I was diabetic when I was 20 kg heavier. Somehow I am still diabetic at an even 100 kg. For some reason the genetic issues that gave me diabetes didn’t disappear when I lost weight. I lost weight when I took up running (but I did not take up running to lose weight.)
In February of last year I made my first half marathon distance and my second a month later. I planned to keep that up with a goal of making it to a full marathon, but I started having issues with my blood sugar dropping too far. My doctor concluded I’m a “fragile” diabetic, meaning the line between too much and too little insulin is amazingly thin. Stopping insulin is very much not an option for me. An insulin pump which responds to my blood glucose readings has really helped, but I’m still trying to find the balance that lets me get my distance back. I can currently make about a half an hour before I crash hard, which leaves me about 37 km short of my full goal. But yeah, tell me more about weight and lack of activity.
Something tells me that even when my current limitations I can run a lot farther that Matt Gaetz.
(NOTE: I’m a counter example to this babbling fool’s comments, but I don’t care what a person weighs or how little activity in which they engage. Insulin prices should be capped. Actually it should be capped at nothing, but then again I’m a socialist.)
Christ, what an asshole. (Perpetually relevant response to anything Matt Gaetz says or does.)
What’s amazing to me here (besides the cruelty, etc.) is that Gaetz did this research about type 2 diabetes… and managed to completely fail to educate himself on the subject. He ignores the fact that it’s for those with type 1 diabetes where insulin is utterly vital, and which has no correlation with obesity. And that there are a lot of ways of treating type 2 diabetes, and although yes, most cases of diabetes are type 2, the vast majority of them won’t ever take insulin, much less be dependent on it for survival. (Let’s leave aside that current thinking is beginning to lean towards seeing type 2 diabetes as part of a metabolic disorder in which obesity is a symptom, not a cause…) By ignoring all this, his argument isn’t just cruel, it makes no sense at all. It’s like the way creationists “research” science. They come in with a (perversely wrong) preconception, then look at the information just enough so they can cherry-pick something that appears to support their position, just so they can superficially appear to be correct, not so they can actually learn something. They end up knowing no more than when they started (i.e. nothing), but fool themselves into thinking they’re informed.
It’s incredibly intellectually dishonest, and it’s horrifying to see a member of congress do this with, well, everything, because it’s so dangerous to the country. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s uncommon… certainly it’s sadly standard among Republicans right now.
So is Florida’s second-favorite sex offender suggesting that he supports government sponsored health and wellness programs? No? Just more of the bootstrapping and unfunded mandates that Republicans favor whenever the lower income brackets need their help? Well, that’s worked perfectly on housing, income inequality, parity in education, and access to healthcare; I’m sure America will be fighting fit in no time.
The thing he’s using as a policy basis is simply his gut response to the subject, i.e. his ignorant prejudices - the cherry-picked factoids are just there to try to form an argument (without accidentally educating him on the subject). Yet another way in which he’s very Trumpian (and representative of a whole wave of modern Republicans).
I dunno I read it as him consciously choosing to use antipathy towards fat type two diabetics to justify extorting or bankrupting type one diabetics and/or simply killing off as many as possible. If type one diabetics can be written of as deficient moral failures then their mass death and the brazen extortion of their families can be justified. This is a man who exploits kids for sex after all.
This makes me imagine a scene where someone goes to the pharmacy, the pharmacist takes out a measuring ribbon, measures the customers waist, and then looks up a chart to see how much to charge them based on their waistline.
