Overweight diabetes patients outlive slim ones

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tara said:
I can propose a possible mechanism consistent with this study result, but I can't demonstrate that it is the/a real one - there may be other mechanisms at play.
It could be that a statistically significant difference between thin and fat diabetics is that the fat ones are more likely to be eating to appetite, and the thin ones are more likely to be restricting their diet and eating less calories than they feel like.

Don't have time for a full reply, but I disagree because you don't get to have a mechanism of action from a symptom. If diabetics who eat to appetite are protected more than the rest - for example - then it is the eating to appetite that is the cause and, again, the growth of the fatty tissue is tertiary. We've established multiple types of diabetes - at least 1 and 2 are very different from each other - and if we broke down type 2 more and say "fat people type 2" and "skinny people type 2," then that still has nothing to do with saying "hey people with diabetes, you should be fatter because less fat diabetics have problems than skinny diabetics." TL;DR = causation != correlation.

The default behavior is for people to rationalize their current state with whatever resources are available. I'm not gonna go easy on any group including people with lots of extra adipose tissue because they may be more sensitive on internet forums because their symptoms are more visible. One of my person symptoms from another thread was constipation... People shouldn't go easy on me with advice just because my symptom wasn't written all over my body shape.
 

tara

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oxidation_is_normal said:
tara said:
I can propose a possible mechanism consistent with this study result, but I can't demonstrate that it is the/a real one - there may be other mechanisms at play.
It could be that a statistically significant difference between thin and fat diabetics is that the fat ones are more likely to be eating to appetite, and the thin ones are more likely to be restricting their diet and eating less calories than they feel like.

Don't have time for a full reply, but I disagree because you don't get to have a mechanism of action from a symptom. If diabetics who eat to appetite are protected more than the rest - for example - then it is the eating to appetite that is the cause and, again, the growth of the fatty tissue is tertiary. We've established multiple types of diabetes - at least 1 and 2 are very different from each other - and if we broke down type 2 more and say "fat people type 2" and "skinny people type 2," then that still has nothing to do with saying "hey people with diabetes, you should be fatter because less fat diabetics have problems than skinny diabetics." TL;DR = causation != correlation.

The default behavior is for people to rationalize their current state with whatever resources are available. I'm not gonna go easy on any group including people with lots of extra adipose tissue because they may be more sensitive on internet forums because their symptoms are more visible. One of my person symptoms from another thread was constipation... People shouldn't go easy on me with advice just because my symptom wasn't written all over my body shape.

I agree that correlation != causation.
It seems as though the usual discourse on this subject says that people with more fat are more likely to be diabetic, therefore being fat causes diabetes, therefore if you want to avoid or improve diabetes you should do everything possible to avoid/stop being fat.
Maybe I was being sloppy by using a similar construct to describe fat as protective in the case of some metabolic disturbances, since the mechanisms may not be understood well enough to support this claim.

I agree that in the hypothetical mechanism I described, it is the eating to appetite that would be the causally protective factor, rather than the fat itself. And the fat would be a side-effect for some people, just as fat may be a side-effect for some people of the metabolic disturbances themselves.

I agree with you that there is no evidence here (or anywhere that I am aware of) to support suggesting thin diabetics would generally benefit from actively try to become fat in the hope that it would be protective.
It could be that some diabetics who are thin only because they are severely restricting sugar and calories would improve their health outcomes if they were to relax the restrictions and eat closer to appetite, regardless of whether it resulted in fat gain. Again, if this is true, it could be because eating to appetite, not fat gain, is protective.
(I'm pretty sure something like this is the case for some people recovering from anorexia etc - they may show signs of diabetes when they start eating enough to meet energy needs, but they've generally got better survivial odds if they eat and gain weight even if it is into the 'obese' range and even beyond appetite, than if they continue to starve.)

I have another plausible (to me currently at least - maybe it has been disproven somewhere) hypothetical mechanism I can imagine, but I have not done anything to verify or disprove. It could be that under conditions of diabetic metabolism, being fat may by sheer insulation make it easier to maintain core and peripheral body temperatures closer to the optimal range, and since this can better enable many essential and health-supportive metabolic processes, this could be a causally protective factor.

I'm not suggesting you go easy on trying to figure out reality, or expressing your thoughts about what may be relevant mechanisms or healthy practice etc in any particular context.
I do suggest we all try to avoid insults or negative judgements or ridicule about people in any state of health, visible or not - they do not reflect or contribute to developing a clearer picture of reality, and they are more likely to discourage than help anyone recover their health.
 
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Again, the thinking is coming "from the fat" in this case (it being "an insulator"). As if it is a cause in itself. That is fine to hypothesize, of course. We know lots of extra fat can cause join issues from increased weight. My hypothesis is that there are different pathways we call diabetes, some of which are type 1, type 2, high adiposity, low adiposity, and much more. The more variables we track, the more individualized we can get.

You can interpret my original sarcasm however you'd like. This topic won't get special care from me to be exempt from sarcasm - especially on "the Internet."
 
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oxidation_is_normal said:
Again, the thinking is coming "from the fat" in this case (it being "an insulator"). As if it is a cause in itself. That is fine to hypothesize, of course. We know lots of extra fat can cause join issues from increased weight. My hypothesis is that there are different pathways we call diabetes, some of which are type 1, type 2, high adiposity, low adiposity, and much more. The more variables we track, the more individualized we can get.

You can interpret my original sarcasm however you'd like. This topic won't get special care from me to be exempt from sarcasm - especially on "the Internet."

Westside PUFA's- Is this your second username?
 

jyb

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tara said:
Avoiding sugar and restricting calories despite cravings is what diabetics are frequently encouraged to do.

PS. No I don't agree with that. Maybe you meant fructose? Some of main diabetics authorities recommend high carbs and not much fat, which is more and more put into question because this requires constant blood glucose monitoring (both excess and deficiency) and insulin injection (very difficult to get the timing right when you eat so much glucose) that might otherwise be avoidable to maintain a healthy amount of glucose.
 

tara

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jyb said:
tara said:
Avoiding sugar and restricting calories despite cravings is what diabetics are frequently encouraged to do.

PS. No I don't agree with that. Maybe you meant fructose? Some of main diabetics authorities recommend high carbs and not much fat, which is more and more put into question because this requires constant blood glucose monitoring (both excess and deficiency) and insulin injection (very difficult to get the timing right when you eat so much glucose) that might otherwise be avoidable to maintain a healthy amount of glucose.
Actually, I did mean fructose containing carbs when I said sugar this time - I guess I could have disambiguated that.

Where I am too, it does look as though diabetics are encouraged to eat a diet that has complex carbs - starches - as a high proportion of calories and to keep fat low, as you say.

However, from personal conversations with T2 non-insulin dependent diabetics, it seems not uncommon that they are encouraged to also exercise serious restraint with frequency and portion size (as well as exercise regularly) to keep blood glucose within prescribed limits, so they can avoid insulin dependence. If they are also fat, whether or not they are insulin dependent, they have got the message that they should restrict food intake in order to lose weight/fat. I don't have a large sample size, but that seems consistent with common public messages here too.
 

tara

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oxidation_is_normal said:
Again, the thinking is coming "from the fat" in this case (it being "an insulator"). As if it is a cause in itself. That is fine to hypothesize, of course. We know lots of extra fat can cause join issues from increased weight.
Are you suggesting there is doubt about fat being a thermal insulator, and it therefore being causal in maintaining body temperature? I have not heard of this controversy.

oxidation_is_normal said:
My hypothesis is that there are different pathways we call diabetes, some of which are type 1, type 2, high adiposity, low adiposity, and much more. The more variables we track, the more individualized we can get.
I think you are probably right that one could further subcategorise diabetic metabolisms in terms of what is going on in more variables than just a tendency to chronic hyperglycemia.

oxidation_is_normal said:
You can interpret my original sarcasm however you'd like. This topic won't get special care from me to be exempt from sarcasm - especially on "the Internet."
I am not suggesting special care of any topic or people. I am suggesting respect for everyone.
 
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JRMoney15 said:
oxidation_is_normal said:
Again, the thinking is coming "from the fat" in this case (it being "an insulator"). As if it is a cause in itself. That is fine to hypothesize, of course. We know lots of extra fat can cause join issues from increased weight. My hypothesis is that there are different pathways we call diabetes, some of which are type 1, type 2, high adiposity, low adiposity, and much more. The more variables we track, the more individualized we can get.

You can interpret my original sarcasm however you'd like. This topic won't get special care from me to be exempt from sarcasm - especially on "the Internet."

Westside PUFA's- Is this your second username?

Na dude, I'm just one dude on one forum. You could ask the admin to check the IPs. Why?
 
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tara said:
oxidation_is_normal said:
Again, the thinking is coming "from the fat" in this case (it being "an insulator"). As if it is a cause in itself. That is fine to hypothesize, of course. We know lots of extra fat can cause join issues from increased weight.
Are you suggesting there is doubt about fat being a thermal insulator, and it therefore being causal in maintaining body temperature? I have not heard of this controversy.

No, I'm doubting that adipose tissue keeping people warmer (versus brown fat) is a mechanism of causality originating from the tissue itself for being a healthier human being.
 

tara

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oxidation_is_normal said:
tara said:
oxidation_is_normal said:
Again, the thinking is coming "from the fat" in this case (it being "an insulator"). As if it is a cause in itself. That is fine to hypothesize, of course. We know lots of extra fat can cause join issues from increased weight.
Are you suggesting there is doubt about fat being a thermal insulator, and it therefore being causal in maintaining body temperature? I have not heard of this controversy.

No, I'm doubting that adipose tissue keeping people warmer (versus brown fat) is a mechanism of causality originating from the tissue itself for being a healthier human being.

Yes, my thinking is that is is plausible (not proven) that the larger amount of fat itself may be causally helpful in some contexts. I don't think there is evidence to rule it out.

I was taught at school that one of the functions of fat is thermal insulation, and this is one of the important reasons we need some to be healthy (along with providing shock absorption/padding for organs, and providing reserve energy, etc - I don't think they mentioned its endocrinology functions in primary school). I don't think the necessity of some fat for health is controversial at this level, right?

I'm not suggesting it would be generally healthier for most people in western countries to have larger amounts of body fat than we do (though there are undoubtable some individuals for whom this would be helpful, and there are probably countries where it would improve population health).

As to my speculative hypothesis about extra fat providing useful insulation in diabetics, scepticism seems completely reasonable, since no mechanism has been demonstrated (as far as I am aware).
I wouldn't expect anyone to accept such a speculative hypotheses as fact based on theory alone.
 
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I find white adipose tissue to be a shock absorber and insulator to be controversial, yes. People put in the stress of cold, they develop brown fat, which grows in a different location (around the organs, it is not visible). People put in the stress of repeated shocks (like impacts, I'm guessing you mean) grow in density according to wolf's law.
 

tara

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It almost sounds as though you do not believe white fat has any value at all (or maybe you recogise it's value in famine conditions only) - do you accept that there can be problems when people get down to very low levels of body fat, eg under 6%?
 

pboy

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if it looks like something you wouldn't want theres no benefit to it, its a defense reaction to stresses of various kinds including just eating to much, but the eating too much or garbage food is BECASUE of stress in the first place, or you wouldn't have the desperation for it and would be appetite controlled and happy so not really as fiendish. The problem is it makes it harder to get out of the situation you might be in once youre in it, cause it makes less flexible and the intestinal pressure hurts digestion, so its pretty much bad all around. Who ever is really in a famine in America? I mean I see bums on the street and they aren't fat at all, actually if you gave them a shower and hair cut would look much healthier than many of the so called affluent.

Most peoples root cause of being fat or just having that little gut that like 90% of americans have, probly more like 99%, is adrenal stress from feeling in a threatened state, which for most people is their job school and family life. Literally if youre not able to be in a calm quiet...like can savor a meal with channels of head open...in peace, which is actually normal and natural, if you cant feel comfortable just wearing shorts and relaxed or loose...you know what im saying, then the body braces for a fight and at that point really your appetite shuts off, but people eat anyways because its more an energetic thing...something sweet to counter the bitter of the environment, and/or to literally get ssedated so can sleep and stress is numbed via sedation. Most lower gut fat is a result of that, its all about the sacral region, which has to do with the womb, and for guys its still existing in the same way. The fat is to buffer the womb, the sacrum...which is a good barometer...if you wouldn't feel comfortable and happy with a baby doing what you're doing, like its complete non stress, no threat, just love and happy and freeness...or doesn't even have to be that, just being calm, in a gentle mode...then its actually a threat stress and that adrenaline causes fat, and also salt water, to build up around sacrum as a defense for that. We have a serious, serious problem when you realize how toxic and stressful our society is. I literally almost cant fathom a situation where a mother could actually gestate a baby without being poisioned or stressed out in one way or another, while still being able to live her life...would be a rare and carefully planned situation, where she lives and works and shops and all that. Its really bad man. We are extremely sensitive beings, really. If things aren't right, totally, theres a problem. And really its easy to set things up that way, but now society has steam rolled into a huge massive toxic problem. Its also our job as people to treat everyone as if they were a pregnant woman, I mean not all the time literally, but you get my idea. Gentle calm...cooperative mannerisms would do wonders to heal peoples guts. The Japanese are way better in this respect. They speak softly and gently and its overall a more condusive to gestation as a whole than America by far. And they have many less guts over there

also the only 'creativity' people here have for the most part because of the stress, is actually scheming, like planning on how to escape yourself. Its not genuine creativity that is from the heart and meant to make things as a whole more beautiful and peaceful...those kinds of thoughts and inspirations almost cannot happen when not in a total calm place of being, no adrenaline, nothing to activate the ruminating mind
 

tara

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Hi pboy,
I'm not sure if your post was replying to me, or more general on the thread topic.

I agree that real externally imposed famine is not common in Nth America, though poverty and scarcity or expense of good food and malnourishment (ie deficiencies in protein and minerals and vitamins) seems to be an issue. I think there are bits of South America where actual food shortage is a real issue from time to time. Most famine conditions there are probably self-imposed.

I do agree that all the environmental and social stresses play a role. I think you are right that sometimes eating garbage food is a response to emotional stresses of living in a messed up society, especially when garbage food is what's readily available.

Speaking of babies, they generally have some fat, and we'd be worried about them if they didn't. It's not all brown fat.
 

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