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Eating fat (not sugar) causes diabetes

Health diagram showing blood flowing among cells with fat sticking to cell membranes and preventing the sugar from entering cells. Credit: What the Health documentaryWhen I encourage people to eat fruit, some are worried about the sugar. Turns out that animal fat causes diabetes, not sugar, according to physician Neil Barnard, of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, as quoted in the documentary, What the Health.

The key point, which I initially missed, is that fat causes or starts diabetes, then the body can no longer tolerate sugar. Animal fat builds up in cells and prevents them from absorbing sugar, which then builds up in the blood, which is diabetes.

Sugar seems like the culprit since it drives up blood sugar levels, but it’s the (animal) fat the obstructed the body’s ability to process the sugar.

For people who already have diabetes, sugar must be avoided until they deal with that condition by possibly switching to a plant-based diet as recommended by Neil Barnard. For people who don’t have diabetes, then one need not fear that the sugar in fruit will cause diabetes.

Here’s the transcript of what Neil Barnard says in the movie:

Interviewer: “What role does sugar play in causing diabetes?”
Neil Barnard: “Diabetes is not and never was caused by eating a high carbohydrate diet. And it’s not caused by eating sugar.
The cause of diabetes is a diet that builds up the amount of fat into the blood. I’m talking about a typical meat-based, animal-based diet.
You can look into the muscle cells of the human body and you find they’re building up tiny particles of fat which is causing insulin resistance. What that means is the sugar that is naturally from the foods that you’re eating can’t get into the cells where it belongs. It builds up in the blood and that’s diabetes.”

Here are images from the documentary. The first image shows fat (yellow) sticking to the outside of cells thereby preventing sugar (blue) from entering the cells. The sugar remains in the blood causing problems throughout the body.

Health diagram showing blood flowing among cells with fat sticking to cell membranes and preventing the sugar from entering cells. Credit: What the Health documentary Video still of physician Neil Barnard from the documentary What the Health

 

Here’s the trailer for What the Health and the website.

WHAT THE HEALTH from AUM Films & Media on Vimeo.

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