A new study has found that regular consumption of soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a clear and consistently greater risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. According to the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, the study provides empirical evidence that intake of sugary beverages should be limited to reduce risk of these conditions.
The study appears online October 27, 2010, in the journal Diabetes Care and will appear in the November print edition.
“Many previous studies have examined the relationship between sugar-sweetened beverages and risk of diabetes, …

AFP, Yannick Pasquet, October 13, 2010
Chronic illnesses like obesity and diabetes, generally seen as “Western”, are making worryingly rapid inroads in the developing world, health experts warned at a meeting in Berlin this week.

Around 80 percent of new cases of cancers, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are now being recorded not in the rich West, but in poorer parts of the globe, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures.
[Image by Sophie van Schouwen]
The explosion is a “consequence of importing lifestyles from Western countries,” Francis Collins, head of the US-based National Institutes …

The New York Times, Jane E. Brody, July 26, 2010
Vitamin D promises to be the most talked-about and written-about supplement of the decade. While studies continue to refine optimal blood levels and recommended dietary amounts, the fact remains that a huge part of the population — from robust newborns to the frail elderly, and many others in between — are deficient in this essential nutrient.
If the findings of existing clinical trials hold up in future research, the potential consequences of this deficiency are likely to go far beyond inadequate bone …

CBS News, June 24, 2010
The worldwide epidemic of Type 2 diabetes is a “public health humiliation,” the editors of the esteemed medical journal The Lancet argue in this week’s diabetes-themed issue.
The journal’s lead editorial argues that Type 2 diabetes is largely rooted in reversible social and lifestyle factors that a medical approach alone is unlikely to solve.
“The fact that Type 2 diabetes, a largely preventable disorder, has reached epidemic proportion is a public health humiliation,” the editorial says.
The issue includes studies, which will also be presented at this week’s meeting …

Harvard School of Public Health, June 14, 2010
Boston, MA—In a new study, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that eating five or more servings of white rice per week was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. In contrast, eating two or more servings of brown rice per week was associated with a lower risk of the disease. The researchers estimated that replacing 50 grams of white rice (just one third of a typical daily serving) with the same amount of brown rice …

Huffington Post, Mark Hyman.
Great background article on diabetes and how lifestyle changes can reverse and prevent this disease.

Diabetes is not reversible and controlling your blood sugar with drugs or insulin will protect you from organ damage and death. That is what the medical profession would have you believe, but medication and insulin can actually increase your risk getting a heart attack or dying. The diabetes epidemic is accelerating along with the obesity epidemic, and what you are not hearing about is another way to treat it.
Type 2 diabetes, or what was once called adult onset diabetes, …

For Asians, it seems, being young and thin isn’t enough to ward off Type II diabetes. Though the disease is typically associated with old age and obesity, a study published May 27 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that Asia’s growing number of diabetics are relatively young and well under weights traditionally matched with the disease.
Once considered a ‘western’ disease, diabetes has become an increasingly a global problem. The International Diabetes Federation predicts that the number of individuals with the disease will increase from 240 …