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This quote is from a letter to the editor of the NYT regarding the results of a recent study on diabetes. It is the best perspective from a physician that I have seen on why a lack of Systems education in medical schools drives the medical crisis and harms patients.

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To the Editor:

The results of the Accord study are not surprising. Diabetes is not a disease of blood sugar; it is a disease of faulty hormonal signaling, particularly insulin and leptin.

The increased mortality seen in the diabetics in this study is not from lowering the sugar, but from the treatment that neglects and often worsens the underlying cause of insulin resistance.

Until medical “science” begins to recognize the difference between symptoms and disease we will continue to see results such as this and the recent Vytorin (Enhance) cholesterol-lowering study, where the treatment itself becomes the disease.

Ron Rosedale
Denver, Feb. 9, 2008

The writer is a medical doctor.