You know, if someone said to me “name two people who are likely to have an intelligent, informed disscussion about diabetes”, “Alec Baldwin and David Letterman” would not be the first people who cane to mind.
Yeah, that occurred to me, too.
Also, given the thread title, i thought that the OP must just have discovered Letterman. I was disappointed with the first Letterman show i ever watched, and also the second, and also the third. It took me just a little longer to realize that he never actually gets any better.
From my experience as a parent of a child with Type 1 diabetes, I’m a little confused about what you’ve written. All we do is focus on the carbohydrate content of food. Many fruits are relatively high in carbohydrates, some veggies are essentially “free” foods (celery, greens).
Speaking of misinformed, I’ve told of the horrible “information” that my wife and I received from an acquaintance/nurse, prior to our actually talking with the nutritionist after my son’s onset. She told us that the problem was processed foods, so that essentially we would need to make everything from scratch. So, fruits and homemade breads and pastas? A-okay!
Not were we overwhelmed at the prospect of having to make our own pastas from scratch, but that was just so wrong and ass-backwards that I still harbor ill-will towards her for telling us that and it’s been 13 years ago now.
Ugh, so what do you watch? Leno?? :dubious:
I think you’re being a little too hard on the OP. While “prediabetes” is currently an accepted diagnosis, it has only been an actual medical diagnosis for the past few years. She is also right in that insulin is eventually used to process foods other than sugars and starches and that the body can convert proteins and fats into sugar to use for energy.
The current thinking on diabetes is that you need to manage your total carbohydrates. That does not mean never having pasta again; it means that you control the portion of pasta more and limit the amount you eat. Likewise, carrots have a lot of sugar so if you are eating carrots you need to have a smaller amount and have fewer carbohydrates with the rest of your meal. For example, if you were eating protein and a green vegetable you could have a piece of fruit with your meal (high in carbohydrates) but if you were having pasta or carrots you would not. The OP is therefore correct that you want to eat more foods witha lower glycemic index (protein and most vegetables) and fewer with a high glycemic index (starches and fruits) and significantly limit sugars.
As far as metabolism goes, most recent studies have shown that overall basal metabolism is fairly stable for different people (although the more you weigh, the higher the metabolism is in general). The different between naturally thin and heavier people tends to be not in resting metabolism but in amount of actuvity during the day. Thinner people have been shown to naturally “fidget” more than heavier people so that they do burn more calories. While Dave is wrong about metabolism being higher, he is right that some people do naturally burn more calories. Heavier people also do tend to eat more.
In short, the OP is not entirely wrong and Baldwin is not entirely correct. Both have some points correct and some wrong.
My doc diagnosed me as pre-diabetic some 13 years ago, and immediately started me on Glucophage. Either the OP’s memory is faulty, or her doctor was teh stoopit. Losing weight and exercising is a critical part of getting your numbers down, but being thin doesn’t mean you can’t be diabetic. I’m genetically predisposed for diabetes, as I’ve found it going back several generations.
The ADA only came out with a consensus regarding prediabetes and metformen (glucophage) use about 5 years ago and the first major meta-analysis showing that early treatment with metformen could be helpful was published in the New England Journal of Medical in 2002. There was no standard criteria for prediabetes 13 years ago and although glucose intolerance was recognized there was no consensus on treatment at that time. In fact, the current findings show lifestyle modification (weight loss, diet and exercise) are more effective at delaying the onset of diabetes than medication. In fact, the current ADA consensus statemnt indicates that metformen may be used off-label in cases of prediabetes but makes no recommendation. Therefore, the OP’s physician is not necessarily wrong or stupid.
Another data point: kaylasmom was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in 1994, so (let me take off my shoes for a minute), about eighteen years ago. IIRC, the thing her endocrinologist told her didn’t really exist was “borderline” diabetic.
I would not be surprised to learn that many people, and perhaps even some physicians, have conflated the terms “borderline diabetic” and “prediabetic.” In fact, when kaylasmom had a physical examination preparatory to enrolling in her second guide dog training class in 1990, her doctor actually TOLD her she was a borderline diabetic.
Anyone know the history of the term “prediabetes”? The wikipedia article is silent on when it was coined.
ETA: Thanks, psychobunny. 
If I may make a slight hijack for a moment, there is a woman in our social group who has diabetes, and every time we see her somewhere, she goes on and on about how there isn’t any “diabetic” food for her to eat. This scorches my popcorn in so many ways - first, food is not diabetic - people are. Secondly, we have another member of the group who is also diabetic, and you never hear a peep out of her about her condition or food - she eats what she knows she can handle and goes about her business. Thirdly, if you know you might have a problem with the food that is provided because of your medical condition, a better solution is to bring some food for yourself instead of complaining about what is provided.
Okay, done now.
I watch precisely none of the late-night network talk shows, because they’re all essentially the same mix of lame, family-friendly stand-up, lame gags and lists, and lame interviews with actors and singers hawking their latest product. I will very occasionally turn on Leno to watch Headlines, but that’s about it.
The only one of the late-night hosts i have any real time for is Craig Ferguson, because i find his personality very appealing, and he always comes across as a genuine, good-spirited, well-meaning guy. I still don’t watch his show, though.
If i’m watching TV after 11, i tend to watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, but even then i usually turn off when the interview comes on, unless it’s someone i’m really interested in seeing (i.e., usually not an actor or singer). More and more, though, i’ve taken to watching those shows the day after, through their websites, so that i can pick and choose which segments to watch.
People like that will bitch about anything, just to bitch. If she wasn’t diabetic then she’d be pissy because there’s nothing she wants to eat on the menu, or it’s too expensive, or food is for the weak, or some other mundane perma-complaint.
Here is a history of prediabetes as a diagnosis; I know it’s not the greatest source but it’s the only clear one I could find.
This is not even remotely true. Sugars are not the ultimate fate for all food. Not even close.
You’re still not getting this important distinction; perhaps I did not explain it right the first time. Carbohydrates are broken down into sugar because they are literally made of sugar molecules. These go directly into the blood stream and cause a spike in blood sugar. Proteins are never broken down into sugar, because they are made of amino acids. It is the amino acids that enter the blood stream and may end up as building blocks in muscles and other places. Then they go to the liver, which makes either glucose or fatty acids from them. Neither proteins nor fats are ever broken down to glucose, but the liver can use them to make glucose. This is an important distinction as the liver regulates the amount of glucose it produces, but the small intestine does not regulate the amount of glucose it absorbs. Thus carbohydrates cause a much higher spike in blood sugar than fats or proteins because they dump sugar directly into the blood stream, while proteins and fats can only act as fuel for the liver.
ETA: I’m only addressing glucose metabolism here and trying to keep it simple. Ogre is correct in that the fate of food is way more complicated than sugars.
The truth of the two previous posts can be trivially tested: is your entire body made of sugar? Hair? Muscles? Fingernails? Teeth? Brain? Given that your entire body derives directly from the food you eat, it is impossible that the fate of all that food is to be made into sugar. If you’re interested in what actually happens during metabolism, Wikipedia has a good breakdown (no pun intended), with links to everything from lipogenesis to cofactors.
I don’t watch any of them. The jokes are pretty lame and predictable, and the guests are just there to promote their latest album or movie or book. I mean, you watch a couple of the shows, and you can figure out the formula. And the shows are all so very, very forgettable. It’s like reading women’s magazines, you read an article and it’s the same as the articles in the other magazines, and they can run essentially the same article in next month’s issue. Erk. And of course the science and news in these late night TV shows has been pruned and dumbed down so far as to be worthless.
Whew, glad we finally got the answer we all weren’t waiting for.
Heh - I thought you were going to link to this narcissist.
