Rick,

If diabetes could be blamed solely on inheritance, what accounts for the facts shown in the maps I just posted above?

I am of the opinion that Type II diabetes is preventable. It is a lifestyle disease. People in Minnesota eat huge amounts of meat and dairy products, especially cheese. They are overweight just as much as in many other parts of the country. But that added "blubber" helps to keep them warm in the winter, and they are active farmers. For some reason, their level of exercise helps to prevent diabetes or heart disease, in spite of their obesity.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Want to reduce your Type II diabetes risk? Get some sunshine and up your vitamin D intake

by PF Louis

(NaturalNews) It's amazing how many different meta-analysis papers and epidemiological studies keep popping up associating vitamin D3 with lower disease occurrences for heart disease, breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and Type II or onset adult diabetes.

An earlier Japanese meta-analysis "...found a correlation between calcium levels, low vitamin D status and insulin resistance (IR). (...) Findings suggest that low vitamin D and low calcium status may be associated with IR." (http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/40508)

Denmark really got into vitamin D research also. The Danes recently published one for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), associating low vitamin D levels with RA. Now, another Danish epidemiological study was submitted on vitamin D's health merits.

The focus of this study was to determine an association of low vitamin D3 to Type II diabetes, a theme similar to the Japanese study.

The Danish vitamin D3 Type II diabetes epidemiological study

A vitamin D3 population study is done with the most standard blood level test, the 25(OH)D3 or serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood test. The only problem with the Danes in this diabetes/D3 study might be the problem they had with their epidemiological rheumatoid arthritis/D3 study.

It seems that Denmark's normal level is too low. This makes the study results more ominous. Subjects with Danish established normal D3 levels are already low. This translates to a bunch of pre-diabetic individuals slipping through with what they consider normal D3 levels.

In other words, the impact of D3 deficiency should be even higher than their results. It appears, after converting different measuring systems, the Danes consider 20 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter) normal.

Even mainstream medicine in the U.S. has begun to consider 30 ng/ml more desirable than their previous 20ng/ml standard of normal. Holistic practitioners and researchers think your 25(OH)D3 serum level should be 50 ng/ml to be optimally healthy and disease free.

The Danish study included 9,841 participants from the general Copenhagen population, of whom 810 had developed Type II diabetes during 29 years of follow-up. Despite their shortcoming on what is a normal D3 blood level, the Danes came up with the conclusion that there is "...an association of low plasma 25(OH)D with increased risk of Type II diabetes. This finding was substantiated in a meta-analysis."

But a higher normal may have revealed an even higher risk factor with the probability of noticing more IR (insulin resistant) cases of prediabetic or metabolic syndrome among several who hadn't fully developed Type II diabetes.

Ensuring your vitamin D3 levels are high

Keeping your 25(OH)D3 count at or around 50 ng/ml requires a good deal of bare skin to sunshine exposure. It's the UVB rays that interact with your skin's cholesterol to initiate a conversion process that creates the pre-hormone called vitamin D3 to promote other hormonal activity throughout the body.

If sunshine exposure is limited and you can't sunbathe for 20 minutes daily four times a week, a UVB tanning bed is an option. Both of those procedures allow your body to shut down vitamin D3 conversion when it senses there's enough.

Many experts suggest that you not bathe the exposed skin areas with soap too soon after sun bathing. It's possible that your skin's oils may be washed off before completing the initial conversion phase of UVB ray to vitamin D3.

The last option is supplementing. In lieu of sunshine, 4,000 to 10,000 IU (international units) is a common intake of cholicalciferol vitamin D3 supplements.

Although it's rare, it's possible to overdose using vitamin D3 supplements with high daily dosing over time. Finding a local or online lab to measure your levels is wise if you don't have the wherewithal to deal with a holistic practitioner.

Sources for this article include:

"Low 25-Hydroxyvitamin D and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: A Prospective Cohort Study and Meta-analysis," (The Danish study summary)

http://www.vitasearch.com/get-clp-summary/40570

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23232064

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23318705

Suzanne

While that is an interesting post, Suzanne, it is also interesting that the distribution of diabetes in the United States seems to fly in the face of those facts:--that is, the areas with the greatest levels of sunshine are the areas with the higher incidence of diabetes.

(See my earlier post with US maps showing the diabetes incidence by county in the US.)

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Green - I have seen these maps and have used them in lectures. If you think the diet of Americans is the same everywhere, then you do not understand Southern cooking!! If exercise is the key as you claim, then you need to explain why we can turn off type 2 diabetes with dietary changes in 30 to 60 days with no change in exercise. There is no question that exercise helps. But exercise does not trump diet.

Diet trumps exercise in diabetes. Diet trumps exercise in Cancer and heart disease, and yes, obesity!! One only needs to understand the calorie density of foods and the calorie expenditure of exercise to see the futility of exercise alone in combating our health problems. Combine the two, diet and exercise, and it is golden!! But if you had to pick only one to start with, pick diet. And for some, this is their only choice! But then Green, you know why that is, I don't need to tell you. Right?

Very interesting information.

Thank you all.

You have genetic tendencies or predisposition, and you have environement. I never turned away a french fry when offered, and of course having high stress/long hours into the night tech jobs had an effect. So with my lifestyle I didnt help keep away the diabetes which runs on both sides of my family. My brother on the other hand was not one with a healthy appitite, ate only because he had to and kept slim, and very laid back with less stressful enviroment. So far he has no signs of diabetes, my sister however was in between. She ate moderately and watched her calories and was a teacher so a bit stressful but not like me, but slowly diabetes is starting to show along with the accompaning issues.

So you can keep it at bay or bring it quicker depending on environment/lifestyle, and there are things you can do such as walking which anyone can do to change the equation.

Here is a good site to check....

http://newsroom.heart.org/news/walking-may-lessen-the-influence-230079

and this one talks on a study on this...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/15/walking-obesity-genetic_n_1345224.html

Opinion - no, Type II diabetes IS a lifestyle disease. Genetics and epigenetics may give the propensity for the disease, but lifestyle pulls the trigger. Exercise is important, but diet trumps exercise. The problem with your generalizations of Minnesota, is that most Minnesotans are not farmers. They are urban dwellers. If you look at the diet of those Northerners and compare it with the South which has a much higher incidence of DM-II and obesity, for the majority it is the diet. They ARE different.

Rick has put his finger on the problem. It is not the exercise. He never refuses a french fry. It's not the potato! It is how it is prepared. You can eat potatoes all day long and not get fat.

"The warfare against self is the greatest battle that was ever fought. The yielding of self, surrendering all to the will of God, requires a struggle; but the soul must submit to God before it can be renewed in holiness." {SC 43.3}

Green will love this! Eggs and Diabetes Type II
And this! What Women Should Eat to Live Longer