Approximately 186,706 people in Utah, or 8.0% of the adult population, have diagnosed diabetes.
An additional 51,000 people in Utah have diabetes but don’t know it, greatly increasing their health risk.
There are 652,000 people in Utah, 30.1% of the adult population, who have pre-diabetes with blood glucose levels that are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.
Every year an estimated 22,574 people in Utah are diagnosed with diabetes.
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A Salt Lake Trib article (from 2012) states:
"Mormons are heavier than those outside their faith, according to a separate BYU study."
Interestingly, the article goes on to say: "Most often used as a stimulant because of its caffeine, coffee may also protect against Type 2 diabetes". It also lists a few of the benefits of tea.
So much for JS's anti coffee & tea stance. The Mormon Church (I love calling it that on purpose now that they are leaning away from it) stands by its early teaching that JS' injunction against "hot drinks" means no coffee or tea. Colas are OK as long as you don't go overboard with the Coke.
Re Mormons and rates of diabetes, humans in general are at higher risk of diabetes if they are overweight, 45 years old and above, have a first degree relative with diabetes and are less physically active.
I don't see on a quick search that Mormons in particular have a genetic inclination towards higher risk of diabetes. Non-Mormons as well as Mormons are at risk for many conditions via their genetic make-up, as that's the nature of the beast, literally.
When I was a kid our ward compiled a Ward Cookbook. Probably a Relief Society project.
Lots of casseroles with all kinds of cereals on top and a variety of Campbells soups. Salad section and vegetables was pretty slim, actually--barely there.
Now the dessert section is what turned it into a tome. The Jello section alone could have stood on it's own. I still have my copy and there are a few recipes I still make every once in a while.
Sugar. At least it's the slowest acting drug. And everybody is doing it as we see in America today. Mormons are just leading the charge.
back when. My mother was a counselor in the R.S. and she was over it, so my sisters and I got to put them all together once they were typed and printed. I still have mine, too. I actually have friends from Brigham who ask me for some of the recipes as everyone else has lost theirs somewhere along the way.
There are some really good recipes, but yes, they have a lot of Campbell's soup. You can always buy the low-fat soups?? They don't taste the same. My kids loved the stuff I used to cook. I can't seem to make anything come out well any longer. Guess I went too many years without cooking once money wasn't so tight any longer.
BUT I have diabetes and two of my other five siblings also have it. My dad had it and my mom's mother had it.
NOW my dad and his 3 siblings were all overweight and my dad wasn't the biggest. The other 3 siblings didn't ever get diabetes. My dad worked harder than anyone I've ever met as a farmer and school teacher. I can't for the life of me figure out how my grandmother got it. My biggest brother (he is the disabled one) doesn't have it. My other 2 siblings are thin.
My "husband" has it. He is as thin as a twig and eats really, really healthy. I love the broccoli boiling days as it makes the room smell that I work in. He has it because of a family gene. His 2 sisters, also thin, were diagnosed with it and they were advised to tell their siblings and he tested positive and watches it closely as he also has HIV. I've only said that once or twice on here before. Be on Medicare and have HIV.
I don't know a lot of mormons who have diabetes except my family. I don't know if it runs in mormonism or not, but I'm sure there are plenty who don't realize they have it and haven't been tested for it. My hair was falling out and that is why I went in to get tested.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2023 12:47PM by cl2.
summer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes, I tend to think it's genetic. My personal > theory is that extra weight is a consequence of > diabetes, and not a cause.
It might be kind of 50/50. From the Obesity Action Coalition:
"When a person predisposed to diabetes has excess weight, the cells in the body become less sensitive to the insulin that is released from the pancreas. This can end up causing insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is when the insulin ratio is higher than the blood sugar level. This means the body’s insulin is not effectively reducing its sugar levels."
So you are predisposed and then other issues combine to cause diabetes. I take 'predisposed' to refer to genetics, as we've mentioned above. The good news is that some lifestyle choices can either forestall the development of diabetes or if it happens, can help to keep it under better control.
> TBMs have so few "sins" to choose from what with > the WoW. Sugar is one of the permitted ones.
Yes, this was mentioned in one of the articles I referred to above (that I came across as I was checking to see if I could find specific mention of diabetes being more prevalent among Mormons).
With the vagaries of genetics, one person can knock themselves out eating mounds of sugar at will without apparent ill effect while another will develop negative effects from even much less sugar consumption.
Yes this is spot on. I used to work on drugs for diabetes but have not kept up with the literature for the last 5 or so years, but it is clear there are "energy thrifty genes" that make persons with those gene sequences store fat more efficiently and process food more actively to increase blood glucose from available food supplies. Native americans and Pacific Islanders have the highest incidence of T2 diabetes. T2 rates are also high in populations of people whose ancestors had to survive with very tight seasonal food supplies, so not surprising Mormons in the west have a high drive to consume energy rich foods and without the work and labor that used to be done, the result is obesity or diabetes. Lots of T2 diabetics are not fat, and these folks usually have a strong family history of T2 diabetes. The work our company did sought to identify genes in question and the proteins coded by them for possible drug targets.
Hedning Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > T2 rates are also high > in populations of people whose ancestors had to > survive with very tight seasonal food supplies. . .
Ah yes, an allusion to, among other things, the Dutch Famine of 1944-1945: early and powerful evidence of epigenetic mechanisms. The women who were pregnant during that event provided their embryos and fetuses with inadequate nutrition. The relevant genes were accordingly "activated" in ways that programed for a world of scarcity, a world that ended in 1945 and left the infants unprepared for the world of relative abundance that was post-WWII Europe.
The upshot was that they suffered unusually high rates of obesity, T2 diabetes, cardiovascular problems and other maladies. Those problems then affected the intrauterine environment of a second generation of babies, who were born abnormally small and suffered various diseases during their subsequent lives.
Again we see that environmental factors influence the expression of genes from at least conception and in some ways even years or generations before the parents meet.
Have you been around the current generation of Dutch young adults ? I felt like I was munchkin in the Wizard of Oz.
My father was at the forward line of fighter bases in Belgium, and had lots of stories of flemish kids eating from the trash cans and piles outside of the US airfields when they first arrived. He had lots of stories of airmen sneaking food to the local civilians. The army air corp did of course participate in huge aerial drops of food to the Dutch, when ground troops were still pushing the Germans back. Hard times I'm glad I didn't have to participate in.
Inbreeding occurs in Mormon breakaway enclaves, not the Church proper. TSCC disavows them. I am available by appointment should they want to increase their genetic diversity.