Saturday, October 24, 2009

Type 2 diabetes cures

Generally I don’t like to be anecdotal but today I will. The testimonials in this LA Times piece are so compelling I’ll even overlook the Yoga references. These were obese folks with “bad” type 2 diabetes who used lifestyle changes to dispense with insulin and completely reverse their disease processes. It drives home the point that you treat insulin resistance with exercise and caloric reduction. These patients’ doctors were treating overeating with more and more insulin. Predictably, they got worse.

Of course these were exceptionally motivated people. For folks who can’t seem to diet and exercise we sometimes have to treat their overeating with insulin just to decrease microvascular disease, but it’s not physiologic.

Read the whole article but ignore the parts about Yoga.

3 comments:

The Happy Hospitalist said...

What's wrong with Yoga?

Robert W Donnell said...

I could really get going about Yoga so making this brief will be a challenge.

Yoga's underpinnings are religious and metaphysical rather than scientific.

It invokes theories which have no basis in known anatomy or physiology such as meridians and nebulous “energy” systems which have never been documented scientifically.

I have no objection to the use of stretching and balance exercises or relaxation techniques. It is just good sense that such modalities are beneficial. Yoga, with its claims of energy fields, meridians and various metaphysical constructs goes beyond that, and therein lies my objection.

It is one thing to recommend such exercises and relaxation techniques in a generic sense. To specifically recommend Yoga with all its implicit claims is quite another.

Proponents of Yoga have a right to compete in the marketplace of ideas and patients to avail themselves as they choose. However, I feel that those of us who purport to represent scientific medicine should not put our good names and scientific credentials behind it. To do so, in my opinion, is deceptive.

I felt the need to add my disclaimer regarding the Yoga references in the LA Times article to avoid any appearance of endorsing an unscientific health claim.

The Happy Hospitalist said...

LOL. Great discussion. But I was just referring to the stretching aspects and soothing mental calmness. I don't really know anything else about what it reports to cure or not. Besides, doesn't Oprah say it's good for you? How could she possibly be wrong?