Category: Health and Medicine

Both the UK and US national diabetes organizations have a risk test available for anyone worried about diabetes risk. Read the rest of this post and then take the tests and let me know how you get on.

You can take the Diabetes UK MeasureUp two-minute test here and/or the US diabetes risk test, although I recommend the more comprehensive (but more complicated) Diabetes UK test.

The US test is very, very simplistic, it asks you to plump for a very broad age range, asks if you have siblings or parents with diabetes, gets your height and weight, and whether you excercise or not. There is no detail in the questions at all, but then the results are very simplistic too. I truthfully filled in the blanks and scored a big fat zero. Null points. Thankfully, that means very low risk. But, I think the lack of questioning about supine waist measurement, body fat percentage and actual details about exercise, blood pressure etc, mean one would have to take this result with a large pinch of salt (actually, hold the salt, throw some sand instead, it is healthier).

I realize this is more about awareness and the tests are deliberately simplistic so that someone with a family history who does not exercise and is overweight might hopefully visit their doctor for a check up when the test shows them to be high risk.

There are over 20 million people in the US with diabetes, says the ADO, and almost a third of those (more than 6 million people) do not know it. These people need to get equipment and help for their disease like a glucometer by Dexcom.”

In contrast, the UK test is much more comprehensive and so presumably provides a better reflection of risk, it asks for waist measurement as well as ethnicity, and whether you have any cardiovascular disorders in some detail. It also asks about mental health and known metabolic disorders, as well as factors such as mental health problems. With all this additional information I still came out low risk, so I’m happy. What about you? I’d be interested to read comments from Sciencebase visitors who try either or both tests. Remember though, that if you are worried about diabetes or show any symptoms of the disease get to your GP fast.

Further information on diabetes is available from American Diabetes Association and Diabetes UK

“The US Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) position on medical cannabis is incorrect, dishonest and a flagrant violation of laws requiring the government to base policy on sound science,” claims Joe Elford, Chief Counsel for patient advocacy group. The organisation, the largest of its type in the US promoting safe and legal access to cannabis for therapeutic use and research, has filed a lawsuit demanding that the federal government “cease issuing misinformation on medical cannabis and correct the information it has released.”

There is growing evidence that the active ingredient in cannabis (THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol) can alleviate the often debilitating pain suffered by those afflicted with multiple sclerosis (MS) and HIV/AIDS. However, given the drug’s illicit status in most countries many governments have not acceded to its free use as a therapeutic agent nor encouraged systematic research and clinical trials to demonstrate efficacy or otherwise. Moreover, the ASA suggests that the US government is stifling valid research and spreading disinformation about the benefits.

The pharmacological action of THC results from the compound binding to the so-called cannabinoid receptor CB1, in the brain. The presence of this specialized receptor suggests that there are natural THC-like (cannabinoid) compounds made or used in the body. THC has been repeatedly demonstrated to have analgesic effects but the “high” associated with its use have precluded it from mainstream medical research. Several research teams are, however, investigating variations on the THC theme that retain the analgesic properties but do not produce a high. Such a product would be more acceptable to the pharmaceutical industry and the regulatory authorities, but requires a lot of work with the native compound to help scientists work out what chemical factor leads to the high and which part produces just the analgesic effect.

Fellow blogger “Joe” discusses many of the issues in more detail. He points out that since the 1980s the FDA has actually approved Marinol, a synthetic THC analogue for pain in cancer. But, the conflicting response of successive Bush adminstrations (viz the first Bush administration, in the early 1990s cancelled a compassionate use program and in the late 1990s, the Office of National Drug Control Policy threatened action against physicians who recommend or prescribe marijuana. California doctors and patients subsequently sued the federal government.

Opponents of medical marijuana use cite apocryphal evidence that it is a gateway drug to harder substances. However, one must consider the plight of terminally ill patients who seek relief from intolerable pain and suffering. Ironically, many terminally ill patients do indeed end up using much harder drugs in the end. Diamorphine? Heroin by another name.

According to an article in the New York Times magazine recently, there are nine golden rules of nutrition that in these days of overweight obesics, rising sugar levels, and general all-round fitness collapse, we could all do well to follow. Or, could we?

I’ll list the rules, as compiled by article author Michael Pollan, and re-compiled by Jess3 and then discuss briefly whether the concept is valid or not.

So, here are the rules, in summary:

1. Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
2. Avoid so-called “health” foods
3. Don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce
4. Avoid supermarkets
5. Never mind the quality, feel the quality
6. Eat shoots and leaves
7. Eat in the French, Japanese, Italian, or Greek style
8. Avoid fast food, by growing and cooking your own
9. Eat omnivorously, like a dog, not a cat

   So, are these rules valid or not? Broadly speaking yes, but we must remember that our great-great-grandmothers and fathers and those romantic country folk from around the Mediterranean Sea do not necessarily have a lower incidence of heart disease and diabetes nor do they live longer, healthier lives than we may care to think. The average life expectancy of our ancestors was very different from our own for all sorts of reasons and we’re only now seeing changes in health in the Med, Japan etc that are impacted by changes that happened during the twentieth century, such as war and not necessarily the shift to a more “American” diet. This difference in life expectancy is partly due to the fact that infant mortality was a lot higher, death in childbirth was common, disease was rampant, and the availability of food, of poor or high quality, was low.

   As to the Mediterranean diet, delicious yet, but it has not been proved that a diet rich in olive oil, red wine, eggplant, capsicums, and wholemeal pasta is any better than any other diet. Until well after WWII most of the countries around the Med were well below the poverty levels we see, generally, today in the West. There could be a residual effect of this poverty that has provided a buffer to disease from one generation to the next in the last fifty years, but we could soon see an interesting shift in cardiovascular disease among the baby-boomers of the Med in the next few years, perhaps as the poor diet of the grandparents of baby-boomers kicks in.

   Meanwhile, why shouldn’t you eat anything you can’t pronounce? I presume this alludes to “chemicals” in our foods, but I don’t know any two people who pronounce or even spell yogurt the same and as to Brits knowing what zucchini are, I daren’t say. Of course, maybe that’s the point – we shouldn’t be eating yogurt, or any dairy products; after it’s only relatively recently that we started tugging on the teats of bovine mammals. As to chemicals in our foods, there is nothing in any food that isn’t a chemical, we’ve had millions of years to evolve to cope with all kinds of natural toxins and pesticides, so there’s no reason to think that our bodies cannot cope, just because a chemical is synthetic. Moreover, nature is full of natural compounds that we cannot digest and at worst can kill.

   All that said, eating omnivorously, dedicating a bigger proportion of your money to quality food, and avoiding mass produced processed materials, is most certainly a good idea for many reasons other than personal health.