It appears that you are currently using Ad Blocking software. What are the consequences? Click here to learn more.
The diabetes epidemic in the developed world is a result of separation from our culture. While the evidence is in plain sight, we have largely ignored it.
Those of us in here who have diabetes are as much subject to the breakdown of culture as the indigenous peoples of the world whose cultural ties broke when they came into contact with us. “Diabetes Lessons from Indigenous Cultures” shows three examples of that collective trauma.
One big reason why you and I have type 2 diabetes may be because we have broken ties to our culture. Another way of saying this is that our Western culture is itself broken.
This remains an hypothesis, but it’s one that follows from research into the basic cause of diabetes among First Nations people of Canada, the Aboriginal Australians, and the Pima Indians of Arizona. Studies are finding a link between cultural collapse and diabetes among indigenous peoples around the world.
If you wanted to make a lot of money fast and weren’t limited by any ethics like honesty, I can’t think of any better target than those of us who have diabetes. I don’t think that we are any more gullible than other people. But we have all the characteristics that scammers value the most:
1. We are a sitting duck. Because diabetes is a long-lasting condition that can be controlled but not cured, it is by definition a chronic disease. Scammers have plenty of time try to tempt us.
2. We represent a big audience for anyone who wants to get into our pockets. One of every 11 Americans have diabetes, a total of about 29 million people. About 21 million of us know that we have diabetes.
3. Diabetes is a growth industry. From 1980 through 2011, the crude prevalence of diagnosed diabetes increased 176 percent.
4. We know that we have to take charge of our health every day and can’t rely on our doctors who we see only every few months. This do-it-yourself ethic leaves us much more vulnerable to unethical people who want our money than people with other health conditions who simply rely on their doctors.
But we aren’t helpless prey. We have an excellent tool that will protect us: our minds. In this post I am trying to add a few tips for you to consider. This post won’t be telling you about the scams that I have encountered. For one thing, I have read literally thousands of these phony pitches. For another, some of the scammers operate on the basis that any publicity is good publicity.
A couple of years ago I wrote here about how keeping a journal of positive things in our lives can make those of us who have diabetes happier. But writing down the worst things that we experience might help even more.
When we get a diagnosis that we have diabetes, it can be one of our most traumatic experiences. No wonder then that so many of us either go into denial that it’s anything of importance or otherwise panic at the thought of it.
If you aren’t suffering from a complication of diabetes, you actually have every reason to be thankful that you have this dreaded disease. Even if you already have some complications, you can reverse most of them.
Thanks to Leighann Calentine!
In fact, I have been able to reverse two of them: one was a microaneurysm in my left eye, which if I didn’t do anything, could have led to my becoming blind in that eye. The other was some diabetic peripheral neuropathy in my feet; the neuropathy has come and gone. Both complications went away when I redoubled my efforts to reduce my blood sugar.
More and more studies show that mindfulness and meditation are helping people to manage stress. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is working with veterans who have some of the most severe problems, and they seem to be in the lead in making use of these tools.
But not until now have mindfulness and meditation been studied specifically with veterans who have diabetes. A preliminary study just reported at the annual meeting of the American Association of Diabetes Educators presented some dramatic results that should be applicable to anyone who has diabetes.
Previous studies of four forms of mindfulness and meditation showed that they have helped veterans deal with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can occur after a traumatic event like war, assault, or disaster. While mindfulness and meditation are essential components of Buddhism and Hinduism, mainstream Western culture has now absorbed them. A pilot study of loving-kindness meditation produced promising — and moving — results. Mantram meditation, yoga, and transcendental meditation each have helped groups of veterans to manage PTSD.