“The middle of the epidemic: how New Zealand's diabetes response failed.” This is the heading of a recent feature article in The New Zealand Herald. The article reports that “the fight against diabetes has gone backwards and a total revamp of official strategy is needed".

“When people say 'It's going to get worse', it's already got worse. On the wards, it's a third of the patients. In some wards it would be more than a third. This is a huge number,” says Professor David Simmons, an international diabetes expert.

The question I have is: how bad will the situation have to get before we are willing to face up to the real reasons for the epidemic?

Just a few weeks ago I was speaking with a woman who faced significant health issues associated with her weight and blood sugar levels. Unlike many who seem unwilling to take responsibility for their health status, this woman consulted a dietician who mapped out a new lifestyle that involved significant changes to her diet and a daily exercise programme. As the kilograms fell off, guess what? Blood sugar levels normalised, the woman felt really good about herself and her doctor was no longer concerned about the potential for diabetes.

This is just one example of what could be thousands in New Zealand if only our political masters would stop prevaricating and let the truth come out. Diabetes is not a mystery disease, and while there will always be concerns about Type I diabetes, it’s the Type II form that is strongly linked with lifestyle that is filling up the hospitals.

Recently my wife and I were on a cruise, and it surprised us how many fellow passengers were morbidly obese, on walking frames or in wheelchairs. A lot of these passengers were younger than us. We always used the stairs between decks and most often we had them to ourselves.

It got me thinking that many of these people were suffering from chronic poisoning due to poor dietary choices and a sedentary lifestyle. No doubt they were also on numerous medications. Having someone push your wheelchair around the deck is nothing like striding out and enjoying the feeling of wellbeing that comes from the production of endorphins that exercise generates.

For many years we have been conditioned to avoid fat and consume refined carbohydrates. It was pretty sobering to see queues of our ship’s passengers hovering around the cake section in the buffet restaurants.  

The result of this should not surprise anyone with any awareness of basic biochemistry. In New Zealand, our massive daily consumption of refined carbs and lack of exercise is clearly what’s behind the diabetes problem and until we start shouting this from the rooftops, hospitals will continue to be overwhelmed.

Something that could be done really simply and cheaply to reduce the need for amputations and other serious medical complications associated with diabetes is to put vitamin C on prescription and make it available free of charge to anyone with diabetes or pre-diabetes. Vitamin C and glucose are very similar molecules and both compete for entry into the cells.

Way back in the 1970s, Emeritus Professor John Ely from the University of Washington concluded from his research that the serious health consequences of prolonged Type II diabetes (blindness, wounds that won't heal, limb amputation etc) are the result of the lack of vitamin C inside cells. More recently a Science Daily article in 2009 reported on research from the Oklahoma Diabetes Centre and was headed ‘Stopping Diabetes Damage With Vitamin C’.

Vitamin C is not the only nutrient that is helpful when it come to diabetes.  Alpha Lipoic Acid can help with diabetic neuropathy and gynmena sylvestre – a safe and cheap herbal option for blood sugar control – could be widely used.

While we wait for the truth to emerge, we could at least focus a bit of energy in preventing some of the costly complications of the disease.

John Appleton – john@johnappleton.co.nz www.johnappleton.co.nz

Ph: 09-489-9362