[perl4ever]

>Every country does good things and bad things. You just choose to ignore the bad things one country does and solely focus on them for another one.

I agree. Comparing two countries in an unbiased way is very difficult.

>people are dying because they can't afford life-saving insulin

If I develop type 2 diabetes, do you think my life expectancy would be longer in Cuba? Who can I trust for relevant statistics and information?

[malermeister]

> If I develop type 2 diabetes, do you think my life expectancy would be longer in Cuba?

I think that depends on your socioeconomic class and your insurance in the US. I'd say for the median citizen, life expectancy in Cuba with diabetes is probably higher as insulin cost isn't an issue and they do very frequent health check-ins that would be prohibitively expensive for a lot of Americans.

But seeing how you post on HN, chances are you have better healthcare available to you than the median American...

Then again, it seems like Cuba has some pretty cool homegrown diabetes treatments available: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Let-s-open-the-d...

> Who can I trust for relevant statistics and information?

That's a good question and I don't have a good answer. Consensus internationally seems to be that the Cuban healthcare system is legit, but I must admit i haven't dug all that deep.

[perl4ever]

>But seeing how you post on HN, chances are you have better healthcare available to you than the median American...

A family member with the condition relied on Medicare. That seems like the most likely scenario.

>Consensus internationally seems to be that the Cuban healthcare system is legit, but I must admit i haven't dug all that deep.

Neither have I. But this is interesting. A little over ten years ago, there were reports of "mass deaths" of patients of a mental hospital in Cuba due to the cold.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-trial/cuba-tries-doc...

I guess it's due to my imagination, and the things I read when I was younger, but the more something is understated, the more it's downplayed, and the more details that are left out, the more horrifying it can be. Sometimes I have the impression that other people don't ask questions, either out loud, or in their mind. That they know where to stop, as if there were a nice neat line that separated us from what's beyond the pale.

How can you die of cold in Cuba is one question I think of. Well, it was down to about 38F, and reportedly the glass from the windows and doors was missing. Also the blankets.

Next question would be why was that stuff missing? Perhaps it was taken and sold?

Why would it be sold? Perhaps because it was worth vastly more on the open market than the staff were paid in salaries?

All rhetorical questions in my head, not questions for you particularly.

This story plants in my mind the idea of doctors to whom blankets and pieces of glass are such wealth.

Whenever I read a comment about the Cuban health care system, I will think of it.

[ncmncm]

If you develop type-2 diabetes, you may be able to cure it by not eating any sugar for a few weeks. And, keep it off after, if you never eat sugar except with enough fiber. I.e., apples ok, donuts & froot loops not. That is good advice for all of us: there is never a good reason to give yourself type-2 diabetes.

For many people, cinnamon is a good temporary treatment for type-2 diabetes. But some people have a bad reaction to enough cinnamon, so start light.

Type 1 diabetes is much bigger trouble: you need to inject insulin, because your pancreas is damaged, probably forever.

Probably few Cubans have type-2 diabetes. It is a 1st-world problem; another name is Processed Food disease.

[perl4ever]

>If you develop type-2 diabetes, you may be able to cure it by not eating any sugar for a few weeks.

Developing type-2 diabetes will be a process that happens over several decades. So which few weeks is it that I need to stop eating sugar? I need to know because I was going to make cookies.

>there is never a good reason to give yourself type-2 diabetes

I've taken medication that progressively leads to type 2 diabetes for about 17 years. You don't think I have a good reason? Or you just never imagined one?

>Probably few Cubans have type-2 diabetes. It is a 1st-world problem; another name is Processed Food disease.

Being able to get medication that causes type 2 diabetes as a side effect might be a first world thing too. I would be concerned about that.

>Type 1 diabetes is much bigger trouble: you need to inject insulin

People inject insulin for type 2 diabetes; I'm not sure what you are referring to.

[ncmncm]

Medication that causes type-2 diabetes is news to me. Most people get type-2, or insulin resistance, as a consequence of damaging their liver, and soaking in excess uric acid. Maybe your medication is hepatotoxic? If you are partially insulin-resistant, maybe it takes extra insulin to get the needed effect?

Robert Lustig has been curing fatty-liver-disease-induced type 2 diabetes in children by eliminating sugar from their diet. Of course kids get better faster than adults.

I would expect someone who knows he has induced type-2 diabetes to already be pretty damn careful about sugar intake...

But: I am not a physician. None of the above is competent medical advice.

That said, Robert Lustig says most physicians are woefully uninformed about liver pathology.

[perl4ever]

>Medication that causes type-2 diabetes is news to me.

I believe in the ballpark of 5 to 6 million patients take this kind of medication in the US. If they all eventually got diabetes, it might be up to 15% of cases. However, not everybody lives long enough.

[ncmncm]

I will add that for everybody who has type-2 diabetes as a side effect of medication, there must be tens or hundreds of thousands who came by it much more accidentally (except insofar as it is a direct consequence of phenomenally, catastrophically, absurdly harmful public policy still in force in the US).