Reader comments
Diabetes rate troubling

I acknowledge that weight gain and a sedentary lifestyle can contribute to the onset of diabetes but are not the only or even the most significant correlations to this condition. Diabetes is a failure of the body to function properly in producing insulin. It tends to run in families due to a significant genetic component. It is NOT just a matter of lifestyle, although lifestyle changes can help moderate its onset and severity. The current emphasis on only exercise and weight control is, in my opinion, new language that continues to advance the old idea that all people who don't fit some idealized criteria are somehow flawed. The current gold standard is the measurement of body mass which has been proven faulty. Many professional athletes are to be considered obese by this standard. The idea that everyone can control their development of Diabetes simply by diet and exercise is as simplistic and dangerous as the old mantra that people are overweight simply because they are lazy and overeat.

Actually you are looking at Insulin dependent Diabetes Mellitus or type 1. What the article was addressing was more about Non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus or Type 2, which is definitely diet, weight, and lifestyle connected. With Type 2 your cell receptors become stretched out and mutated so the insulin cannot be used. Even though there is enough there and you are producing enough. You are right there is a link to genetics but more so in type 1.

You are right that there is not a simple solution to any of this.

You would think more people would coment on this story with all the fat people we have in Utah. Just take a look around. I was at Madox the other day and 80% of the people eating there were obese. Some looked like they needed two chairs. I was in a waiting room at a hospital the other day and a very large girl was sitting with her Mom eating pringles chips right out of the can. She ate the whole can! Why would the Mother let her daughter do that?

This article failed to mention that there are two very different types of Diabetes (Type I or Juvenile and Type 2 Diabetes). After my 9 year old daughter was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes someone obviously educated by articles such as this told her that Diabetes is caused by �lack of exercise, poor eating habits, and being overweight. She was devastated and felt horrible that she had caused this disease and that all her friends now think she has diabetes because she doesn�t exercise, eats nothing but fast food and is fat � all of which are NOT TRUE.

Diabetes is a disorder in which the body has trouble regulating its blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels. Unfortunately it is the name used for both types of Diabetes even though both are caused by and typically treated very differently. While obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise have been identified as triggers for Type 2 Diabetes, these factors have no relation to the cause of Type I Diabetes. Scientists do not yet know exactly what causes Type I Diabetes, but they believe that both genetic and environmental factors are involved.