EATING TO DEATH: Number of people afflicted with diabetes has quadrupled since 1980

Saturday, April 16, 2016 by: Isabelle Z.
Tags: diabetes, processed meat, high-fructose corn syrup

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(NaturalNews) The World Health Organization (WHO) recently revealed that the number of adults living with diabetes has nearly quadrupled since 1980. A whopping 422 million people are now believed to be living with the deadly disease, compared to just 108 million in 1980.

During that same time, the global prevalence of the disease has nearly doubled, jumping from 4.7 percent to 8.5 percent among adults. The disease is blamed for 1.5 million deaths in 2012 and was a contributing factor in an additional 2.2 million deaths that year. The UN health agency's first global report on diabetes pinpointed the changes in the way people around the world "eat, move and live" as the cause of this distressing surge.

Diabetes is a chronic disease in which the pancreas cannot produce enough of the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar, or the body is not able to use the insulin it produces effectively. The disease is considered a serious public health problem that can seriously affect a person's quality of life and shorten their lifespan.

The UN said that changes in people's diets during this period was a big part of the problem. Two specific ingredients are particularly guilty of contributing to the diabetes epidemic.

Sodium nitrite in processed meat

According to a study published in the journal Diabetologia, consuming processed meat can boost a person's diabetes risk by 40 percent. This increase is attributed to the nitrates used to preserve the meat. Nitrates are known to cause beta cell toxicity, which can adversely affect the body's ability to produce insulin.

Another study, which was published in the journal Circulation, combined results from nearly 1,600 earlier studies to determine the effects of processed meat on heart disease and diabetes. They found that, for every 1.8 ounces of processed meat that a person eats per day, their risk of diabetes grew by 19 percent.

Researcher Renata Micha said: "To lower risk of heart attacks and diabetes, people should consider which types of meats they are eating. Processed meats such as bacon, salami, sausages, hot dogs and processed deli meats may be the most important to avoid."

The dangers of sodium nitrate, which can also cause cancer, are starting to gain more attention, but much of the public remains blissfully unaware as they glorify foods like bacon. Consumer health advocate and science lab director Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, aims to educate the masses on these topics. His upcoming book, Food Forensics, reveals an abundance of little-known facts about this toxic chemical and other food ingredients that you might not realize are harmful.

High-fructose corn syrup in sodas and packaged foods

High-fructose corn syrup is widely used to sweeten packaged food because it is cheaper than sugar and it tastes even sweeter. Putting aside the fact that it usually comes from GM corn, which brings a whole slew of other dangers with it, HFCS is also known to increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease, among other issues.

The human body is not intended to handle such large amounts of fructose, which is why the liver metabolizes it into fats and triglycerides. It can also lead to overeating. HFCS consumption has been shown to lead to metabolic disorders that induce diabetes as well as obesity.

In 2010, the American Heart Association's Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention conference gave a "conservative" estimate that 130,000 new cases of diabetes had been caused by soda consumption and HFCS by extension.

A 2013 study by researchers from the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, found that the prevalence of diabetes was 20 percent higher in countries that had a high availability of HFCS than in those where the substance is not widely used.

As more and more people become diagnosed with this life-limiting disease, something must be done about food companies systematically harming their customers. The WHO's diabetes report specifically recommends that policies be implemented to promote the "consumption of healthy
foods and to discourage the consumption of unhealthy foods, such as sugary soda." Educating people is a good start, but food companies also must be held accountable for their role in the epidemic.

Sources include:

France24.com

FoodForensics.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

Apps.WHO.int^[PDF]

Top10GrocerySecrets.com

Science.NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com