INTERESTING TIMES

Jesse Helms is probably turning in his grave. Helms opposed funding for AIDS programs, foreign and domestic. The U.S. travel and immigration ban for people with HIV/AIDS was his creation. He got it passed as an amendment on another bill. Because of the "Helms Amendment", the US has banned HIV+ people from visiting even for a day for two decades. On this planet only 13 nations ban HIV positive visitors and immigrants. A few of those nations include Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
( Collapse )

--Juvenile-onset (type 1) diabetes accounts for 5 to 10 percent of all diagnosed cases of diabetes
--adult-onset (type 2) accounts for the remaining 90 to 95 percent.
--CDC 2007 data shows 3 million case increase over 2 years
--CDC estimates 57 million in "pre-diabetes"
--if you lump together diabetes and pre-diabetes, one in four Americans have it
--number of Americans with diabetes = ~24 million people (~8% of the pop)
--diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S
--fasting blood sugar of 125 required for a diagnosis of diabetes.
--high blood sugar is a symptom, not the cause
--lowering sugar while raising insulin levels can exacerbate the metabolic problem
--type 2 diabetes is a disease caused by insulin resistance and faulty leptin signaling, both regulated by diet
( Collapse )