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[article] Nearly half of the U.S. population has diabetes or prediabetes—and many have no clue. Are you among them? | Fortune

Nearly half of the U.S. population has diabetes or prediabetes—and many have no clue. Are you among them? | Fortune

https://fortune.com/well/article/diabetes-prediabetes-obesity-half-united-states-population-insulin-wegovy-type1-type2-signs-symptoms/amp/

All told, roughly half of the U.S. population has diabetes or its predecessor—and it's turning us into a nation burdened with illness, experts say.

Wonder if this shift corresponds to the age of automobiles

40 comments

Rentlar

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Combine:

urban layouts that are made to dissuade walking or cycling anywhere (thanks to automobile manufacturer lobbying),
along with poor food health guidelines,
along with corporate shrinkflation and reduction of quality ingredients in favour of fats and empty carbs.
along with a piss-poor healthcare system that dissuades preventative checks and treatments

and you've got an American obesity epidemic.

awwwyissss

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And transnational corporations developing and heavily marketing intentionally addictive junk food, especially to children.

Also it's not just American.

spacecowboy

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No, but America is really good at exporting its sickness to other countries.

Rentlar

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I'm not giving Canada a pass, many of these are present here, but the U.S. is the only developed country that matches ALL of the above.

FireRetardant

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Plus, sugar became so ubiquitous that its in everything. People consume more than they might think. Nearly every big brand food has sugar from breads, to frozen meals, and of course loaded into various drinks.

DragonTypeWyvern

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I wondered why Europeans kept calling American bread cake until I looked at the ingredients on your average pseudo-wheat loaf of bread.

High fructose corn syrup is like the third ingredient. Followed closely by "cellulose filler," aka, sawdust.

AA5B

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My first response was, “damn, even my expensive whole wheat bread?”, but then I looked at the rest of the ingredients, and didn’t see any I thought should be higher. What do you want to be there?

Whole wheat flour, water, sugar, cracked wheat, yeast, gluten, whey, less than 2% of …

jerkface

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Sugar doesn't cause diabetes. Diabetes affects your ability to process sugar but sugar is not the cause.

FireRetardant

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But sugar does contribute to obesity, which influences diabetes.

jerkface

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More likely obesity is an inevitable consequence of diabetes and the diet that leads to it. The fact that you can be skinny and diabetic supports the idea that it isn't the obesity, it's the diet. We have observed the mechanism that causes insulin insensitivity. It's not some mystery, people just don't want to accept that EATING ANIMALS CAUSES DIABETES.

lntl

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fwiw, car usage may be related to elevated "fast food" consumption.

less cars, less drive-thrus, less McOzempic

blazera

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The age of soda likely has a larger effect.

lntl

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a car sympathizer... disgusting

andrewta

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How would diabetes and the age of cars link in any way?

lntl

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how wouldn't it?

andrewta

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Explain the connection to a vehicle using an internal combustion engine (or a battery pack) and someone with diabetes. Because I don't see any connection.

Car

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Third order effect of more cars. Higher numbers of cars requires more car infrastructure which tends to displace pedestrian infrastructure.

Less pedestrian infrastructure means less convenience, which tends to lower utilization. Lower utilization, less walking. A little less low impact cardio for most.

AlligatorBlizzard

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You walk more, sometimes a lot more, when using public transit. It's speculated to be one of the reasons why Europeans are on average thinner than Americans.

Although I thought diabetes was much more about diet than exercise?

Revan343

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(Type 2) Diabetes is mostly about obesity, but yeah obesity is mostly about diet, because it's a lot easier to eat less than it is to exercise more. Exercise still plays a part though, even though it's the lesser one

jet

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Diabetes and obesity are correlated because they are both symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Increased insulin levels over a long period of time leads to disregulation of many metabolic health markers.

Not all people get all symptoms... The skinny fat people with diabetes, for instance.

The body can only store 2-5g of glucose at a time, only circulating in the blood. The rest gets stored as fat. The body doesn't store glucose. Whenever you eat sugar, carbs, alcohol, the body pumps out insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. A diet that requires the body to constantly produce insulin causes the entire system to become less sensitive to insulin over time.

So yes, reducing insulin levels allows the body to work better over time. Reduce carbs, reduce alcohol, reduce sugar. The more time you spend between carbohydrates the more your body can self regulate.

Increasing muscle mass can help consume excess glucose, but diet is the main factor

ivanafterall

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What do diabetics use? Insulin. Why? Sugar level issues. What do insulin and sugar do? They help provide energy to the body. What else provides energy? Batteries. What uses batteries and also has a body? Cars.

Car

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This wouldn’t be an issue if everybody threw their car batteries in the ocean to maintain nature’s power cycle instead of “recycling” them at autozone.

AA5B

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Put sugar in your gas tank? Less diabetes! I found a cure!

lntl

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haha, yes! well done

lntl

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diabetes linked to obesity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3066828/

obesity linked to car use https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8744747/

Nemo

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As someone with prediabetes, no, not really. The kind of exercise that helps prevent and mitigate high blood sugar levels isn't continuous exertions like walking or cycling. It's more like running up stairs. So if you want to blame elevators...

Well, still don't. It's a dietary problem, not an exercise problem. Otherwise I, a lifelong bike commuter who always takes the stairs and doesn't sit down at work, wouldn't be prediabetic.

insomniac_lemon

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A quick search says cycling lowers the risk by 20% (whatever that means). Gears probably really help here, allowing you to have more resistance with your highest comfortable cadence so you can do cardio.

Either way I don't think the point is that it is a foolproof prevention (because other factors), but more that the same diet but fully sedentary would likely be worse off. Particularly with the obesity aspect, cycling obviously burns calories and builds muscle (which will raise metabolism) so can help you lose weight in the long run. More is probably better so long as you aren't really overdoing it or getting injured.

lntl

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What if I told you those who own a car are more likely to eat fast food/make poor diet choices?

https://open.bu.edu/bitstream/handle/2144/40250/Fast%20Food-and-SES-EHB-%20Revised_2.pdf

Nemo

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Well they already made one really bad choice, so I'd say it checks out!

IHeartBadCode

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Okay so for the person indicating cars, sure you can make a casual link to the two. But that misses the major point here.

Type 2 diabetes, which is the type we're talking about here with this article so I'm strictly sticking to just Type 2, is primarily caused by obesity which is the primary factor that leads to diabetes.

This is because of a combination of abdominal and intra-abdominal fat distribution AND increased intrahepatic and intramuscular triglyceride content. These two factors conspire to increase insulin resistance and β-cell dysfunction. So anything that leads to this kind of situation needs to be addressed, which gets to my point. We could literally list dozens of various things that contribute to this kind of situation, there's no ONE factor that just predominately contributes in meaningful ways more so than any other outside of diet and physical activity.

While cars have indeed contributed to a decline in physical activity it is important to remember that diet also plays a role in this. I'm not disagreeing with anyone here about cars contributing to the issue. But anywhere I go, I always remind folks that it is always diet AND physical activity. If this was fucksoda or something, I would still remind them that diet is indeed important but we must remember that it is diet AND physical activity.

I know it sounds pedantic, but given the strong message that all health agencies the world over have given, we need to always remember that it is both diet and physical activity that play a role in diabetes and prediabetes.

Wonder if this shift corresponds to the age of automobiles

So yes, I would agree that physical activity has decreased but also diets have become absolute trash at the same time. We absolutely should address the lack of physical activity along with encouraging better diets. Given how important health agencies have linked the two, I just think it would be a miss if we just solely spoke on JUST the physical activity.

HAL_9_TRILLION

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Type 2 diabetes, which is the type we're talking about here with this article so I'm strictly sticking to just Type 2, is primarily caused by obesity which is the primary factor that leads to diabetes.

Just for anyone watching who might smugly think "yeah, but I'm not fat," like I did before I discovered my prediabetes: you don't have to be fat - I'm not, I'm thin. I work for a living, light physical labor, but constant. I cut sugared drinks out of my life in over 20 years ago and I am what I considered to be a "relatively healthy" eater, maintaining about a 60-40 ratio between raw vegetable intake and animal protein in my meals.

But I developed a bit of a sweet tooth in the past few years. I make ice cream as a hobby, and while I never eat a whole pint, I might eat two or three tablespoons a day. I paid no attention to what kind of carbs I was eating, whole grains never really crossed my mind. And I have a bowl of my favorite candies, which I got in the habit of rewarding myself with at the end of every day - one or two. Or three. After all, I didn't figure I was a candidate.

Ah, but I was. Shocked the crap out of me, tbh.

Still, 3 months of healthy eating and cutting out all of those bad habits was enough to course correct for me. I am no longer prediabetic. My message is this: refined sugar is poison. Try and eat whole foods and when it comes to sugar, moderate yourself accordingly - particularly as you get older.

lntl

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I just think it would be a miss if we just solely spoke on JUST the physical activity.

head on over to fucksoda for that dialogue. this is fuckcars

ObviouslyNotBanana

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I have no clue ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ivanafterall

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You seem fine to me.

ObviouslyNotBanana

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Must be because I'm not part of the U.S population.

jerkface

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ITT: people who have no idea what causes diabetes

lntl

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what causes diabetes my lemmy?

jerkface

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https://nutritionfacts.org/video/what-causes-diabetes/

Don't believe it? Click "Sources cited."

lntl

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i think some folks here seem to think my post is about exercise and how cars can make us more sedentary? not by a long shot.

simply:

diabetes linked to obesity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3066828/
obesity linked to car use https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8744747/

i make no claims about exercise

insomniac_lemon

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The trail near me closed in both directions (2 bridges being replaced+resurfacing) for 6months+ (no estimate other than "early 2024"). By now I'm pretty sure I lost any benefit I had built up on my ebike (131 miles, that's with 250w assist but also gears).

So ~*maybee~* (voice from Worthikids animation "Free Apple" at 2:15).

Also can you imagine a highway closing here in summer and the estimate being "I don't know, next year sometime"? Looking it up, it seems highway closures (for a road bridge) are around a month. And given the listed detours they probably don't just do it as one bulk closing that cuts off multiple potential routes at the same time. Goes to show the priority I guess.

jerkface

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Diabetes has been essentially cured, and no one gives a fuck because it isn't a pill or an injection. T2D can be completely reversed through nothing more than diet. But because the required diet (that results in healthy humans whether or not they have diabetes) indicates a cessation of the daily, mindless, cruel and violent abuse of animals for food, people don't give one fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

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