- Messages
- 2,171
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Diet only
http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2014/06/diabetes-cholesterol-bp-normal-is-no-longer-normal/
This is an interesting article complete with graphs and statistics, which points out that by redefining what is normal to be at the low end of the various ranges for fundamental health parameters, we have basicall opened the path for the pharmaceutical industry to then sell us drugs to reduce our numbers to the lowest ends of each range ( and caused a huge degree on angst in the process )
Looking at this article - all of my figures are entirely "normal " and most probably very many of us on here are in the same position .
According to this article " normal " in terms of the majority of the human population is as follows :
Fasting Blood Sugar 3.3% to 7.7%
"Normal is not normal. The medical world has overruled the human population and decreed that normal is not normal. Normal is now high and people shall be treated accordingly. Now that we have pre-diabetes on top, joy of joys, we can start medicating people even sooner than our re-re-defined norm would otherwise let us drug them. (Or we can give them ‘base your meals on starchy foods’ dietary advice and speed up their pathway to type 2 diabetes.)"
Cholesterol
Normal distribution is 2-10 mmol/L
"The medical profession has redefined cholesterol to be high at the absurdly low number of 5 mmol/l (193 mg/dl). You can see from the graph that only a small proportion of the population would have a cholesterol level below 5 in normal circumstances. Indeed, if you look at government data measuring people against this made-up target – the Health Survey for England for example (summary of key findings) – we have the crazy situation (page 22) where it is noted that 80% of men and women in many age groups have cholesterol levels above the government target of 5.0 mmol/L. That’s not because 80% of people have ‘high cholesterol’, but because normal has been redefined as high so people cannot be normal any more."
Blood Pressure
true average blood pressure 140/90
"This shows that the normal blood pressure range for the general population is anywhere from 90 to 240 as the top number, with 130 being the most common reading (mode) and the average (mean) being around 140.Figure 2 is the lower number (the 90 in the 140/90) and this ranges from 50 to 130. The most common is around 85 and the average is around 90. So the true average blood pressure (BP) in the normal population is approximately 140/90. You may be aware that 140/90 is the definition of high BP. Yet again, normal has become high and now everyone who is deemed high shall be medicated, when they are in fact normal"
Height
"In the Western Journal of Medicine, (May 2002) Thomas Samaras and Harold Elrick posed the question “Height, body size and longevity – is smaller better for the human body?” The study took 100,000 males from 6 different ethnic populations – in the same city (California) to try to normalise other factors. The table had the following height orders (tallest first): African Americans; White Americans; Hispanics; Asian Indians; Chinese and Japanese (the first two groups were recorded as of equal average height – 70 inches).
The death rates for all causes and coronary heart disease (CHD) were presented in the study. A clear pattern was immediately obvious. I calculated the correlation coefficients as 0.85 for height and CHD and 0.9 for height and all causes of death (1 is a perfect relationship – scores of 0.85 and 0.9 are very strong relationships)."
"What if we concluded that height were a cause of CHD (and all causes of death) and that we should therefore redefine the average height to declare the actual average of 69.7 inches (for all American men) to be abnormal? What if we made up a new target 10% lower than the actual average and decreed that normal height should be 63 inches? We could then administer drugs to stop growth hormones from doing their job. I trust that this analogy disturbs you and yet…
The Chinese practice of foot binding – an artificial intervention in the normal development of the human body, to achieve an artificial ‘norm’ – was thankfully outlawed in the early twentieth century, but trying to reduce many other genuine human norms – from diabetes to BP – has now become common practice and big business.
Interesting stuff and well worth a read
This is an interesting article complete with graphs and statistics, which points out that by redefining what is normal to be at the low end of the various ranges for fundamental health parameters, we have basicall opened the path for the pharmaceutical industry to then sell us drugs to reduce our numbers to the lowest ends of each range ( and caused a huge degree on angst in the process )
Looking at this article - all of my figures are entirely "normal " and most probably very many of us on here are in the same position .
According to this article " normal " in terms of the majority of the human population is as follows :
Fasting Blood Sugar 3.3% to 7.7%
"Normal is not normal. The medical world has overruled the human population and decreed that normal is not normal. Normal is now high and people shall be treated accordingly. Now that we have pre-diabetes on top, joy of joys, we can start medicating people even sooner than our re-re-defined norm would otherwise let us drug them. (Or we can give them ‘base your meals on starchy foods’ dietary advice and speed up their pathway to type 2 diabetes.)"
Cholesterol
Normal distribution is 2-10 mmol/L
"The medical profession has redefined cholesterol to be high at the absurdly low number of 5 mmol/l (193 mg/dl). You can see from the graph that only a small proportion of the population would have a cholesterol level below 5 in normal circumstances. Indeed, if you look at government data measuring people against this made-up target – the Health Survey for England for example (summary of key findings) – we have the crazy situation (page 22) where it is noted that 80% of men and women in many age groups have cholesterol levels above the government target of 5.0 mmol/L. That’s not because 80% of people have ‘high cholesterol’, but because normal has been redefined as high so people cannot be normal any more."
Blood Pressure
true average blood pressure 140/90
"This shows that the normal blood pressure range for the general population is anywhere from 90 to 240 as the top number, with 130 being the most common reading (mode) and the average (mean) being around 140.Figure 2 is the lower number (the 90 in the 140/90) and this ranges from 50 to 130. The most common is around 85 and the average is around 90. So the true average blood pressure (BP) in the normal population is approximately 140/90. You may be aware that 140/90 is the definition of high BP. Yet again, normal has become high and now everyone who is deemed high shall be medicated, when they are in fact normal"
Height
"In the Western Journal of Medicine, (May 2002) Thomas Samaras and Harold Elrick posed the question “Height, body size and longevity – is smaller better for the human body?” The study took 100,000 males from 6 different ethnic populations – in the same city (California) to try to normalise other factors. The table had the following height orders (tallest first): African Americans; White Americans; Hispanics; Asian Indians; Chinese and Japanese (the first two groups were recorded as of equal average height – 70 inches).
The death rates for all causes and coronary heart disease (CHD) were presented in the study. A clear pattern was immediately obvious. I calculated the correlation coefficients as 0.85 for height and CHD and 0.9 for height and all causes of death (1 is a perfect relationship – scores of 0.85 and 0.9 are very strong relationships)."
"What if we concluded that height were a cause of CHD (and all causes of death) and that we should therefore redefine the average height to declare the actual average of 69.7 inches (for all American men) to be abnormal? What if we made up a new target 10% lower than the actual average and decreed that normal height should be 63 inches? We could then administer drugs to stop growth hormones from doing their job. I trust that this analogy disturbs you and yet…
The Chinese practice of foot binding – an artificial intervention in the normal development of the human body, to achieve an artificial ‘norm’ – was thankfully outlawed in the early twentieth century, but trying to reduce many other genuine human norms – from diabetes to BP – has now become common practice and big business.
Interesting stuff and well worth a read
