar, it's no wonder people struggle to control their consumption - if you eat empty calories, your body will ask for more food because calories won't necessarily give you nutrients.

And yet we seem content to merely tell people, vaguely, to exercise, control their weight, diet, without recognising the role that added sugar and processed food play in creating this problem. We "treat" the condition with drugs, which don't address the underlying reason a person has the disease in the first place. Drugs which have serious side effects, which, by the way, only seem to get picked up only after millions of people are already taking them and the pharmaceutical company has already made a hansom profit - like thiazolidinedione, which increases your risk of developing bladder cancer (4). Goodness knows what you'd find with concerted looking!

Want to save money for the NHS? Follow my three step plan:

1. Stop eating sugar
2. Stop eating refined flours and overly processed foods.
3. Pat yourself on the back - you've just helped solve a funding crisis in the NHS.

Will governments ever warn people to avoid sugar? Will there be a public awareness campaign to educate people about the known hazardous effects of processed foods? Or will they just tell people to reduce their calories, under the nonsensical modern idea that it's the calories that count (cue TV presenter telling us that a smoothie has more calories than a soda), and keep paying for more drugs? I'm no fortune teller, but I haven't been hearing about the lobbying power of vegetable producers recently.

(1) Number of diabetes prescriptions tops 40 million

(2) Preventing type 2 diabetes
(3) Research links sugar consumption, fat production and diabetes
(4) Very Common Diabetes Drug Raises Risk Of Bladder Cancer

More good news for bees, at last

Last week saw the banning in France of the insecticide thiamethoxam, which is a neonicotinoid or "nerve-agent" pesticide. I have written about these previously as research has been showing that this type of highly effective pesticide is linked to a decline in bee populations, with serious consequences not just for honey lovers, but for our food security.

© Twilite | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Unfortunately, the UK government has yet to take any action in response the these latest, or for that matter any of the earlier findings, although the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is looking into the evidence and assure us that the UK has a "robust" pesticide safety policy.

One thing that really interested me in all of this was how in carefully assessing the risk that this and similar products present, the relevant scientific panels which advise governments produce comprehensive, well informed and complex risk assessments which failed to notice the rather obvious risk that a pesticide that is highly effective against insects generally is likely to be highly effective on other types of non-pest insects too - like bees.

This type of thinking is, sadly, not new. Incidentally it is the 50th anniversary since the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which also pointed out the devastation that the blanket application of poisonous pesticides were causing to ecosystems. They were eliminating populations of some pests, but also of song birds and many other animals who were either harmless, or actually necessary for the continued sustainability of the ecosystem. She imagined a world which was silent, where song birds would no longer be heard.

We think we are further along, but it would seem that we might be hurdling towards a world where the buzz of bees is no longer heard, and where we will have to wander around, hand-pollinating plants to keep our food supplies going.

You might think I am exaggerating, but if Defra tells us that it has a "robust" pesticide safety policy, which approved this pesticide in the first place, and then reviews this research, which is merely pointing out what has been suspected for many years, and acts upon it, then how valid is this "robust" safety policy? Considering how important bees are to our food security (crops which rely on bees include tomatoes, cucumbers, cranberries, blueberries, melons, soybeans and avocados to name but a very few) I find this level of oversight just a tad alarming. What other interesting chemicals are being put through this "robust policy"? I guess we'll have to wait for the French to ban them to find out if they might have actually been dangerous.

If you are interested in keeping up the pressure, here are links to a couple of campaigns which might be of interest:

Neals Yard Bee Lovely Campaign Petition

Buglife Ban Neonicotinoids Campaign

Just take this pill.....

A new study has just been published in the latest edition of The Lancet Medical Journal, which has concluded that over 50s would benefit from taking a daily dose of statins, which are used to reduce cholesterol and can prevent heart attacks.

What is unusual here is that normally only those with an elevated risk of heart attack are eligible for this therapy, but the authors of this study are advocating that everyone over 50 should be given this as a matter of course on the basis that it would prevent a large number of heart attacks and be cheaper. In the words of the authors: "This benefit [of reduced risk of heart attacks] greatly exceeds any known hazards of statin therapy." Note the use of known.

Now, I don't really have a problem with drugs being used to help people reduce their risk of heart disease when other options aren't available, but this is another example of a pattern I've noticed in how we use medicine today: masking. By which I mean, we are happily using drugs to mask our symptoms, rather than treat the underlying cause. "Now hang on!" I hear you cry... "Surely this is just a disease of old age? Doctors wouldn't prescribe a drug if it wasn't necessary....would they?"

They would, and they do. Not intentionally you understand, but they do.

By way of example, consider how a diet based programme which has been scientifically proven to reverse heart disease (developed by Dr Dean Ornish, follow this link to study: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0140-6736(90)91656-U) has been approved and funded by Medicare in the United States since 2010. Note that this diet can reverse this condition in people already suffering from severe heart disease, and was shown to be more effective than medication. In fact, in the trials, people on standard treatments actually carried on getting worse, not better. So if you are offered statins, there is a chance that you could do the same or better with a change in diet, plus you'd have the benefits of an improved lifestyle. Will you be offered this programme instead of medication here in the UK? Nope. Much cheaper to give you some pills - only £18 a year in fact! Plus, there are no known hazards, right?

Maybe this is a good suggestion. Maybe it is foolish to think that we should be telling people about the real effects of their diets and of the difference this could make. But the reality is that the conclusions being taken by these doctors are misleading. They are implying that there is something unavoidable about the elevated risk of a heart attack. In fact they say that, as most people over 50 will have at least a 10% risk of a heart attack or stroke, you may as well just use age as the sole determining factor of whether to use the therapy. But the fact is that age is only a factor because of how we choose to live. I remember reading in The China Study that if the US had the same rates of heart disease as found in rural China, 80% of all heart units in America would have to close. And those Chinese didn't need statin therapy, they just needed the absence of a Western diet.

By taking pills, you aren't actually changing the factors which give you an elevated risk of a heart attack or stroke, you're just masking them. It may be harder, but I would rather have doctors tell people what they can do to deal with the root cause of heart disease, rather than have them give up and rely on mass medication of people with pills to hide the symptoms and cut their costs.