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Sugar Nation exposes the underlying causes of the diabetes epidemic and delivers simple solutions to stop it.Will we listen? BY JIM SCHMALTZ
OCCASIONALLY A BOOK IS published that should be required reading for every man, woman and child. SugarNation by Jeff O’Connell (Hyperion, 2011) not only achieves that dis- tinction, but should also be added to medical school curricula around the country. The book begins with an
alarming premise that may sound familiar to you by now: Millions of Americans are killing themselves with type 2 diabetes (also known as adult- onset diabetes), and it’s threat- ening the physical and financial health of the entire world. “Diabetes, along with obesity,
is looming as the biggest epi- demic in human history,” one researcher tells O’Connell. At current rates, one of every three people born in theUnited States will become diabetic. Like other notable books on
urgent public-health issues (e.g., Silent Spring, The Omnivore’s Dilemma), Sugar Nation is a revelatory call to action that challenges conven- tional wisdom and entrenched elites. O’Connell’s maddening and enlightening journey into the diabetes industrial complex exposes the powerful corporate interests behind our sugar fix and its unwitting enablers in the form of physicians and medical authorities who are misinformed (or uninformed) about what’s fueling the crisis. Sugar Nation is a personal story as
much as it is the chronicle of a disease. A veteran health and fitness journalist,
16 IHRSA |
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researchers and diabetes patients; visits numerous clinics and conferences; and scours the latest medical litera- ture.What he learns is that people are losing limbs, going blind and dying before their time when making simple lifestyle changes can manage diabetes, if not outright cure it.
THE BUSINESS OF DISEASE These simple lifestyle changes are a variation on the following theme: reducing carbohydrate intake (mostly refined carbs with high glycemic loads) and exercising regularly—daily if possible—punctuating your routine with high-intensity interval training. O’Connell unearths plenty
of evidence that lifestyle inter- vention should be the preferred initial treatment for diabetes. He writes: “Back in early 2002, the medical world was stunned when a combination of lifestyle changes (dietary adjustments, exercise, and the resulting weight loss) reduced
O’Connell (he is a former colleague, and I am cited in the acknowledgments) would appear to be an unlikely Virgil for a descent into insulin-resistant hell. Tall, thin and outwardly healthy, he learns that his estranged father is gravely ill with type 2 diabetes and that the condition can be inherited. After doctors confirmhe is prediabetic, O’Connell begins a quest to understand the dis- ease. He interviews dozens of doctors,
diabetes incidence by 58 percent in the Diabetes Prevention Program, a major multicenter clinical research study. The superstar of type 2 diabetes drugs, metformin, reduced it by only 31 percent. Problemsolved, you might think.” You’d be wrong. Instead of altering
diets and encouraging exercise, physi- cians reach for the prescription pad as a reflex to a diabetes diagnosis. This is the result of doctors being unaware of
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