Easy way to prevent diabetes?

[mattbell]

There are already implantable glucose monitors.  Why not create one that causes harmless pain if blood glucose rises beyond a certain level, with the amount of pain increasing commensurate with the level?  People modify their behaviors quickly to avoid pain if there's a clear and rapid connection between the pain and a pain-causing stimulus.

Devices that intentionally cause pain might be difficult to get FDA-approved, but it seems like techniques like gastric bypass essentially accomplish the same thing, with far more side effects an irreversible changes. 

I feel like I have a natural version of this glucose-pain connection; when I eat many kinds of junk food, I start to feel sick within minutes.  It's trained me to not eat junk food, even if it once tasted good at the time of eating.

Comments

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

this assumes that blood sugar rises because of food intake, and not because of a failure to produce insulin.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

True. This wouldn't work for all forms of diabetes.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I know it wouldn't work for Type 1. I'm not sure how it would work for Type 2, in that it presumes that eating too much sugar is the cause of diabetes, not the result of having a pancreas that doesn'wt work as it should. And even if you were going to limit this to people who already have Type 2, I don't know who would go for it-- I note that I paying attention to how my body feels, and blood sugar spikes already feel plenty bad enough. As do blood sugar drops.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

You probably know way more about this than I do, but I had always heard that type 2 diabetes is caused by a mixture of genetic risk factors and diet. I know a couple of people who have avoided the "inevitable" diabetes that runs in their family by eating healthier foods.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

if you were looking at doing this for people who are at risk for diabetes due to genetic propensity, the problem with "healthy diet" is that some of what makes ones blood sugar levels lower (limiting intake of fresh fruits and grains, eating a fair amount of fat) isn't the same as what one would eat if one were trying to avoid cardiac problems. My stepfather was recently diagnosed as pre-diabetic, 20 years after his quadruple bypass and a few years after a double bypass. He's been eating low-fat and low-sodium for years; I have no idea how adding diabetes to the list of concerns may change his eating.

If you were looking at doing this for people who are prediabetic, it might help them to better learn what the blood sugar rises and falls feel like, before they develop full blown diabetes.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Presumably people can cover most of your fat intake with the "good" fats that lower bad cholesterol and are less likely to lead to arteriosclerosis? I know you need to do different things to avoid heart disease vs avoid diabetes, but it doesn't seem super hard to do both.

[integreillumine.livejournal.com]

Mm, you can 'exhaust' your pancreas even as Type 2, as far as I understand it.