Listen to the Folks.

The FDA has approved two new drugs for weight loss. They are supposed to work well with diet and exercise. Of course, this is NOT for the morbidly obese. If they are that fat, they had better have bariatric surgery before doing anything. (Ka-ching, Ka-ching! Anyone else hear that?)

Now, I had a couple of different reactions to this. According to my doctors and the doctors of everyone I know, the way to lose weight is "diet and exercise."Nothing else. Oh, if you have metabolism issues, they'll prescribe stuff to help with those, but you want to lose weight -- Diet and exercise. And if you don't lose weight, you aren't dieting or exercising. Never mind Tuesday's heat stroke or Friday's collapse -- if you aren't losing weight, you aren't exercising or dieting. Not even if your stomach is complaining loudly because of its emptiness.

There's a lot of things going on in obesity studies and research, and a lot of it is good. A drug or two that will kick start a dieter over a plateau isn't a bad thing. Bariatric surgery for someone who eats until too full is a good thing. It's not going to help much with someone who doesn't eat all that much to start with. Or a grazer.

Until doctors and nutritionists are able to look beyond this whole "Diet and Exercise" combo, they are not going to make any great inroads in battling the obesity "epidemic'.

The old folks had it right. Some folks are born to be fat. It's in their genes. No, that's not just an excuse. (There have been some intriguing research and discoveries into fat genes.) It's not a stereotype, either. Lately research is finding all sorts of things more prevalent among certain ethnicities, even when environment is not a factor.

Treat the genetic type, and how that body works, and you'll be abler to manage the weight.

One concern that's twinned with the obesity concern is that it is the cause or related to diabetes. There is a connection, but the scientists are so wrapped up in finding a cure (or ongoing treatments; much more profitable) that they are ignoring, once again, folk wisdom.

Diabetes is caused by lack of insulin, which the body (is supposed to) produce(s) in the pancreas. That has been the scientific wisdom for just shy of a century.

What if that's wrong?
What if, instead of producing insulin, the pancreas -- still very much a mystery organ -- stores it? What if, like the ovaries, the human body comes with a measured amount of insulin or the base ingredients to turn (stuff) into insulin? What if our modern refined diet is just using up a lifetime supply in a few years?

The old folk used to tell kids not to eat so many sweets or they'd end up with sugar in their blood.
Science came along and said that's silly, that's not how it works. So everyone eats refined sugars and uses up all their insulin and -- voila -- sugar in their blood at a young age.

Insulin is playing a role in the diet/exercise dilemma as well. No one is sure exactly how that all factors together, but they've discovered things like insulin resistance and glucose intolerance and gluco-this and glycemic-that. If they look, they'll probably be able to relate that to ethnic origins -- genetics.

If they look.

But they won't, or very few will. They'll continue to preach "Diet and Exercise" until they've killed all the people they haven't operated on. And maybe even those. Much easier to follow the party line, blame the patient, than take time to know the patient and actually help them.

The old folks had it right all along.
As usual.
That family is  usually fat, and if you eat too much sugar while you're young, you'll end up with sugar in your blood.

Listen to your parents and grandparents, if it's only in your memory. They knew your body and background before doctors knew anything.

bone crushing

My husband had to go to the doctor Monday. The office called him and made the appointment. You can bet that set off alarm bells. He has so many health concerns we didn't even know which one to worry about. They did say something about his spinal x-rays, but that really didn't narrow it down a whole lot. Because we have had things show up in x-rays that are not what he was being x-rayed for. An enlarged kidney showed up in chest x-rays.

We were referred to a urologist who saw Rex once, sent him for some kind of test at a hospital that had to have cash before doing anything, and we never heard from that specialist again. Don't know to this day what, if anything, the test determined, in spite of calling and both asking and leaving messages. When our family doctor bulldozed us into this appointment, she felt the matter was urgent. Then, she left the group practice she was with and has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. Could it be his kidneys?

He fractured his spine forty years ago, could it be something from that?

Did something in his lungs show up in the background?

He has osteoporosis. Well, he's had that for a while, but this is advancing, which means getting worse. We've been referred to another specialist, this one out of state. His spinal column is collapsing and disintegrating. The T1 through T4 vertabrae are crumbs, with 'significant wedging' on almost all the rest.

Our doctor, who is new to us, says he has never ever seen anyone with such an advanced case of osteoporosis.  Especially not so young. Especially not a male.

We discussed smoking, we discussed heredity, we discussed childhood malnutrition. All factors. But, to figure out what to do, he needs to be seen by an endocrinologist. My guess is that they are considering he'll need the IV type treatments. (He was on Fosamax but began having too much bone pain in his hips and thighs, and we dropped that stuff like it scalded.)

So, we're again hanging in Limbo, and I'm bouncing from wall-to-wall maybes.

I'm also looking for information on what to expect if the deterioration continues. What do I need to be especially watchful for? How can I help? What needs to be reported to the doctors? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

And I can't find out. There are a few  million definitions of osteoporosis available on the internet. There are a few million treatments being sold, or advised, or encouraged. So far, there has not been one site that answers my questions. Apparently everywhere on the Internet is the belief that calcium, vitamin D and the magic of medicine cures osteoporosis, or at least halts it in its tracks.

Therefore, no one needs to know what advanced severe osteoporosis will do to a middle-aged severely emphysemic man with one big kidney.

I really hate that all the different websites say the same things over and over and over. Sometimes in different languages, but still the same-old, same-old.

In this great Information Age, can no one answer my questions?

Should RDA be RYA?

The experts are quick to blame our expanding waistlines and backsides on a lot of things, including sedentary lifetimes and overprocessed foods.

It never seems to occur to them that it may be their advice that's stuffing us.

Some commercials once came close to addressing this problem, showing people pulling and tugging overloaded groceries carts of broccoli commenting about how much of this you have to get to get the RDA (Recommended Daily Allotment) of a specific nutrient.

The truth is, no one can get ALL the RDA nutrients, even if they eat all day every day and eat only 'good' food.

The RDA is something created by statisticians. In some laboratory somewhere, after months and years of study, it was discovered that if people eat nutritionum monthly, they won't fall ill fron nutritionum deficiency. However, a medium sized person has to ingest a medium sized portion. One applies math and realizes that this amounts to 30portion sizes per pound (pspp). If you extend the math out, that means that in a month, the person needs 1 pspp per day. Then the body won't have to store anything, if you just eat your 1 pspp per day.

They are forgetting that the human body was made to store nutrients. That's what's making us all fat. Our bodies just keep on doing their job no matter how hard we make them work to do so.

Let's forget RDA. If we can't do it right away, maybe we can try for RWA -- a weekly dose of what we don't need every day.

Humans are adapted -- or were -- to live in a seasonal world. Fruits in the summer, veggies whenever they can be found, meat when it is available. Many a person living some form of vegetarianism will tell you -- you don't need all that 'stuff'\.' You don't need vitamins if you eat right.

If you do eat by the charts, even cutting out fats and processed foods, you will still get fat and your body will still take early retirement because of overwork.

Don't eat well -- eat REAL.
And heal.