response 60 of 82:

Jun 27 16:45 UTC 2002

I cited Jim.   People and other animals have evolved to be able to taste
things that are bitter and therefore poisonous.  Your liver can detoxify
certain amounts of bitter substances so that you can eat foods containing
them, which does not mean that the bitter substances in them are nutritious.
The poisons can be useful under certain circumstances, such as things with
tannin in them killing intestinal parasites.  Sick animals seek out certain
plants and eat them as cures.  

Rats fed foods high in fat and sugar eat more of them than they need to
maintain their weight so they get fat.  Rats fed a normal rat diet, also
allowed to eat as much as they want, do not get fat.  If people are around
long enough to adapt to the current American diet, presumably those with a
tendency to overeat will leave fewer descendants (due to dying of circulatory
problems and cancer) and people will eventually not overeat when presented
with the typical American diet.  Which may make problems in times of famine.

response 62 of 82:

Jun 28 02:00 UTC 2002

We have two friends aged about 50 who just had bypass surgery, both men.  One
of them plans to get married this year and have kids (not grandkids, yet).
He eats in fast food places most of the time.  Women who have kids up to age
45 are not going to do a good job raising them if they die of a heart attack
at age 50.  Kids don't raise themselves after you breed them, or at least they
are less likely to survive if they do, even in a welfare society like ours.
Through most of history kids without parents tended to either get sent to live
with relatives, some of whom did not care, or to orphanages where many died.

response 64 of 82:

Jun 28 13:57 UTC 2002

Evolutionarily speaking, you're a success if you breed and most of your 
kids don't die.  Most kids born in America these days don't die, 
regardless of their other circumstances.  That's assuming they don't 
have a fatal genetic defect, of course.

Even if your mother dies in childbirth and your dad chokes on a french 
fry at McDonald's later the same day, you'll most likely survive to 
adulthood.

Fast food isn't improving the breed evolutionarily, any more than it's 
doing so nutritionally.

response 66 of 82:

Jun 29 15:37 UTC 2002

Kids born in poverty have a higher chance of dying in America, due to violence
if not disease.  So your point is that in affluent societies where kids are
raised whether or not they have parents, there is no genetic disadvantage,
as regards passing along your genes, if you are the sort that eats yourself
to death by age 50?  

response 68 of 82:

Jun 30 01:58 UTC 2002

I'm causing drift in this item.  I apologize.

response 70 of 82:

Jul 1 13:59 UTC 2002

I did a quick search.  Lots of stuff on orphan drugs, and an article on
hummingbirds, and adoption of foreign 'orphans' (defined as anyone whose
parents have agreed to let them be adopted), and one badly written and badly
spelled article urging that all parents get married because otherwise they
are 20 times as likely to abuse their children because they are not committed
parents.  One of the points in this article is that boyfriends are likely to
abuse the kids of woman they are living with, which might lead one to conclude
that fathers should not eat themselves to death by age 50 if they don't want
their kids to be beaten up and burned with cigarettes.  Poorer families (read
single-parent) are also more likely to neglect their kids.  

I suspect that the actual percentage of boyfriends or stepfathers who abuse
their stepkids is rather low to start with (20 times a small fraction is still
a small fraction) but having two biological parents probably does increase
a child's chances of surviving to have children even in the US.

My father lost his father at age 12 but his three older siblings got jobs.
They did not manage to go to college;  he did.

response 72 of 82:

Jul 1 15:34 UTC 2002

(An extended discussion of genetic effects in an item in the cooking 
conference on healthy food seems a bit of an excessive drift.)

response 74 of 82:

Jul 1 22:30 UTC 2002

If no one objects, I'll withdraw my apology, then.  (-:

response 76 of 82:

Jul 3 09:54 UTC 2002

I have heard about that-- I used to read Diabetes Forecast all the time 
since one of my sisters is insulin-dependent diabetic.  It was made 
mention in an article.

response 78 of 82:

Jul 4 11:13 UTC 2002

btw, that's type II diabetic, there.  It won't effect your chances of 
developing type I diabetes-- that's purely genetic.

response 80 of 82:

Jul 5 07:45 UTC 2002

Yes, and infection?  No, I don't think so, not from what I've read.  If 
it was a mere infection, it would be cured by now.  Indeed, antibodies 
begin attacking the beta cells (beta cells produce insulin-- if they 
attacked the alpha cells that produce anti-insulin, hypoglycemia would 
be a result) to the point that the pancreas can no longer produce 
insulin.  Indeed, it can develop at any age, but it is more common to 
develop in childhood, hence the nickname juvenile-onset diabetes for 
type I.

Type II is when the body cells begin developing a resistance to insulin 
itself.  The pancreas many times produces more than enough insulin.  
Treatment may include medications that force the cells to accept the 
insulin, but weight management is indeed the main key.  My father-in-
law developed type II and managed to lose the required weight.  He 
still has a little middle age spread, but Julie tells me he is much 
thinner than he once was.

Gestational diabetes is different still, of course, and occurs during 
pregnancy.  If a woman is overweight, she is at risk, and Julie was 
with Sarah.  

response 82 of 82:

Jul 14 20:23 UTC 2002

Actually, you're behind the times with diabetes research.

For years doctors noted the tendency for people to gain weight for several
years before being diagnosed with diabetes.  Because the symptom was that
immoral change of shape, they assumed that the weight gain caused the diabetes.
 

More recent, more impartial research, however, has shown that early stage
diabetes causes weight gain, because the cells are't able to get the glucose
from the blood, so it's stored as fat.

I'm glad that Jim's diabetes is currently controlled, but rest assured: it's
not gone.  Type II diabetes is a genetically based degenerative disease.  It
can be controlled through reducing the stress on the pancreas, but that control
is temporary.  Eventually, depending on how far gone his pancreas was when he
was diagnosed and how successful he is at controlling the glucose levels in his
blood, thus protecting his pancreas from strain, if he lives long enough
medicines will be required to control the glucose levels in his blood.  Period.
 

Weight loss was not the cause of the better control of his diabetes, it was a
symptom of the steps he took to control the diabetes.