The Magic Pill Page #8

---

in modern, western medicine

is all related

back to your diet.

[Lierre Keith]

What happens when you're

eating these high-carb diets,

of course, there's this

constant flood of, first, sugar,

and then insulin,

'cause your body is,

like, freaking out.

"Oh, it's too high. We're going

to hit a coma point here.

We've got to do

something about this."

So out comes

the insulin.

[Andreas]

When you're constantly shouting

with this insulin hormone,

the receptors on the cell

will downregulate.

It's called insulin resistance.

The body is not

responding well to insulin.

It's like if you're shouting

really loudly,

people are going

to put their fingers

into their ears. Right?

And if you shout really loudly

every day for years,

the cells get deaf.

They don't hear it anymore.

Your body has to excrete

two times more,

five times more,

ten times more than normal

to get the message across.

And then you treat it

by injecting even more insulin.

And I think that's,

you know, criminally insane.

[Pati]

When you start on the Lantus,

which is

the long-acting insulin,

you start out

at a certain number,

and then you gradually

increase it

by like three

to five units a night,

based on what

your sugars are.

So I think

I started out at 20--

this is four years ago--

and I was up

to 55 in no time.

When you look

at diabetes, type II,

it effects every single system

in your body.

So it's not just the insulin

and the sugars.

You end up getting--

I have peripheral neuropathy

where I've lost feeling

in my feet.

I have gastroparesis.

I have early kidney disease.

I have--

um, what else?

I have coronary artery disease.

The arteries in my whole body

are pretty much affected.

This carotid artery

is 99% occluded,

meaning that I could have

a stroke...at any time.

-We had talked on Friday.

-Yes.

And so you decreased

your insulin even more?

Did you have

any issues this weekend?

-Where were your sugar levels?

-[Pati] No. No, they were...

They were all good.

Last night's was 91.

Since the two months that I've

been doing this food program...

-Two?

-Yeah. It may just be six weeks

that she has been here.

...I've lost 17 pounds.

And within a month,

we were able

to decrease her insulin

by half, even more.

I don't have

any more sliding-scale,

regular short-acting.

I have-- the long term is down

from 50 units

to 20 units a night...

which, in the long-run,

is going to save me

a whole bunch of change.

[Robert]

If things keep going

the way they are...

Mm-hmm.

The possibility is that

she could cure

her diabetes with food.

Can you imagine?

[crying]

I was hopeless.

I was just getting fatter and

fatter, and sicker and sicker.

I really was

at the end of my story.

If I could inspire

one per-- one person...

to stop and take a look

at what's happening

with their life--

if it's in regards to your

weight, depression, diabetes--

understand that there's hope.

[acoustic guitar playing]

When they rounded up

the tribes in this country

and put them on reservations,

they were starving,

and the U.S. government

gave them commodity foods,

consisted of white flour,

sugar, and lard.

What do you do

with white flour,

sugar and lard is...

you make fry bread.

It's our concentration

camp food.

[Nora]

The fait accompli of what

we call manifest destiny,

what happened

to all the aboriginal peoples

of the Earth

since European encroachment,

wasn't accomplished with guns.

It was accomplished with food.

Damper has become number one

food for Yolngu people. Heh.

Settlers, missionaries,

they gave us damper,

and our grandfathers,

grandmothers,

and all families...

They liked it.

That is looking yummy.

[Kama]

These modern, displacing foods

were being brought in

as rations by the missionaries.

They're very addictive things

like tobacco, sugar, and flour.

You must have damper

with a syrup or jam.

-[Robert] It's required.

Must be. [laughs]

-Must be. Always.

[Robert]

But even if you took

the syrup and the jam

and all of that stuff off of

the damper, it would still be--

-It would still be bad.

-[Robert] Yuranydjil,

it's still...

Not good. Not good.

Maize has become

our staple food.

It's called "pap"

in South Africa.

It's mostly prevalent in

impoverished rural communities.

In South Africa, that's

mostly our black population.

[Noakes]

So when we talk about maize

being the staple food

in Southern Africa,

we have to understand

how it got there.

It was a decision

by the South African government

to produce maize

on an industrial scale.

And the question is,

"Well, was that good

for our people or not?"

It's not indigenous.

It was never indigenous

to South Africa.

All our maize

is genetically modified,

it's refined,

it's high carb.

You might as well be eating

a bowl full of sugar.

And dietitians,

including the one

who laid the complaint

in the first place,

are proponents.

[Noakes]

And I'll argue that it was

the introduction of maize

and making this the staple food

which has been a problem for us.

[Ajay Bhoopchand]

Madame Chair. Objection.

I really can't see

how the details

about something based on

a conspiracy theory is relevant.

[Ravin Ramdass]

Madame Chair, in respect

of the influence

of industry driving

the obesity epidemic.

There were sponsors for ADSA.

There were

a number of sponsors,

including Kellogg's,

Pillsbury, et cetera.

If you work

with the flawed model

of just energy-in

and energy-out,

you forget about how

behaviors are modified,

you forget about

how addiction comes about,

you forget about how advertising

influences the whole epidemic.

I am submitting

that is irrelevant.

The objection is overruled.

[Ravin]

Professor Noakes,

you may proceed.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

What I learned

during the process

is the key to this debate,

that industry

completely controlled

what the information

coming out to the public was.

And I exposed that

in one chapter...

[Rangan]

These guys know

what they're doing.

It's not an accident--

I don't believe--

that people are hooked on all

this junk and processed garbage.

The Global Energy Balance

Network was a front

for Coca-Cola.

[Rangan]

There's something bigger

going on here.

The whole food system

needs changing.

[Noakes]

What Coca-Cola is doing

is to control the messaging

of obesity globally

by controlling the scientists.

One of the tactics

that industry uses

is they'll fund studies

that are designed

to confuse the record.

[Noakes]

Their goal was not

to talk about obesity.

Their goal was to confuse

the public, in my opinion.

[Nina]

Almost all

scientific conferences

depend on industry funding

even to discuss a subject.

There's no funding,

nobody's interested.

Nobody wants

to even talk about it.

It's like depriving

a field of oxygen.

I've repeatedly been told

that there's no evidence

to support

the low-carbohydrate diet.

That's incorrect.

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