Health - GEneral

[Petals]

Thought I would start this post just as a means to keep up to date with things that are in the news and that may help us families who have people with health problems.

 

One I read today in the Daily Mail was about fructose and its being looked at in relation to diabetes, Corn Syrup to us yokels. Must say I do not use it but that is not to say that I don't eat it as we do not know what we are eating. Wearing glasses I find that the writing on products is made so small and I wonder if that is because they don't want us to read what is in things.

 

Another article was about having children, came out of the University of Adelaide saying that couples should get used to one another in other words have more sex before starting a family to give the woman chance to get used to her partners sperm, thought that was a possibility for a lot of people who seem to have trouble.

 

The one I personally liked was Cambridge Uni have developed a ketone drink which is proving very successful with type 2 diabetics and weight. So hope for me yet when can I get the drink. :wink:

 

I always follow the health sections I remember when my daughter was diagnosed with diabetes at 12 them telling me we will have a cure in 10 years still waiting and four injections a day since then she is 32 now lot of injections.

[MARYROSE02]

I'd like to become involved with this subject but I am an incurable hypochondriac so I've learnt to try NOT to read too any health topics, especially avoiding Googling any symptoms.

 

Anxiety has always been my problem and to be fair to me, I am much better!

[Petals]

Anxiety is something a lot of us suffer from and are very good at hiding. However there is a lot of help around for it. Deep breathing is very good for it, you have to breathe right down until you feel the bottom of the lungs expand and exhale, all done slowly and its amazing it works. I used a programme that a psychologist put me on and it showed levels of anxiety and when. I actually have the programme at home now but don't need to use it. It was a great help, it shows when you breathe shallowly how the problems start.

 

Do not feel alone with this problem, think it might just be one of the most prevalent ones these days, due to our hectic lifestyles, well some peoples hectic lifestyle, mine is more relaxed these days thank goodness.

[MARYROSE02]

My psychologist gave me a few exercises/CD's and I must admit that, entirely typically for me, I only made half-hearted attempts. On the other hand, I must be doing OK because he does not want to see my any more!

 

I do feel much happier in myself too, this second time around in Australia, partly perhaps because I have to stand on my own two cliches. There's no running home to Mum and Dad now, I'm afraid. I've made a lot of friends around Surry Hills, and pushed myself to speak to people in various shops, cafes, pubs. It's a good feeling to be able to walk around and know that people are pleased to see me and know my name.

[Bound4Tassie]

I'm a bit confused about the fructose thing... Fructose being fruit sugar. I don't know anyone who became diabetic from eating too many apples!

[NicF]

I'm a bit confused about the fructose thing... Fructose being fruit sugar. I don't know anyone who became diabetic from eating too many apples!

 

It's not the eating apples that's the problem, it's eating the stuff that's sweetened with fructose. It was seen as somehow healthier than sugar but it's still basically the same thing so I'm not really surprised that consumtion of too much fructose could cause problems.

[Guest littlesarah]

For what it's worth, I would caution the general public about believing media health reports, especially those that link a common condition like diabetes to a particular type of sugar. Journalists mostly appear to lack the basic ability to evaluate evidence (& even find credible evidence) and present it in a reasoned way. So what we end up with is reports that over-simplify and over-state one or two papers without due regard to all of the recent published evidence. It is currently believed that a number of factors are involved in the development of type 2 diabetes, but one overwhelming association that has been found consistently across a long period of time is that of insulin resistance and body mass. Other contributors appear to be familial tendency and other endocrine disorders. There is, at present, one man who has launched a 'campaign' against high fructose syrup, but I have to say that the statements I've heard him make are not those of a scientist - it's not possible to make hard and fast assessments based on the evidence he cites (it's just not strong enough).

 

As far as diabetes is concerned, I do wish the media would, for now, focus on the need to maintain blood glucose levels within the normal/desired range, because the evidence linking poor control to secondary complications is overwhelming, and the results of complications of diabetes come with an enormous cost - financial and (more importantly) in human suffering. I don't think that finding one 'culprit' is where the media has its greatest role to play - we need to educate people (those with diabetes, their families, health professionals and the general public) about how to prevent cardiovascular disease, blindness, kidney failure and amputation because that's the end result for a good number of people with diabetes; and in many cases high BGLs for a long time are to blame.

 

Sorry to get on a bandwagon - I get very upset at how poor much of the science and health media reporting is, and diabetes is a condition in which I have a great professional interest. I'm concerned that people with diabetes should be well educated now rather than the focus being on blaming one thing in particular. It's all about appropriate weight, diet and exercise - a healthy lifestyle for us all!

[Guest littlesarah]

It's not the eating apples that's the problem, it's eating the stuff that's sweetened with fructose. It was seen as somehow healthier than sugar but it's still basically the same thing so I'm not really surprised that consumtion of too much fructose could cause problems.

 

I don't understand the proposed causal mechanism myself (but then, I'm not a food scientist), seeing as all food, including sugars are digested and broken into smaller molecules before being used for metabolism or deposited as adipose tissue, or stored in the liver (in the case of sugars) as glycogen. I thought high fructose syrup is used because it is very cheap and very sweet (so not much needed). Personally, I think it's all about balance, really - too much of any foodstuff is unlikely to be beneficial, especially if it's consumed at the expense of other foods with other nutrients we need.

 

What is clear is that there is a link between higher BMI and insulin resistance, and that insulin resistance reduces (or insulin sensitivity increases) when the same person's BMI is reduced. How that reduction (or increase) in BMI came about is probably of less significance than the magnitude of change (in terms of the effect on insulin utilisation).