October 21, 2012

"It seemed logical that diet and exercise would help"... but it obviously didn't.

"The study randomly assigned 5,145 overweight or obese people with Type 2 diabetes to either a rigorous diet and exercise regimen or to sessions in which they got general health information."
The diet involved 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day for those weighing less than 250 pounds and 1,500 to 1,800 calories a day for those weighing more. The exercise program was at least 175 minutes a week of moderate exercise.

But 11 years after the study began, researchers concluded it was futile to continue — the two groups had nearly identical rates of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths.

51 comments:

edutcher said...

The Blonde can give chapter and verse on how hard treating diabetics can be.

The big problem is getting them to stick to the rules.

Strelnikov said...

I'm not sure I could randomly study that many fat people.

Shanna said...

'rigorous' diet. So...what was that diet. I didn't see it in the article...

(wondering about the folks who advocate low carb for diabetics, one of my coworkers had a borderline blood pressure reading and the diet the doctor/nutritionist gave her seemed very high carb)

wyo sis said...

They should just admit they don't know what will or won't work.

gadfly said...

Another worthless study paid for by our tax dollars. Medical science is way ahead of theoretical stuff like this.

When I asked my doctor why I had contracted Type 2 diabetes while my twin did not, the doc said it was a matter of waist size. If your waist is bigger than your hips - you can expect to contract diabetes. So I went on a real 1000 calorie no-carb diet, and I was back to normal glucose levels in six months. I lost 50 pounds.

Ten years later, with all the weight back on, a routine exam turned up a high level of glucose again. This time I took two pills a day instead of dieting and my blood sugar has been normal ever since.

Julie C said...

My thoughts exactly. What was the diet?

Anonymous said...

How much you wanna bet the "healthy diets" those diabetics ate was full of high-carb foods like grains, potatoes, and rice?

These fuckers gave the diabetics a killer diet and then were surprised it killed them.

Fuck George McGovern, The First Klingon Michelle Obama, and the rest of those murdering bastards.

Dr Weevil said...

I'm Type 2 Diabetic and have been on a self-prescribed not-super-strict low-carb diet since March. Results? My weight is down 23 pounds, my endocrinologist is really pleased with the drop in my blood-sugar levels, and pleased and surprised that my cholesterol has not gone up at all with all the meat and eggs I've been eating. Yes, it works. Now I just need to take off another 23 pounds or so to get to a reasonable weight for my age.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Well, yeah, but the good news is you stop being a drunk and your liver goes right back to normal.

Dr Weevil said...

Actually, that's not all I need to do. I need to buy smaller pants or have the ones I own taken in, and I need to buy a new belt or borrow an awl and add a couple more holes. (I already added two holes in June, but the belt's still loose.)

Lyle said...

wyo sis,

I agree... but then fewer people would invest in medical research.



McTriumph said...

You die of what your parents die of, plus or minus three years.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

What kind of diet? High carbs? What are they "rigorously" having these people eat??

The fact is that the scientists and the government don't have a freaking clue what works or not. OR....they refuse to allow ideas outside of their favored meme (aka low fat high carbs good....high protein low carbs bad).

SO they structure the experiment to get the results they want and are surprised that it doesn't work. Since it didn't work, they just keep repeating the same things over and over hoping for a different result.

And THESE are the people we are putting in charge of our lives, our medical care and every other aspect of our lives.

Michael K said...

The war on Atkins has never stopped. The diet Nazis hated him and rejoiced when he died. The "Food pyramid" has killed more people than Vietnam. I happen to like pasta but I know I shouldn't eat it. I haven't had pasta in 6 months. Meat and Cauliflower (which can replace potatoes quite well) for most meals. My weakness is wine with meals but that will go if my waist starts growing.

Dante said...

Lifelong exercise adds about 2 years of life. It makes you feel much better though.

wyo sis said...

Not only do they not have a clue, when they do get a clue they're so invested in their pet cluelessness they continue in it and lie about it.

roesch/voltaire said...

Need to know the details about the diet, but given that
diabetes increases heart disease risk by 2 to 2 ½ times, it is not surprising the impact was small. Still Dr. W. good for you in your efforts in the low carb diet, and low sugar I hope which are showing positive results.

PatCA said...

The type of diet is not mentioned, probably because it's the traditional government-sponsored calorie diet.

If you wonder why government should not be involved in our personal lives, use the diet problem as a guide. When calorie restrictions doesn't work, they suppress and ignore the data, to the detriment of health.

They will defend their erroneous decision to the death--your death, that is. Just because!

Anonymous said...

Because its not the calories a diabetic should count, it's the carbs.

Duh.

Some doctors, dieticians and the ADA are not on top of the learning curve, what a shame.

Scary I agree with certain commenters here, shudder.

MisterBuddwing said...

You die of what your parents die of, plus or minus three years.

The occasional car wreck, plane crash or falling grand piano notwithstanding.

Anonymous said...

Also remember if you're a diabetic, fruits have fructose in them naturally, but still fructose. Of course cut out all sugar, there are many great sugar substitutes out there.

Swerve
Truvia
Splenda

No reason to curl up and die if you can't eat traditional baked sweets and chocolates. The darker the chocolate, the lower the carb and sugars, melt it down, add sweetener, nuts, coconuts, a bit of coconut oil and you have a healthy chocolate. I just made a bagful of peanut butter cups yesterday, I had four of them, two carbs each. Also look into lower carb bake mixes or mix your own. The pumpkin walnut chocolate chunk scones I made last week are gone, one large scone had 8 carbs.

It's considered very low carb to be at 30 or under, 50 is great, even under 100 will help you lose weight and get blood sugars down. But 100 carbs a day is a lot, no need to go that high.

Anonymous said...

Another rule of thumb, the higher the fat content, the lower the carb content.

Joe said...

Seems to me that there are two types of type-2 diabetes or, more likely, a continuum; at one end, the problems is readily solved by reducing weight as indicated by the many anecdotes. However at the other, more common end of the scale, it isn't fixed by anything.

Perhaps the difference is that one type of type-2 diabetes is caused by being overweight while with another it isn't and being overweight is correlated with diabetes and even caused by it. The overriding point is that it's not as simplistic as ALL sides have been arguing.

There are other serious implications with this study; among them is that statins didn't work.

cubanbob said...

Main thing with diabetes type 2 is to keep your hemaglobin A1C level at or below 6%. Diet ( low carb) and excersize do help. But once you cross the line statins and blood pressure medications are almost always a must even if your A1C levels are normal because the underlying metabolic disorder doesn't go away.

Anonymous said...

Metabolic Syndrome is much more common in the overweight population, but can also happen in normal weight people. When your triglycerides start rising, it's a good indicator you aren't metabolizing glucose optimally.

When having a lipid panel drawn, always ask for a particle size test, such as a VAP. If you have large fluffy LDL, you are safer. LDL will rise in a low carb diet, Trigs will go down, HDL will go up, that's good. In my opinion, statins are a bad idea, avoid if possible.

Anonymous said...

A word on fats, saturated fat is your friend, but only if you are low carb.

Anonymous said...

And yet Inga the Lying Obama Whore still believes that government-run healthcare will save us all and that anyone who speaks out against President Affirmative Action should be locked up in jail.

Seig Heil, Mein Obama!

Anonymous said...

Go eat some sugar, Whore.

Anonymous said...

Tell us all, Inga, how, despite killing us for 40 years with a mere diet, somehow running our entire health care and locking us up for dissent is the way to True Happiness.

C'mon, Inga, lie away....

cubanbob said...

Inga good point about the particle size. Don't discount statins, they do play an important rule. Taking certain supplements can help if taken wisely such as Coenzyme Q-10 and B-vitamins and chromium picolinate. Another marker to watch out for is inflammation which is a caution for cardio-vascular health. Thats why baby aspirin is prescribed. Statins also have some anti-inflammatory properties.

Whore not everything is directly political, chill.

Anonymous said...

True Bob, ask for a C-Reactive Protein to be drawn also. Good indicator for inflammation, inflammation inside your blood vessels is most definitely to be avoided.

Ann Althouse said...

"You die of what your parents die of, plus or minus three years."

I was just reading a genealogy of my matrilineal line. My generation is the 10th generation in America. If I go back to my great-great-great-great-great grandfather and grandmother, I would be worrying about typhoid fever and measles.

Anonymous said...

@cubanbob:

not everything is directly political

--THIS IS.

Anonymous said...

Anyone taking statins, needs to supplement with easily absorbed CoEnztme Q 10, because the very mechanism that makes statins work, depletes your body of this essential enzyme, then bad stuff can happen, like rhabdiomyolisis.

Anonymous said...

C'mon Inga....engage in your womish, baby-killing doublespeak...tell us all that, although Big Daddy Gov screwed us all with their diet, SOMEHOW Obamacare and destroying the First Amendment are going to SAVE US ALL..

C'mon, you lying bitch, we're all waiting.

Anonymous said...

Ann, the wheat your ancestors ate was probably much healthier than the genetically manipulated stuff today. Less diabetes in their day, they had no such thing as processed foods. Typhoid and measles not an inherited disease luckily.

wildswan said...

It's all in the caption - that tells you what to see in the picture. What are we to see? - diet does not work. What else is in that same picture? The study was a comparison of diet and medication. The conclusion: Diet does not work [ end of caption] better than medication.[end of study] The caption could have been: "Study shows how to avoid expensive medication with side effects." Or "How to save Medicare dollars". The study shows that diet works as well as medication although not better in terms of longevity or the course of the disease. But wouldn't diet be a better and cheaper way to control diabetes in every way if it was as effective as medication and doesn't this study show that diet is as effective as medication? So why caption the study the way it was done unless you are in the pay of the drug companies? Who else benefits?

Anonymous said...

LMAO, Whore are you for real ? Now even I'm beginning to wonder.

Triangle Man said...

Among type II diabetics, might the cow not be already out of the barn? The diet and exercise might help them feel better, but the Metormin ans statins are what is keeping them "healthy".

Anonymous said...

Note how Inga the Lying Obama Whore will not now even address her inherent and blatant contradiction.

Typical lying lefty. Nothing to see here! Seig Heil, Mein Obama!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Absolutely Triangle Man, the metabolism has already been deranged for quite sometime before acquiring full blown diabetes. Once the pancreas stops making insulin, which happens after so many years as a type 2 diabetic, metformin ( which is a really GOOD drug actually, unlike statins ) won't help anymore and it's on to insulin injections.

Conserve Liberty said...

You die of what your parents die of, plus or minus three years.

+1. So far, I am tracking every life-threatening event on schedule. I ahve either 10 or 23 years to go. +/- 3.

Illuninati said...

Obviously, the NYT is not a scientific journal, so one would not expect specifics about the diet etc. I don't believe that the article claims that diet and exercise are ineffective, Diet and exercise DID help, but their benefit was no greater than the benefit from medication.

When the diet and exercise group, who required less medication, was compared with a control group, who took more medications, the results were the same. The additional medications balanced the positive effects of diet and exercise.

Dr. Nathan summarized it nicely when he said. “You can take more medications — and more, I should say, expensive medications — or you can chose a lifestyle intervention and use fewer drugs and come to the same cardiovascular disease risk.”

wyo sis said...

Inga
I'm so sorry if anything I said encouraged whores to think I agree with his/her/it's attacks on you.

dreams said...

Low carb diet is the answer. See links below.


http://eatingacademy.com/

http://garytaubes.com/

cubanbob said...

nga said...
Absolutely Triangle Man, the metabolism has already been deranged for quite sometime before acquiring full blown diabetes. Once the pancreas stops making insulin, which happens after so many years as a type 2 diabetic, metformin ( which is a really GOOD drug actually, unlike statins ) won't help anymore and it's on to insulin injections.

10/21/12 1:01 PM

Metformin is preferable to the sulfa drugs because it lowers insulin resistance as opposed to pushing the pancreas to produce ever more insulin to overcome the resistance factor.

22 years ago I read an article in a science magazine that breast feeding to some degree and formula to a larger degree were capable of predisposing a person to type 2 diabetes later in life. The fundamental premise being that breast milk passes antibodies to cow's milk to the new born whose digestive system isn't capable of dealing with them and that most formulas use traces of cow's milk which also in newborns can have that same effect. Since it is very difficult for a woman to ingest a sufficient amount of calcium without consuming milk products that is a problem with breast feeding and as for formula, I had my daughter's mother use a completely hypoallergenic formula from day one. She never had a case of colic. Same with my younger daughter.

There has been some literature that that type 2 diabetes in certain individuals may also have an auto immune issue as a reaction to some viral infection.
Back in the "good old days" people rarely lived long enough to die from metabolic or other disorders and as for carbs, what they consumed was hardly refined. A lot of fiber in those coarse grains, which does help with blood sugar spikes and insulin reactions.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

I'm an endocrinologists who has neen in practice since 1979. The American Diabetes Association publishes clinical guidelines which have, at least as far as dietary modification, been wrong for years. What you have to remember is that the ADA's constituency is not diabetics but the constituent lobbying interests that exist within the ADA. Apply Pournelle's Iron Law and you get the sort of recommendations that are predicated on consensus and not science.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/17/shoring-up-the-mantra-of-science-take-no

TMink said...

Actually, we do know what works.

It is just not popular information.

Taubes book (Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It) covers the research very, very well. So well that it gets tedious at times!

And it shows that the clinical lore that is taught almost exclusively is wrong, unhealthy, and makes us fat. Oops!

So there are huge, multimillion dollar industries that fight the truth to escape liability lawsuits and keep the money flowing, cause nothing pays like a cure that does not work.

For the record, I have lost 10% of my body weight and my vitals are improved after three months of Atkins.

Trey

TMink said...

Strelnikov wrote: "I'm not sure I could randomly study that many fat people."

I know just how you feel, I could not study that many bigots.

Trey

Anonymous said...

Sooo many studies these days... Don't they know that the sugar is the culprit??