Maisonneuve | Diseases of Affluence
maisonneuve.org
Among North American adults, 40 percent of us maintain normal glucose levels only by secreting larger than normal quantities of insulin from our pancreas. So we wander in and out of our family doctors’ offices and, if some blood work is done, we are reassured that our glucose levels are normal, that we don’t have diabetes. Mostly, they are and mostly, we don’t. But our bodies are not normal. The Afghans’ bodies are normal. We are so commonly ill we take it to be normal.
Among North American adults, 40 percent of us maintain normal glucose levels only by secreting larger than normal quantities of insulin from our pancreas. So we wander in and out of our family doctors’ offices and, if some blood work is done, we are reassured that our glucose levels are normal, that we don’t have diabetes. Mostly, they are and mostly, we don’t. But our bodies are not normal. The Afghans’ bodies are normal. We are so commonly ill we take it to be normal.