2 letters from our faithful readers

The big breaking news in Cebu City these days is what former Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña did to literally wreck his office and removed even the tiles, the sink and even the toilet bowl, the ceiling and the tiles on the floor, claiming that these were his personal property… given to him by his friends. This piece of news went viral in the social media network and has got Netizens condemning the former Mayor. Clearly, he has shown to us what a poor loser he has been…. and doesn’t deserve the position anymore!

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My columns last week apparently attracted many comments that were emailed to me… so allow me to bring two responses from our readers.

“Hi Mr. Bobit, I’m an ordinary private individual with no conflict of interest nor do I stand to gain in any and whatever form except to share what I stumbled upon in the area of being slightly overweight and with a family history of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Kidney problems can come from an end stage complication of diabetes, which is caused by chronic insulin resistance.

Diabetes as with cardiovascular disease is categorized as part of the Metabloci Syndrome, which lists a host of other diseases that result from metabolic imbalances. Hormones play a big role in the body’s metabolism. Insulin Resistance (IR) is a sign that cells which are already loaded with glucose are rejecting more glucose being sent to it (primarily the liver and muscle cells) by the liver. Another is, while the body increases insulin, the insulin cannot perform its other task of allowing the release of stored energy from the body in the form of fats and glycogen.

Thus, when the body requires energy to function for survival, and the insulin in the blood cannot perform its job, the liver converts this excess glycogen into fat cells. This means the body can only get energy by constantly eating, while excess food is constantly stored as fat. There are many dietary interventions and others are medical solutions with drug or surgery. But I resolved my weight problem by:

1. Avoiding sugar, added sugar, hidden sugar by many other names and sweeteners, both organic, natural and artificial, high fructose corn syrup

2. Avoiding foods made from refined flour, refined carbs

3. Avoiding vegetable oils (trans fats, hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated fats, corn, palm, soy, canola, safflower, seed oils in general)

4. Avoiding processed foods

That intervention rules out a lot of food items we traditionally eat and those that are constantly bombarded to us by advertisers. With that intervention, all forms of carbohydrates (where glucose and fructose in fruits mostly come from) are to be reduced significantly. Lowering carb intake will allow the body to beat insulin resistance and allow stored energy to be freely accessed by the body. While doing this intervention, the body is still very much insulin resistant so it will look for food by signaling the body to become hungry. 

At this point, we would do well to eat mostly healthy fats. Fats do not cause heart disease and diabetes (type 2). Sugar as carbs causes it. Healthy fats are avocado, butter, eggs, unprocessed pork, chicken, beef, lard, tallow, etc. Include nuts like macadamia and berries. I doubt you read this far but jumped to this portion from the first line above. Am I alone?

Thousands of members have reversed their diabetes mellitus through the above diet intervention and also through fasting. All ordinary people losing 50 to 200 pounds excess weight and keeping it off.  Fatty liver is cleared. Autoimmune diseases cleared. Eyesight gets better. Skin clears. If your waistline is more than half of your height, you most probably have fatty liver.”

Yours truly, 

Manuel Alves

This is the other letter:

“Hi Bobit, The worsening congestion at the NAIA is a typical example of Manila-centric group think especially of our national carrier Philippine Airlines. For the life of me I cannot understand why they could not think outside the box. PAL has at least 3 flights daily from the US West coast, one from Canada and one from NY but all going to Manila. Meanwhile, Cebu has a world class international airport which is better than NAIA and yet the powers that be does not and cannot see that.

The reason the trial run that PAL initiated a while back between LAX and CEB did not flourish is because they used an outmoded aircraft which they eventually retired and  which in itself is an insult to the Cebuano riding public being treated like second class customers. I just wish that there would be an advocacy for this to happen among the business sector and influential opinion writers like yourself. Sorry for the rant. It’s just my Cebuano pride and sensitivity. Have a great  day and God bless. S.A. Ceniza Jr., MD”

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