by John Tyler

Created on: February 08, 2011

Diabetes Linked To Obesity

According to a March 2009 study released by the American Journal of Medicine, "Obesity is a primary risk factor for patients with Type 2 diabetes and 90% of all patients with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese, according to the study."

"Diabetes is a disorder of metabolism; the way the body uses digested food for growth and energy. The most common form of diabetes is Type 2, called noninsulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM). Ninety to 95 percent of people with diabetes have Type 2. This form of diabetes usually develops in adults over the age of 40, and it ismost common among adults over 55. Diabetes is widely recognized as one of the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. Diabetes is associated with long-term complications that affect almost every major part of the body. It can cause blindness, heart disease, strokes, kidney failure, amputations, nerve damage, and birth defects in babies born to women with diabetes."

"Ninety percent of all patients with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese" - Should we begin to think about obesity as more than being just a few pounds too heavy? It seems to me, a 67-year old guy who finally got so sick of being a tub of lard - and losing self-confidence by the day, that I went on a diet in an effort to save my life, or at the very least, prevent diabetes type 2, heart attack or stroke.

Why would we want to play Russian roulette with our health? Yet, we do, and I fear that the reason we play this deadly game is out of ignorance about foods, and how they affect our lifestyle and our overall health.

The government is trying to tell us how we must not smoke - where we can and can't, that we must buckle up when driving our cars, what we can and cannot say (political correctness being the soft-porn version of raping the Constitution and freedom of speech), and now they wish to dictate what kinds of food we should or should not eat...all because those in political power right now think we are too stupid to do these things voluntarily.

Let me jump off my soapbox for a moment and deal with the real problem here of mandates versus common sense.

We all know that if we smoke cigarettes, we are playing Russian roulette. There isn't a man or woman (or teenager or pre-teen) on this planet who has not been educated by the media that inhaling tobacco, pot, nicotine, tars and the like will diminish our health over time - or outright kill us. Yet, some of us (not me) choose to play the

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