Have you read Watership Down? It’s a wonderful story of a band of rabbits forced to migrate to a new home. A fan of the novel has created a map and extensive collection of photos of the area that inspired Richard Adam’s work. Cool stuff if you’re a fan.

An international team of researchers has concluded that the incidence of diabetes will double by 2030 if something isn’t done to address the increasing adoption of a western diet and the reduction in physical activity that accompanies the western lifestyle. Eat your green veggies and stay away from prepared foods folks, so you don’t end up as a small piece of this statistic.

I need to create a separate ‘health’ topic, I’ll take care of that this weekend.

In honor of the recent remake of the Dawn of the Dead, here’s some quick silly fun to be had staving off an attack of zombies. The movie was much better than I expected it to be and much better than the typical hollywood horror flick. Which is not to say that it was a great movie, but if you were a fan of the original and are partial to zombie flicks like I am, there’s some fun to be had watching the new movie.

So for about 2 years now my body has been a walking science experiment. Every three months I go in for bloodwork and on the basis of the results I adjust the drugs and vitamins I ingest and tinker with my exercise regimen. The goal is to get as close to normal HbA1c numbers, which are a measure of the average amount of Plasma Blood Glucose coursing through my veins. An average healthy person is generally around a 4.6 (glucose of 86). When I was initially diagnosed I was at a 7.4 (glucose of 186). The American Diabetes Association advises one to keep it under 6.2 (glucose of 143), and more progressive physicians will admit that the lower that number the better – even the ADA is hinting that they will be lowering their recommended numbers. For the second time I hit 4.9 (glucose of 97) on my numbers, and this time I did it without any prescription drugs. I seem to have experimented my way into a solution to my condition that makes me almost human normal, without the use of pharmacueticals. I’m actually immensely proud of this, hence this post. Even better though, while going over my numbers with me my doctor told me that I was the number 1 diabetic in the Intermed health system which services southern maine, in terms of my numbers and approach to managing my disease. He went on to talk me out of going back on statins to handle my cholesterol situation, on the basis that from his perspective I’m basically kicking ass and should stick with what I’m doing now – it’s working.

So. Yee fuckin ha! 😉 I can’t cure myself but I can manage it in a manner that makes me basically normal. I’ve concluded that they key contributing factors are:
Diet: low carb and low fat, lots of soy proteins, TONS of green vegetables. I generally eat less than 10g of carbohydrate per meal, with the exception that I don’t count the carbs in ‘safe’ green veggies like brocolli. Since low-carb and low fat means very hungry, I eat some fats, but mostly ‘smart’ healthy fats like those found in nuts (I possibly eat more nuts than any other human being – I calculated recently that I eat about $3.50 worth of almonds alone every day, and I eat walnuts and pecans as well).
Physical activity: I exercise 6 days a week. The most important piece of this is weight lifting – I do 30 minutes of fairly intense weight lifting 3 times a week.

That’s basically it. It took me almost 2 years to figure this out. A couple of folks have asked me to post more in depth examples of the kinds of things I eat, which I’ll do over the coming weeks. But one more thing I’ll add – another key thing I’ve learned – there’s no magic pill. This is not a disease the doctors can cure for you by giving you a few pills and sending you on your way. You need to get off your ass and work. There’s just no exception to this. Weight lifting is more important than cardio-vascular stuff, building muscle mass is what eats the sugars out of the system, but the cardio is important too for the longterm situation so it shouldn’t be neglected either.

Ultimately it’s my own fault for not understanding the consequences of my diet, but occasionally when I read articles like this covering the food industry and the incredible amount of high fructose corn syrup they’re putting in foods, I get pissed. A sample quote:

A study of nearly 100 years of data on what Americans eat show a huge increase in processed carbohydrates, especially corn syrup, and a large drop in the amount of fiber from whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
It parallels a spike in the number of cases of type-2 diabetes, caused by the body’s increasing inability to properly metabolize sugars.

Was I genetically predisposed to come down with type 2 diabetes? It’s hard to say definitively but there’s a strong possibility the answer is yes. Did the food industry push my metabolism over the edge with their over-reliance on high fructose corn syrup and focus on high-carb foods? Again it’s hard to say definitively but there’s a very good possibility the answer is yes. Am I pissed? That I can state definiitively – yes!

The lesson here once again is to watch the food labels and avoid foods laden with high fructose corn syrup. You’d be shocked how much is in the everyday foods you eat.

Remember the old ‘what if microsoft built cars’ joke that came out of a COMDEX show a number of years ago? Sometimes real life is more amusing that the jokes meant to satirize it. Hint for the impatient – look carefully at the photo of the dashboard of that car in the third picture down from the top. Get it? God help us all if MS does succeed in getting the car manufacturers to adopt embedded windows as the OS for our cars.

…do I go back on Statins. I have my three month doctor’s appointment tomorrow. There is a seemingly overwhelming body of evidence that basically all type 2 diabetics should be taking statins. The problem is that I was on them for about 2 months and I had unbelievable pain issues. I’ve never had pain as bad as when I was taking them. This is a known side effect for the drug with a small percentage of users. It’s possible that other factors were contributing to the pain issues with me – I was on a collection of drugs at the time – but man, the risk of returning to those pains is making me very leery of going back on them. On the other hand, my continued existence ultimately seems to depend on my use of them. Do I take the pain now so I can dodder about an old folks home in my late 70’s? Or do I live a less painful existence now and have my heart pop on me in my 60’s? What would you do?

One of my favorite movies from the past couple of years, Master and Commander, ships today on DVD. It’s well worth grabbing this week while it’s cheap, especially if like me you’re a fan of the novels the movie is based on. The books are just awesome – if you enjoyed the movie and you’re looking for some great summer reading, give the first book a try. It takes a little while to get comfortable with O’brian’s style, but the payoff is more than worth it.

Yahoo has been upgrading their mapping feature. Recently they added the ability to find wi-fi hotspots – map an area, then click the link at the bottom left. If you search on Brunswick Maine and do this, you’ll find the link to the location I’m typing this in from (Bowdoin College Library), including some login details. Fortunately my home network link, which is only lightly secured, isn’t in there yet. Is yours?