DIABETES - battle 'being lost' as cases hits record 382 million

DIABETES - battle 'being lost' as cases hit record 382 million

Ben Hirschler  Reuters

Nov. 13, 2013 

LONDON - The world is losing the battle against diabetes as the number of people estimated to be living with the disease soars to a new record of 382 million this year, medical experts said on Thursday.

The vast majority have type 2 diabetes - the kind linked to obesity and lack of exercise - and the epidemic is spreading as more people in the developing world adopt Western, urban lifestyles.

The latest estimate from the International Diabetes Federation is equivalent to a global prevalence rate of 8.4 percent of the adult population and compares to 371 million cases in 2012.

By 2035, the organization predicts the number of cases will have soared by 55 percent to 592 million.

"The battle to protect people from diabetes and its disabling, life-threatening complications is being lost," the federation said in the sixth edition of its Diabetes Atlas, noting that deaths from the disease were now running at 5.1 million a year - one every six seconds.

People with diabetes have inadequate blood sugar control, which can lead to a range of dangerous complications, including damage to the eyes, kidneys and heart. If left untreated, it can result in premature death.

"Year after year, the figures seem to be getting worse," said David Whiting, an epidemiologist and public health specialist at the federation. "All around the world we are seeing increasing numbers of people developing diabetes."

He said that a strategy involving all parts of society was needed to improve diets and promote healthier lifestyles.

The federation calculates diabetes already accounts for annual health care spending of $548 billion and this is likely to rise to $627 billion by 2035.

Worryingly, an estimated 175 million of diabetes cases are as yet undiagnosed, so a huge number of people are progressing toward complications unawares. Most of them live in low- and middle-income countries with far less access to medical care than in the United States and Europe.

The country with the most diabetics overall is China, where the case load is expected to rise to 142.7 million in 2035 from 98.4 million at present.

But the highest prevalence rates are to be found in the Western Pacific, where more than a third of adults in Tokelau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands already are living with the disease.

Pharmaceutical companies have developed a range of medicines over the years to counter diabetes but many patients still struggle to control their condition adequately, leading to a continuing hunt for improved treatments.

FAREWELL NELSON MANDELA 1918 - 2013

NELSON MANDELA 1918 - 2013

 

 

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

 

“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“It always seems impossible until it's done.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

 

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“The greatest glory in living
lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
― Nelson Mandela

     

“As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself... Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“ As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“I am the captain of my soul.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“Where you stand depends on where you sit.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

    

“Courage is not the absence of fear — it s inspiring others to move beyond it.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Appearances matter — and remember to smile.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“A winner is a dreamer who never gives up”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Nothing is black or white.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“In my country we go to prison first and then become President. ”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

 

“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiograpy of Nelson Mandela with Connections

      

“Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

    

“Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Quitting is leading too.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“It is not where you start but how high you aim that matters for success.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“The brave man is not the one who has no fears, he is the one who triumphs over his fears.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

    

“Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“I AM THE MASTER OF MY FATE AND THE CAPTAIN OF MY DESTINY.”
― Nelson Mandela

      

“It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Tread softly,
Breath peacefully,
Laugh hysterically.”  
― Nelson Mandela

      

“I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.”
― Nelson Mandela

    

“I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
― Nelson Mandela

 

“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

    

“It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”
― Nelson Mandela

Ultimate Success Formula by Anthony Robbins

1) Get clear about the outcome you want?

2) Decide and take action - overcome the fear of failure (it's impossible to fail) and speed up the process by modeling someone who is successful at what you want.

3) Notice what you are getting from your action by paying careful attention - flexibility is power, so be prepared to change if necessary. 

4) Keep changing your approach until u succeed, eg, babies keep trying until they walk.

Henry David Thoreau

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of a human being to elevate their life by conscious endeavor." Henry David Thoreau 

Saturated Fat and the European Paradox

June 17 2012 9:46 "Heart Disease, Saturated Fat."

Wow. This is mindblowing.

Have you heard about the French Paradox? French people traditionally eat a lot of saturated fat, like butter – yet they generally have less heart disease than other populations. A lot of brainpower has been wasted to explain this – do perhaps the red wine protect them?

It’s not a paradox.

Of course, modern science quite clearly shows no connection between saturated fat and heart disease. That’s no secret anymore. But now it gets even more interesting:

I was just shown the diagram above, recently published in the journal Nutrition. It’s based on WHO and FAO statistics over the average intake of saturated fat in 41 European countries in 1998 (the latest available data), and the age-adjusted risk of dying from heart disease. I added some explanations.

More saturated fat, less heart disease

It’s a stunner. The French paradox is actually a French-Swiss-Icelandic-Swedish-German-Austrian-etc.-paradox!

1. France eats the most saturated fat and has thelowest rate of heart disease deaths in all of Europe.
2. Switzerland eats second-most saturated fat and has the second-lowest mortality.
3. The countries eating more saturated fat have less heart disease, period.

Less saturated fat, more heart disease

And the countries eating less saturated fat? Like Georgia, Moldavia, Azerbaijan etc.? Well, they seem to have the highest mortality from heart disease in Europe.

It’s a Pan-European paradox now.

No need to hold the butter?

What does it mean?

Correlations between populations, like these, are known as ecological data. It doesn’t really prove anything. In other words, the diagram above doesnot prove that saturated fat protects you from heart disease. There are obviously many other differences between these populations, not just the intake of saturated fat.

But a diagram like this can more or less disprove a theory. It’s hard to imagine how saturated fat could be a major cause of heart disease, when European populations stuffing themselves with it are so much healthier, without exception.

Can this possibly be a weird coincidence? Can saturated fat still possibly be bad? What do you say?

PS

When I recently interviewed professor Loren Cordainabout our hunter-gatherer ancestors, his guess was that they on average got about 15 percent of their calories from saturated fat.

If that’s true it means that our genes should be well adapted to eating about 15 percent saturated fat. That’s more than twice as much as the maximum in the obsolete fat-phobic advice from the USDA and others. But about as much as the healthiest populations in Europe today. Coincidence?

Fat Does Not Make You Fat - Guess What Does?

If you’re feeling completely confused about whether you should cut fat from your diet, you are not alone. But here's the bottom line: Fat does not make you fat or sick.

So, why do so many people believe that fat is bad for you and causes heart attacks?  This all started in the Dr. Key’s Seven Countries Study decades ago that examined heart risk based on lifestyle and dietary habits.  He found that in the countries where people ate more fat -- especially saturated fat -- there were more cases of heart disease, and he concluded that the fat caused the disease.  But here’s the problem with this study: Correlation is not causation.  Just because both fat intake and heart disease were higher among the same population doesn’t mean the heart disease was caused by the fat consumption.  Here’s another way to look at it: Every day, you wake up and the sun comes up, but although these events happen at the same time, you waking up doesn't cause the sun to come up.  A study that observed this would show a 100 percent correlation between these two events, but it would be wrong to conclude that you caused the sun to rise.

Because of studies like this, we became sidetracked into believing that saturated fat causes heart disease.  But in fact, we are now learning that sugar is the true culprit, not fat.  A review of all the research on saturated fat published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found there was no correlation between saturated fat and heart disease.  And a recent editorial in the British Journal of Medicine hammers home the same point and shatters the myth that fat causes obesity and heart disease.  Researchers have found that, while it’s true that lowering saturated fat in the diet may lower total cholesterol, it’s actually lowering the good kind of cholesterol, the light, fluffy, buoyant HDL that's not a problem.  When people eat less fat, they tend to eat more starch or sugar instead, and this actually increases their levels of dangerous cholesterol, the small, dense cholesterol that causes heart attacks.

In fact, studies show that 75 percent of people who end up in the emergency room with a heart attack have normal overall cholesterol levels.  What they do have is pre-diabetes or Type 2 diabetes.  So, what’s the conclusion here?  Eating a diet with good quality fat and protein prevents and even reverses diabetes and pre-diabetes (diabesity).  And eating sugar and refined carbs cause diabesity.

So, I encourage you to look at the issue of fat and sugar in a totally different way.  Don’t cut out the fat; enjoy it!

Eat good fats. Here are my favorite sources of fat:

Avocados
Nuts -- walnuts, almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, but not peanuts (one recent study showed a handful of nuts a day reduced death from all causes by 20 percent)
Seeds -- pumpkin, sesame, chia, hemp
Fatty fish, including sardines, mackerel, herring, and wild salmon that are rich in omega-3 fats
Extra virgin olive oil (a large study showed that those who consumed 1 liter a week reduced heart attacks by 30 percent)
Enjoy grass-fed or sustainably raised animal products (I recommend the Environmental Working Group's Meat Eater’s Guide to eating good quality animal products that are good for you and good for the planet).
You can even eat saturated fat like extra virgin coconut butter, which is a great plant-based source of saturated fat that has many benefits.  It fuels your mitochondria, is anti-inflammatory, and it doesn't cause problems with your cholesterol.  In fact, it may help resolve them.  I have many diabetic patients whose health improves when I get them on diet that’s higher in fat.
I was just talking to researchers from the Joslin Diabetes Center who told me that the low fat recommendations for diabetics promoted by the American Diabetic Association has in fact been harmful, bad advice making diabetes worse!  Their new research shows that diabetics should be switching to a diet that's about 30 percent fat, 30 percent protein, and about 40 percent low starch vegetables and fruits (carbohydrates).  That turns their previous advice on its head.

So here’s the take-home message: Fat doesn't make you fat.  Sugar makes you fat.  Eating good fats can actually help you stay healthy.  So, eat good quality fats and real, whole, fresh food, and don't worry about it.

Mark Hyman, MD is a practicing physician, founder of The Ultra Wellness Center, a six-time New York Times bestselling author, and an international leader in the field of Functional Medicine.

STORY OF THE BUTTERFLY

One day a man found a cocoon of a butterfly. As he watched a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

So sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives and if God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it may probably cripple us.