More people are getting the disease. (Between 1959 and 2021, the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes increased from 1.5 million to 29.7 million, according to federal government surveys.) Patients are doing worse. (Fewer than 1 in 5 Type 1 patients are achieving blood-sugar goals established by the American Diabetes Association.) Diabetes intensifies America's economic and racial divide. (Type 2 diabetes disproportionately affects the poor, the undereducated and minorities.) And the epidemic is global. (According to the World Health Organization, diabetes is the ninth leading cause of death worldwide.)
If any disease needs to be rethought, it is surely diabetes, and that is the premise of Gary Taubes's latest book. A veteran science journalist who has now written five books on the relationship between diet and chronic disease, Mr. Taubes is not interested in the many other factors that undermine diabetic health, including access to care and the affordability of therapies. Instead he offers a unified theory on why patient outcomes are lagging. The key is food, specifically our overreliance on carbohydrates.
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