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| Will your New Year's resolution be to cure your diabetes naturally? |
I was reading an article by David Mendosa which lead me to some recent research papers on the dawn phenomenon, where the blood sugar rises dramatically just before waking up. This is a very common problem for type 2 diabetics and one of the most difficult problems to resolve. I wrote about several natural ways to control the dawn phenomenon a few years back. Since then I've received multiple private messages stating that one or more of the techniques I wrote about worked. In some cases, these were the only thing the person tried that ever actually worked. So, if you have this problem, you may want to check out that old post. You should also definitely click on the big red button at the top and check out what's offered there.
This recent "scientific" review article on the dawn phenomenon basically concludes that oral medications cannot effectively control the dawn phenomenon and that basal insulin can control the dawn phenomenon. Basal insulin?? Hmmm... I wonder how the authors of the paper arrived at this conclusion. Let's dig deeper.
Taking a look at the acknowledgments at the very end of the paper, you can see that each of the four authors received one or more of the following types of monetary compensation from Sanofi, Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck. P.L., and Menarini Group (Big Pharma and the producers of basal insulin):
1. Speaker fees
2. Travel grants
3. Money for scientific advising and consulting
It also goes on to say that one of the authors sits on the scientific advisory panel for Sanof. In case you don't know, this is the company that has a near monopoly on the basal insulin market. Do you think this is a mere coincidence? Personally, I don't think so.
I actually laughed out loud when I read the following at the end of the acknowledgments:
"No other potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported."
Really :-) How much more conflict could there be?!?
I'm betting the journal requires these conflicts be disclosed for legal reasons and perhaps the doctors themselves feel the need to disclose conflicts for legal reasons too.
This is a prime example why it is always important to go back to the original paper and read all of it, not just the summary and not just the conclusions, before deciding how to evaluate the statements in that paper.
FAR too often, I see statements made with reference to a scientific paper, which of course lends credibility to the statement, based on the conclusions of the paper but omitting the disclosures that are made regarding funding!
It is also far too common, in my opinion, for scientific publications these days to be funded by the pharmaceutical companies. This is in large part how they control the message because the popular press then quotes these papers, usually without actually talking about the funding source. It's just Dr. So and So said this, that, and the other. I do credit David for pointing out at least part of the funding source.
If you want to really dig down deep and get at the truth, always consider the funding source for the researchers. This is why I do like what the guys have put together at the information I link at the top of the page. It is based on research that is NOT funded by Big Pharma but by what I consider to be far more legitimate fact based science.
