Milk Thistle extract and Type II Diabetes

Diabetes is the 6th leading cause of death in the US. A recent study looked at giving silymarin – an antioxidant constituent of the milk thistle plant – in addition to medication for lowering blood sugar in diabetics. They found that after 120 days, compared to placebo, the group receiving silymarin experienced a significant decrease in fasting and after-meal blood sugar levels, total and LDL cholesterol and liver enzymes.

“We don’t know the exact mechanism of action for this effect, but this work shows that silymarin could play an important role in treating type II diabetes,” says lead author Fallah Huseini, who works at the Institute of Medicinal Plants, which is based in Tehran, Iran.

Diabetes is an astoundingly costly disease to treat ($174 billion annually), so anything that could make treatment more effective could potentially save an enormous amount of money in health care expenditures. It has already been established that magnesium deficiency results in increased insulin resistance, which is a precursor to type 2 diabetes.

Likewise, it is old news that the mineral vanadium acts like insulin in the body and can therefore significantly help to lower blood sugar. Studies have shown that it may be a very valuable treatment for type 2 diabetes. Studies, that is, that were done up to 30 years ago.

One would think that studies like this would be of significant interest to a medical system that spends so much money treating this growing epidemic of a disease.

Instead, millions are spent studying the genetic risk factors that contribute to development of type 2 diabetes. This allows a medical system infatuated with high tech research to ignore the evidence that type 2 diabetes is overwhelmingly a disease of diet and lifestyle. One study found that over 90% (!) of cases of type 2 diabetes could be attributed to diet and lifestyle factors, i.e. over 90% of cases were entirely preventable.

A medical system that actually worked toward the goal of health care would make these and similar findings the core of its focus, since the potential for lives and money saved is enormous. But, unfortunately, that’s not the goal of the medical system in the US.

Introducing a new way of talking about health care reform

The current US health care system is built almost entirely upon a colossal lie: that putting chemicals into bodies is a rational way to care for health. This blog will address this lie from multiple perspectives.  

Our modern health care system does emergency medicine very well – which accounts for about 4% of health care utilization. It very often does more harm than good for the other 96% of the health care needs of the population.  This blog will shine a light on the multiple failures of our modern disease management system, and its inability to care for the health of the vast majority of those it serves.

Every day research comes out that shows how cheap and readily accessible therapies can dramatically cut the risk of common causes of disease and death. Cutting the risk of these diseases would also save our health care system untold billions every year. This research virtually never makes it into the headlines, though it is vastly more relevant to the general population than the standard headlines about gene therapies or new medical technologies. This blog will bring a small fraction of that research to light.

Every day we hear politicians talking about the need to reform health care. However, no one is talking about making the types of changes that would result in a system that actually cares for health. A single-payer health care system simply assures everyone equal access to the current medical system. This blog will, over time, address the absurdity of the idea that more use of the current system will result in greater health for the users.

Every day one can find tirades about the perils of alternative medicine, or the lack of research behind the therapies used by alternative medicine practitioners. This kind of accusation is simply ridiculous in the face of the mountains of scientifically tested, peer-reviewed research that supports a wide range of therapies that are used almost exclusively by alternative practitioners. Further, it ignores the fact that there is a vast difference between types of alternative medicine practitioners.

Some have read some books and advertise in local papers as alternative medicine practitioners of one kind or another. Some have certificates in various field that require many hours of study. Others have attended 4-year accredited medical schools, often completed residencies and practice as licensed primary care physicians, with prescription rights and insurance coverage. To state that the therapies used by practitioners of alternative medicine isn’t proven is an absurd distortion of a complex topic. This blog will bring some small fraction of the scientific data supporting alternative therapies to light in the hope that those “skeptics” espousing the “it’s all unproven” myth will encounter a bit more skepticism of their own.

We hope you enjoy reading, and we look forward to your comments.