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How You Get Type 2 Diabetes, How You Get Heart Disease, and How to Fix It


 

“‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ says the Lord’s Prayer, and 2,000 years ago food derived from cereal grains [starches] were the staples of most peoples’ diets. But in relation to our long human existence, dependence on bread is a very late phenomenon.” – S. Boyd, Emory University

Ever wondered how you get type 2 diabetes or heart disease? Dr. Loren Cordain from Colorado State University provides about a simple and intuitive of an answer as we could ask for: A whopping 72% of what we eat today was not eaten for at least 99.8% of our evolutionary history.

Eat Like This to Get Type 2 Diabetes and Heart Disease

How you get heart disease. How you get type 2 diabetes.

The diet we evolved to eat has been flipped on its head. Is it any wonder our health and fitness have been flipped on their heads as well? Over 70% of our diet is comprised of unnatural food. Over 70% of us have unhealthy and inflated waistlines. Coincidence or common sense? How can the government and food manufacturers invert the diet our ancestors ate for millions of years and expect good things to happen? More generally, as J.M. Friedman at Rockefeller University puts it:

Type 2 Diabetes diet. Heart Disease diet.

Let’s start digging into the disastrous impact of big food, fitness, and pharma on health in the next few posts. While a heavy and sick population is certainly more profitable than a healthy and fit population, I’m confident that once we get the science to the surface we can turn the tide in our favor. Science did it for smoking and environmental issues. Let’s summon science again to undo the damage done by putting profit before people.

“By 1964, there was sufficient scientific evidence…[but] many years passed and many millions died before decisive action was taken to [turn the tide against smoking]…Repeating this history with food and obesity would be tragic.” – Dr. Brownell, Yale


  1. 195,000 years of human history. Agriculture emerged 10,000 years ago. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7020–oldest-known-humans-just-got-older.html
  2. Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, Mann N, Lindeberg S, Watkins BA, O’Keefe JH, Brand-Miller J. Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Feb;81(2):341-54. Review. PubMed PMID: 15699220
  3. Boyd, S., Melvin Konner, Marjorie Shostak, and M.D. Eaton. The Paleolithic Prescription: A Program of Diet & Exercise and a Design for Living. New York: HarperCollins, 1989. Print.
  4. Weis W. Academy of Health Care Management Journal, 2005. http://www.alliedacademies.org/public/journals/JournalDetails.aspx?jid=20