Good (Encouraging) Stuff (Part 1)

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Sounds wonderful so long as the “cure” isn’t undermined by lifestyle choices. Remember, the vast number of diabetics had properly functioning insulin-producing cells – until suddenly they didn’t. So the other half is trying to cure Teh Stoopid. Life choices matter.

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Type I diabetics acquired this disease usually as youths and it’s considered an auto immune condition. Type 2 diabetics still have some working islet cells.

Viictm blaming isn’t a good look.

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Sure, because diet has nothing to do with poverty and systemic racism… It’s all about personal choice. I mean, clearly, people choose to be poor and live in places with no grocery stores, etc. Maybe people should have just decided to be born with resources and then they’d have access to better food… /s

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Causes

The exact cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown. Usually, the body’s own immune system — which normally fights harmful bacteria and viruses — mistakenly destroys the insulin-producing (islet, or islets of Langerhans) cells in the pancreas. Other possible causes include:

  • Genetics
  • Exposure to viruses and other environmental factors
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As a pre-diabetic (because diabetes, and early death from) is very much in my genetics I have to listen to my Doctor and eat right and get proper exercise.
Unlike my cousins that demolish three (3) 2 litre colas a day, take the car 4 blocks to get more, and then complain about the price of insulin (they’re Americans so naturally the price is incredibly higher).
I recognize some diabetics never even had a chance to avoid this disease.
I recognize that often diabetics are treated monolithically (sp?) when they shouldn’t be.
I’m sorry if I came across that way.
And, yes, economics can play a role in whether or not you are prone to it.

It’s good to know where the’bridge too far’ exists on this topic and thank you for bring it to my attention.

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That is not how diabetes works. Type 1 diabetes has absolutely nothing to do with life choices, and type 2 diabetes has nothing to do with pancreatic functioning, it has to do with insulin sensitivity. And I seriously hope you are not suggesting letting type 2 diabetics die for the sin of gluttony or some such thing.

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That is not how this works.

I have been grossly overweight my entire adult life. In that time I have fought for, and earned, the love of an incredible partner, built a career including running the infrastructure for the sixth-largest website in the world, provided philanthropic security, hosting, and consulting services to a ton of org’s and amazing people, survived an early adulthood that literally had me sleeping on the street outside Toronto city hall, and, in the process of trying to deal with my weight, lost more (as in, over 50 pounds) than most people will in their lifetimes.

My entire family on the Mohawk side is overweight, despite us having been spread all over Canada & the US and having grown up culturally very different, with vastly different eating habits and activity cycles. My partner is tiny despite us essentially having extremely similar activity profiles and eating the same meals. I have been so frustrated by this one thing in my life that I have simply not been able to overcome that I am now considering permanently and irreversible altering my digestive system just to make permanent progress, at incredible expense, and the whole while feeling like I am a failure for having to take that step. All while being on the cusp of diabetic the entire time.

The idea that my problems could be solved with lifestyle changes or diet, or as @SovietCanuckStan said above, by ”curing teh stoopid” is so laughably out of touch with reality and at the same time depressingly common a stance that I find little solace in either. ”Fat people” are the last group of people it appears exist where folks think it’s ok to make fun of, and now, apparently to you and others, are even below the bar to deserve help and research to help end these lifelong diseases and cycles of pain, shame, and helplessness.

I appreciate you making your position clear to me, and those like me, who are suffering with our ”lifestyle choices.”

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I’m not blaming people, I’m blaming our western diet which is very unhealthy, not helped by the sugar mafia putting sugar in everything. In places colonized by western diet, problems like high blood pressure and diabetes soar, so I doubt that it’s doing “westerners” much good either.

I apologize for giving a flip answer. I’m no paragon of health, and know quite well that it’s never as simple as “exercise more and eat better”.

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Way to crap on GOOD & Encouraging Stuff with needless body shaming.

SMDH

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Excellent real example of how the “diet and exercise” is not the cure-all we’re led to believe it is.
I couldn’t find it just now, but years ago I read a book about the Tohono O’odham of the Sonoran Desert and how their traditional diets were similar to the metabolism of the desert plants, basically set up to account for the boom/bust or feast/famine cycle of desert biota. Their digestive systems evolved to handle that, and so even not including all the unhealthy foods and stuff westerners introduced, those living on a “healthy” diet by modern standards found less than ideal health outcomes.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your personal experience to help bring the point home. We’re all one human family, but physiological and cultural differences are real. I hope you find an agreeable solution!

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I waffled on whether to post this here or on the BLM thread. This FINALLY turned out well… so here it is:

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You look at Black cities and you have extracted a Black city out of the county and said the only one at fault is the city of Detroit, where 80 percent of the people are African-Americans,” the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., shouted on the call, his face almost touching the computer screen.
“Shame on you. You are a disgrace,” he said. “But on Jan. 20, 2021, at twelve noon, no matter what you do, the president of the United States will be Joseph Biden and the vice president, for the first time ever, will be a Black woman named Kamala Harris.”
A Black Detroit resident who attended the meeting, Benita Bradley, asked the Republicans, “Do you know how many young Black teenagers voted for the first time this year? And you sit here and slap those people in the face.” . . .
Neither Republican board member immediately responded to a request for comment on how they came to change their votes.

I have no doubt part of the reason they won’t explain themselves is that they’re appalled by being labeled racists.

They’re very likely the sort that have no inkling of how thoroughly racist most of their thoughts and actions toward black people are. And part of the reason for that is because when they do get called out like this, they just shut down and cross their arms and brows in denial. Instead of listening, and learning something about themselves.

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Michael Jackson was right.

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I know he was wrong about a lot, but he was also right about so many things…

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oh boy! looks like my next trip to visit papi down in Oaxaca might be lit!

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Dave Grohl is pure awesome, and so is Nandi Bushell.

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