Five years ago, the president of the American Diabetic Association announced at a scientific conference, "By the year 2030... treating diabetes will cost us 250 billion dollars annually. This will be enough to bankrupt the health care system."(1)
Obesity is a major and controllable contributor to diabetes
With the passage of Obamacare, the laissez-faire attitude toward others' obesity will enter a new dimension
The question will naturally arise, "Why am I being asked to pay for Mr. and Mrs. Jones' bad health habits?"
Another question may be, "Why are our tax dollars subsidizing -- indirectly, of course -- food additives that are helping to destroy the health of our nation?"
New scientific evidence has come to light making it very clear where most of the blame for the alarming rise in obesity among Americans belongs. Nevertheless, the public is having a hard time judging the guilt or innocence of this food additive, because it has two big things going for it:
1) It is a byproduct of USDA farm subsidies, which gives this ingredient in many processed foods the low-price advantage (The U.S. Department of Agriculture can be expected to defend this food additive, just as it would defend anything that benefits agribusiness' economics.)
2) It has been so profitable for the members of the Corn Refiners' Association that they can afford to produce slick, media-saturation campaigns to convince the public of their product's innocence
Of course, we are talking about High Fructose Corn Syrup
At this point, the public is still somewhat unclear about what they are doing that has made them so fat. Commercials defending fructose are intended to keep the public confused for as long as possible. There is money to be made, after all.
To the uncritical observer, American food choices haven't changed very much in the past 100 years. So why are we now -- 68% of us -- growing so rotund at such an alarming rate?
Well, it doesn't require a lot of detective work to find what has changed in the American diet over the past 100 years.
For one thing, about half of our meals are now eaten in restaurants, namely fast food places. Menu items are formulated in industry laboratories with the aim of creating foods that are irresistible. Sugar has long been added to prepared food in this context, because it stimulates consumption.
Our Food Appears the Same, but the Ingredients Have Been Changed
Fructose has readily found its way into many items of the fast food menu, from buns to soft drinks because of its cost savings over the sucrose that was previously used.
For another thing, even those meals we enjoy at home have had high fructose corn syrup slipped into the canned items, baked prepared foods, mixes, and beverages. Fructose is everywhere and it is metabolized very differently than old-fashioned sucrose, making it far more likely to be converted to fat in our bodies and less likely for our body to tell us when to stop eating.(2)
Our food looks and tastes the same, but with fructose in nearly every processed food item, we are tricked into consuming more calories -- and those calories coming from HFCS are more likely to result in fat accumulation than previously.(2)
So, all this leaves us with a large proportion of the U.S. population likely to develop diabetes over the next few years. As pointed out earlier, this will bankrupt Medicare by the year 2030 -- and it may come sooner.
Most people don't want to think about this. They want happy stories, "Chicken-Soup-For-the-Soul"-type stories with unearned miraculous endings. In effect, they want to win the lotto without buying a ticket.
Because they are not thinking about this substitution in their food supply, Americans are not doing much about it. We have been taught to wait for some non-profit or governmental agency to gear up to solve the problem that we could easily solve by small changes in our diet and lifestyle.
"The USDA Will Take Care of Our Food Safety -- That's Their Job!"
What can we say about those who had a chance to change their dietary habits, but decided it was too much trouble? Or that someone else would take care of the problem?
Will the burden of their health care costs cause social unrest on the part of those who must pay for others' inaction? We don't know. What does seem likely is that many of the obese will die from our overworked health care system's inability to pay for their care.
It would be wise for those who see trouble coming to make the necessary changes in their own lives now. Type 2 diabetes is easily preventable.
1) medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=47573 medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=47573
2) articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/26/sugar-may-be-bad-but-this-sweetener-is-far-more-deadly-part-2.aspx articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/26/sugar-may-be-bad-but-this-sweetener-is-far-more-deadly-part-2.aspx
For those who have no confidence that our federal government will ever solve this massive health problem they had a hand in creating, my Web site: healthyplanetdiet.com healthyplanetdiet.com offers a free Special Report on how you can assure yourself and your loved ones a more pleasant, healthy future.
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