I receive lots of emails every day.
And it always touches my heart to hear from readers who have restored their health by following the advice in The 30-Day Diabetes Cure and ARTHRITIS INTERRUPTED.
But this week I also received an email from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) bearing the subject line, “Who’s Your Diabetes Hero?”
This wording caught my eye because I’m just putting the final touches on a book entitled “Diabetes Heroes,” which will be released next
month.
For the book, I’ve been interviewing folks from across the US — and as far away as Slovenia — about how they reversed their Type 2
diabetes, got themselves off their meds, and returned to a normal, healthy life.
No more finger-sticks. No more symptoms.
No more drugs. No more diabetes.
These were very sick people when they began. Some had blood sugar in the 400+ range. Others endured multiple surgeries on their heart and eyes. A few were at death’s door because of diabetes and its terrible complications.
But with sheer courage, they decided to do whatever it takes in order to kick diabetes out of their lives.
Their doctors were flabbergasted at their success. Their spouses are ecstatic. And many of these “ex-diabetics” say they feel like they’ve participated in a miracle.
So this was the type of “diabetes hero” I thought the ADA was referring to in their email to me.
Boy, was I wrong!
Among the 6 attributes required to be an ADA “hero,” one needs to…
“Accept health setbacks with courage and dignity”
“Keep medical appointments and follow the caregiver’s advice, even when the advice is tough to hear”
“Check their blood glucose levels many times a day, without complaining”
Sound like familiar advice?
These as the very traits that doctors love in a “good patient,” aren’t they? Follow orders. Take your meds. Don’t make waves. And don’t expect too much.
It doesn’t matter that passive, compliant patients — and studies confirm this — never do as well as the ones who educate themselves
about their condition, ask their doctors tough questions, get involved in their own treatment, and aren’t afraid to rock the boat.
Incredibly, being a “hero” in the eyes of the ADA simply means following the herd.
Yet when you examine the outcomes of most diabetics — even those who follow doctor’s orders to a T — they’re not so good.
Despite all those drugs, 84% of diabetics die from heart attack and stroke … 67% have high blood pressure … 70% suffer painful neuropathy … and they account for 60% of all non-traumatic limb amputations.
Then there’s all that kidney disease, blindness — and now, Alzheimer’s (currently being referred to as “Type 3 diabetes”).
Anyone interested in becoming
a “martyr to medicine?”
I might be stretching it here, but to characterize following a failed treatment protocol as “heroic” reminds me (just a little) of the jihadist call for martyrs. (“Just strap on these explosives, blow yourself up, and you’ll become a hero to our cause.”)
So if the current medical treatment for Type 2 is failing miserably — and statistics clearly show it is! — what’s the “cause” the ADA wants you to become a martyr to?
I’ll tell you…
It’s “mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money” for the ADA.
Last week I explained why, despite its incessant, mantra-like promise of a “diabetes cure just around the corner,” the ADA will never deliver one.
Reason?
There’s far more money in treating diabetes, than in curing it.
Cure diabetes and all those patients go away — along with the $400 billion annual revenue the Diabetes Industry rakes in from glucose monitors, test strips, glucose monitors, diabetic foods, motorized scooters, heart surgeries and multiple medical procedures that diabetics require over their
remaining years.
And, of course, all those drugs…
Which is really what the ADA is about
Most people think the ADA is a group of dedicated researchers, tirelessly searching for a diabetes cure.
The public believes the ADA is genuinely serious about its declared goal to “Stop Diabetes” (this year’s campaign slogan).
But probe deeper and some troubling conflicts of interest become apparent.
First of all, the ADA is a very big business (even though its official tax status is “non-profit”). Its 2009 annual report cites a 12-month budget to be a whopping $205 million — more than 60% of which came from “donations and special events.”
So, who’s doing all this “donating?”
You may be surprised to learn that the lion’s share of the ADA’s funds comes from drug manufacturers, food companies, and the makers of products that benefit from the diabetes explosion.
The ADA’s corporate sponsors include Walgreens, Rite-Aid Pharmacies, Roche Laboratories, Catherine’s Plus Sizes, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and many other pharmaceutical companies.
In fact, the list of ADA donors is a who’s who of Big Pharma, with the major drug companies kicking in millions in 2008 alone — including $2.8 million from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, the maker of the ADA-approved diabetes drug, Actos.
Take a closer look at their annual report, and you’ll find they’ve even created special categories for their biggest donors.
The elite inner circle, called the “Banting Circle Elite,” includes members that receive special consideration in return for a $1 million minimum gift. The lesser “Banting Circle” is for companies that can only afford a paltry $500,000 donation.
And — surprise! — it turns out that every “circle” member is a drug company.
Not that the ADA is shy about where it’s true allegiance lies. Its Strategic Plan states that its internal goal is to “maximize corporate, pharmaceutical and foundation contributions” … in order to achieve “an annual compound growth rate of 9.1 percent.”
How will they achieve this?
How else? By helping to create more customers and sales for their pharmaceutical “partners.”
Are you starting to get the picture?
More than half of the ADA’s massive budget goes for “information, advocacy, and public awareness” — but guess what it is “advocating and informing” the public about?
You got it: Drug treatment.
Yes, its true: The ADA’s primary “Stop Diabetes” educational strategy is to vigorously encourage diabetics to test their blood sugar regularly and to take their drugs faithfully.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but I just don’t see how this approach will halt the spread of diabetes, which is already a global epidemic (now 350 million people — and counting).
Call me cynical, but the only thing this advice will achieve is to make the ADA’s pharmaceutical partners even wealthier.
The ADA’s history with Big Pharma
The ADA’s relationship with the drug industry is nothing new. It dates back to 1940, when it was founded with a large gift from the drug maker Eli Lilly.
Twice in the past decade, the ADA’s 12-member Executive Committee has been headed by former top executives of drug or medical equipment companies. The New York Times reports that the most recent treasurer of the ADA is also the Director of Investor Relations for Johnson Johnson.
Given its close ties to the drug industry, it’s hard for me to believe that the ADA is objective and impartial in its treatment and public education recommendations. Duh.
Drug companies, you see, sell $15 billion worth of diabetes drugs in the US each year — and the ADA is the lynchpin of their marketing strategy. The New York Times explains how these drug companies continually advertise to doctors in ADA journals and announce new medicines at ADA conventions, where a coming-out party for a new drug can drive a stock price higher.
Oh, and then there’s the “official ADA diet”
Yes, the ADA does advocate a diet to go along with all those drugs.
But, incredibly, it’s the very same carbo-whopper diet (60% carbs or more!) that causes insulin resistance and Type 2 in the first place.
And that’s just not my opinion.
According to Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard School of Public Health: “Over-consumption of sugar and other rapidly-absorbed carbohydrates can cause excessive demand for insulin and ultimately lead to failure of the pancreas to secrete adequate amounts of insulin.”
Dr. Willett cites three major, long-term studies confirming this: The Nurses’ Health Study I (127,000 participants), the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (52,000 participants), and The Nurses’ Health Study II (116, 000 participants).
“All three studies showed that people with a higher intake of refined starches and sugars had approximately twice of risk of
diabetes compared to those with a low intake,” he concludes.
The ADA would love us to believe that Type 2 is caused by our genes, or by dietary fat, or by being overweight, or by anything but the carb-centric Western diet that’s top-heavy with refined grain products and sweeteners.
So, how can the ADA advocate such a destructive diet?
Despite numerous research studies to the contrary, the ADA stubbornly insists that “fat is the enemy” and recommends that everyone — especially diabetics — eat a low-fat, high-carb diet.
The official reason is that, since heart disease is what ultimately kills the majority of diabetics, they need to eat less fat to protect themselves.
But low-fat diets have never been proven to prevent heart disease. In fact, research shows just the opposite…
Not one clinical study has ever been able to show that a low-fat diet has prevented a single heart attack. And this includes the famous Framingham Study, the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (commonly referred to as “Mr. Fit”), or the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), the largest and most expensive diet study ever conducted.
“Dietary fat used to be public enemy No. 1,” says Dr. Edward Saltzman of Tufts University. “Now a growing and convincing body of science is pointing the finger at carbs, especially those containing refined flour and sugar.”
Dr. Walter C. Willett, who was one of the principal investigators on the Nurses’ Health Study, concurs: “If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases.”
So why does the ADA still push carbs?
One reason might be that a large chunk of the ADA’s funding comes from food companies who sell some of the worst products that contribute to diabetes and obesity — including Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Hershey’s, Cadbury Chocolates, and various refined-carb breakfast cereals.
These companies essentially buy an endorsement from the ADA (at $500,000 a pop!), which includes the right to use its logo on their
foods.
Snack foods such as SnackWell’s Sugar-Free Lemon Créme cookies have sported the ADA logo, despite the fact that these cookies contain almost as many calories as ordinary sweets.
Kraft Foods’ deal with the ADA allowed it to paste the ADA logo on Post Raisin Bran, Cream of Wheat, Sugar-Free Jell-O, and Cool Whip Lite.
And — get this — the ADA’s Continuing Education Courses for registered dieticians are being taught by the Coca-Cola Company’s Beverage Institute. Talk about bizarre!
The bottom line? Follow the ADA dietary recommendations and you’ll be sicker than ever, as your disease spirals out of control — while you battle the drugs’ side effects, to boot.
How “heroic” does that sound?
“The first corporate-sponsored disease”
(if you don’t count lung cancer)
To my mind, the ADA’s advice is “pie in the sky” deceit, pure and simple.
It leads diabetics to believe they can continue to consume the foods and beverages that gave them Type 2 in the first place, just as long as they control their blood sugar with drugs.
This way, the ADA can continue taking big money from Big Food and Big Pharma — which are the folks who made you sick, and are keeping you sick.
So I guess you could call diabetes “the first corporate-sponsored disease” (if you don’t count lung cancer).
Still, it’s good business.
The ADA’s strategy ensures a steady stream of new diabetes customers and revenue. This ensures that it’s well-heeled execs and “partners” can maintain their lavish salaries, private jets, cushy perks, and lifetime pensions (currently more than 27% of the ADA annual budget).
Yeah, sure. The ADA wants to “Stop Diabetes” about as much as the Columbian cartels want drug addicts to “just say no” to cocaine.
What really works?
If the ADA was sincere about wiping out Type 2, it could do it a heartbeat by launching a massive public awareness and education campaign promoting a diabetes-reversing diet and lifestyle, instead of pushing drugs and carbs.
This means telling people to eat exactly the opposite diet that the ADA currently recommends. Here’s proof…
More than a dozen peer-reviewed studies published since 2003 show that a low-carb, high-fat diet is more effective at reducing overall heart-disease risk than the ADA’s low-fat, high-carb guidelines.
“Many people are essentially cured of their [Type 2] diabetes by low-carbohydrate diets, but that message is not getting out,”
says Dr. Richard Feinman of the SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Studies in 2004 at the Minneapolis V.A. Medical Center and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and published in Diabetes have produced groundbreaking research — though sadly, little-reported — showing dramatic results.
The researchers found that Type 2s diabetes significantly improved their blood glucose levels simply by switching from the ADA’s low-fat diet (55% carbohydrates, 15% protein, and 30% fat) to a low-carb diet (20% carbs, 30% protein, and 50% fat).
“We were shocked,” said Dr. Frank Q. Nuttall, the chief investigator. “We thought they’d be improved, but we didn’t think it would be improved as much as it was. The results were better than you get when you put patients on oral agents (drugs).”
Two months later, Dr. Nuttall released another cutting-edge study in Nutrition and Metabolism, which also found that diabetics can manage and control their disease simply by eating ample protein and fats, and restricting carbs — without needing to lose weight or taking insulin medications.
Just say no to drugs — and the ADA
These are the very same results being achieved by thousands of Type 2s (now “ex-Type 2s”) who have followed The 30-Day Diabetes Cure.
In the words of the plan’s creator, Dr. Stefan Ripich: “It’s not rocket science — and it’s not the latest discovery. This proof has been around since the turn of the 20th century. The cure for diabetes is what you eat, not the pills you take.”
As word of our success spreads, the ADA is facing a serious rebellion in the diabetic community that it once though it had in its back pocket.
Type 2s, discouraged by their lack of improvement on the ADA plan — and intrigued by the success of patients who have completely reversed their diabetes — are rising up to snatch back their health from mainstream medicine. Here are just a few examples…
Meet the real Diabetes Heroes
Kathy Wozniak has a family history of diabetes, which includes both of her brothers, and her parents.
She recalls her mother following the ADA diet religiously: “Looking back, I realized it wasn’t so good for her. It was the kind of diet that encouraged her to stay on her meds. She died of cancer, while also suffering from diabetes complications.” (A recent study found that diabetics have a 1.4 times greater risk of dying from cancer than people without diabetes.)
Many people think that obesity causes Type 2, but Kathy is evidence to the contrary. She’s not overweight — nor does she have a sweet tooth. Nonetheless, she was diagnosed in 2007.
When her doctor tried to put Kathy on medication, she resisted and chose The 30-Day Diabetes Cure plan instead.
As a therapist, she saw firsthand (via her clients) how years of diabetes medication can age the body. (She worked with people recovering from limb amputations due to diabetes.)
When she read The 30 Day Diabetes Cure, she realized that although she didn’t overeat or eat sweets, her regular consumption of processed foods was to blame.
“I thought I was eating healthy, but the book really helped me see exactly what the majority of our foods are made of,” she says. “I didn’t realize it before, but there’s so much out there that’s just poison.”
“When I read the book, I realized ’anyone can follow this diet, not just diabetics.’” For Kathy, it’s a way of life now.
Doug Nasur had Type 2 since he was 18. At 56, he weighed over 350 pounds, had several heart attacks, and was taking more than 30 different mediations. When his brother gave him a copy of The 30-Day Diabetes Cure, he decided to turn his life around.
Following the day-by-day plan, he lost 100 pounds, dropped his daily insulin dose from 280 units to 65, and now has a completely normal A1C. His new goal is to get off insulin entirely this year.
Bev Lofty is a nurse and full-time RV-er who travels the US with her husband. Despite spending her life “on the road,” she follows The 30-Day Diabetes Cure plan faithfully and heartily recommends it at every campground she stops at.
Her father, brother, brother-in-law, uncle and grandmother were all diagnosed. Her grandmother loved pie and died in a diabetic coma.
“The year before I found out that I had diabetes, I had a bowl of ice cream with syrup and nuts every night,” she says. “I was addicted to it.”
“Watching my brother-in-law die of diabetes just tore me apart,” she says. “After that, I said to myself, ’Bev, are you going to die like this or are you going to do something about it?’” That’s when she discovered The 30-Day Diabetes Cure.
So far, it’s working like a charm for her.
Donna Davis is a gospel singer who’s been blind since birth. After her Type 2 diagnosis, she followed the ADA’s diet to a “T” for five years. But it didn’t help.
Not long ago, her doctor warned her that her pancreas was failing and she needed to go on insulin or she would die.
There was just one problem: Because she’s blind, Donna can’t use an insulin pen without help — and she didn’t have any.
Then she discovered The 30-Day Diabetes Cure (and translated the book into braille). Even though she’s only been on the plan for a brief time, her progress is excellent.
Her A1C, once 8.6, in now 6.0. Her daily blood sugars have dropped from the 300s to the nearly 100. She’s shed 25 pounds and has lost the depression that used to bedevil her.
“A lot of people laugh when I tell them about the plan. They don’t want to give up the foods they love. But I tell them ’I’m gonna live, thank you! You wanna die? Go ahead.’”
Do you know a hero like this?
If you know of a true Diabetes Hero who has busted free from the chains of Type 2 and the ADA propaganda, please tell me about him/her here
And don’t be shy. If you are the hero or heroine, I want to hear about your victory.
There’s still room to include you in my new Diabetes Heroes book — and if your story is chosen, you’ll be rewarded with a spiffy, new Polar Heart Monitor.
No matter what, please forward this article to everyone you know who has diabetes so they realize the game is rigged against them – and that their only hope is to break free while they still can.
“If not me, who?” If not now, when?”
The dictionary defines a hero as “a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his/her brave deeds and noble qualities.”
I couldn’t agree more. It takes great courage free oneself from old habits and addictions — and to break away from the herd to follow your own truth.
It’s so much easier to stay on the couch and remain in denial. (But there’s nothing heroic — or hopeful — about that.)
And the wondrous thing about courage is that it’s contagious.
You may think you’re simply saving your own skin. But what you don’t realize is that your courage and example will inspire others to save their lives too.
We need more heroes these days
More and more, today’s governments, corporations, and institutions are discouraging us from thinking and acting for ourselves — and from being courageous.
That’s because courageous individuals represent a scary threat to their dominance and control.
You — yes, you! — can spark a revolution. And the first step is to take back control over your own health and wellness.
The healing isn’t in a pill, or a syringe, or a doctor’s advice.
The healing is waiting within you right now.
Give it a chance, please.
By Jim Healthy
Jim Healthy™ is a prolific health writer with a life-long dedication to researching and publishing the most important health discoveries of our time — and creating practical “action plans” that help readers incorporate these new medical findings in their daily lives. He is the co-author of The Healthy Body Book, The Fast Food Diet, Arthritis Interrupted, The 30 Day Diabetes Cure, and The Healing Kitchen.
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