Skip to main content

Health Horror Shows--Sequels Even Worse!!

The recent health news double-feature was really scary:
1. 40% of Adults Obese
2. 1 in 5 Adolescents with Prediabetes

Then came the even-more-shocking news on the “sequels”:
  1. For adults: “Severe obesity is likely to become the most common BMI category among...low-income adults”-- close to 1 in 3 >75-100 pounds overweight by 2030--when about 50% of adults will be obese nationwide.
  2. For teens with prediabetes:  “However, compared with adults, decline in β-cell function seems to occur at an accelerated rate resulting in relative insulin deficiency and progression to overt type 2 diabetes with insulin treatment needed to control hyperglycemia within a few years after diagnosis.”
Let us be clear what this means:
  • High child obesity (~20% nationally now) is leading to very high adult obesity (40% now, going to 50%+) and severe obesity (1 in 12 adults now, going to 1 in 4 in 2030).
  • Unlike typical adult-onset diabetes in the past, which is often treated with metformin or other oral drugs initially--teen prediabetes can progress quickly to adult diabetes requiring insulin injections.
  • There's a good reason for the term "diabesity": obese adults have >2x higher risk of diabetes--and apparently this risk increases even more with age & obesity duration.
  • The bottom line: widespread early inactivity & unhealthy nutrition is creating an ever-growing ever-earlier-onset diabesity tsunami later in life.  
Yet the health sector is unsure what to do about unprecedented levels of teen prediabetes.  Much teen prediabetes remains undiagnosed--probably the same with young adult diabetes.  Certainly, not enough steps are being taken early among youth to postpone diabetes onset.   

While undiagnosed diabetes may “save” 50% short-term by postponing treatment costs, this increases the risk of serious side-effects from untreated diabetes. And these downsides are much more expensive, and terrifying, than treatment including: neuropathy, gangrene & amputations; permanent vision loss; and heart & kidney disease.

Finally, a reminder: diabesity is caused overwhelmingly by inactivity & unhealthy nutrition.  While treatment is better than non-treatment, prevention is best of all.  

 [Note: bold/italics/underlines mine.]

Comments

  1. Lilian WaleJune 1, 2020 at 7:59 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it a “Miracle Drug”?...if it Costs a Fortune and Creates Lifelong Dependency...&...Saggy Faces!?

[It’s been a while since our last blog post.  A lot has happened since– including some “miracles” ! So we’re going to do two posts in a row…] Normally we should all be happy about miracle drugs... shouldn't we ? Yes, there is lots of upside from taking semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), tirzepatide (Montjaro)--and upcoming new, even-more-miraculous drugs TBD:  losing huge amounts of weight quickly, a much lower risk of diabetes–and probably less heart disease and other chronic conditions as well.  But what if the “miracle” requires:   $200-300/week, with a lifetime cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars…  a drug that you can never quit…because if you stop taking it, you gain back all the weight it helped you lose–not to mention the chronic diseases which the drugs kept at bay… and it leaves your face (and the rest of your skin?) sagging …    (plus, it’s so new at such high dosages– who knows what happens after years of use…? ) No doubt, in spit...
4 comments
Read more

It’s Come To This for Many of Our Teens: Radical Surgery and/or a Lifetime of Pharmaceuticals

The American Academy of Pediatrics just came out in favor of powerful prescription drugs (which must be taken lifelong to avoid weight regain & chronic disease) for adolescents--and potentially for pre-teens (ages 8-11)--with moderate to severe obesity. Bari atric surgery (permanently reengineering kids’ gastrointestinal systems) should also be considered for adolescents with severe obesity .  (The Academy also recommends "nutrition support, physical activity, and behavioral therapy"--but as with so many other areas of US chronic disease management, we can see where default treatments are headed: drugs & surgical procedures.) Such radical treatment recommendations created the usual (and temporary and ineffectual) tsunami of news & social media shock and indignation. The decades-long performative reaction to the increasingly bad news on dangerous levels of early obesity–and now 1 in 3 teens with prediabetes, across ethnicities & income levels–is itself sicken...
Post a Comment
Read more

Both/And: Personal & School & Social Responsibility for Health

Many people are promoting a false dichotomy for who/what to “blame” for decades of pervasive inactivity & unhealthy nutrition--the key preventable factors which have led to the majority of adults developing chronic disease. Some believe that people with preventable chronic diseases made a series of unhealthy choices for decades, for which they need to accept personal responsibility for the consequences. On the other side, a growing number of policymakers focus on the “social determinants of health.”  In other words, there are many things beyond your control, which impact what you eat & drink and how active you are.  This includes factors such as your family, neighborhood, school, employer, transportation, public safety, housing, community layout, etc. etc.  It’s those external social factors which determine your health destiny.   Actually, the personal and social are inextricably connected--not opposite ends of the spectrum.  Let’s consider the role...
Post a Comment
Read more