
Association of Type 2 Diabetes with Titanium Dioxide Crystals in the Pancreas - mmastrac
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrestox.8b00047
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felixbraun
Since non-diabetics accumulate close to zero Titanium Dioxide and it is
ubiquitous in our 'modern' environment, it seems more likely that diabetics
have for some reason difficulties clearing these crystals?

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amvalo
My first thought -- diabetes affects kidney function. The question is whether
the same is found in type I diabetics.

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larkost
Type I diabetes is an inability of the pancreas to produce insulin. In typical
type II diabetes it is not a problem of production, but rather the uptake of
the insulin is inhibited. Basically the body becomes resistant to the insulin
signal.

~~~
amvalo
My point was that high blood sugar damages the kidneys, so if TiO2 in kidneys
is an effect rather than cause of diabetes, we would see it in both type I and
type II.

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LinuxBender
I can't find the article, but wasn't there also a doctor that was recently
curing people (permanently) of type 2 by essentially having them fast for a
dangerously long time and thus purging all the fat from their pancreas?

The theory they were proving out was that the fat built up in the pancreas was
tricking their body into seeing the wrong amounts of insulin.

[ edit ] Adding link for Dr. Fung's research [1] as mentioned in a reply by
SteveCoast

[1] - [https://idmprogram.com/fatty-
pancreas-t2d-9/](https://idmprogram.com/fatty-pancreas-t2d-9/)

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SteveCoast
Dr Fung has been doing this for a long time, and it's not dangerous at all. My
longest fast was for 14 days just water, though I wasn't diabetic.

Fung has lots of articles on Medium and /r/fasting is a great resource. Fung
and also Taubes books are great and point out he maddening simplicity, that
diabetes is high insulin is high sugar intake and that we treat it with...
higher insulin. It's insanity, and because we can't see the wood for the trees
we have smart people go study things like how much titanium you have in your
body rather than solving the actual problem of carb intake.

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LinuxBender
Thanks for jogging my memory. The only reason I mention dangerous is that
fasting can in fact be very dangerous depending on a persons physiology and
preexisting conditions. That said, it is much less dangerous than having T2D.
So the benefits may outweigh the risks in this case.

~~~
RobertRoberts
Everything has a risk though, not even an exaggeration, actions or inactions.
The problem with disucssing fasting is that it's not widely supported in
modern western health, so there's little discussion or common knowledge about
how to recognize problems during fasting.

What is great about problems during fasting though, generally speaking, to
solve them is as easy as breaking the fast.

There are fasting clinics where doctors monitor the urine output from patients
to determine if their body is expelling too many toxins at one time, and help
control the fast.

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LinuxBender
I completely agree and having your blood and stool checked by a doctor or a
lab is certainly a good mitigating control, especially for people that have
preexisting issues such as; but not limited to, kidney or liver diseases.

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vfc1
It looks it's a common ingredient for candy:
[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/scienceandfood/2016/04/12/...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/scienceandfood/2016/04/12/titanium-
dioxide-in-food/#.Wyt6ZlOFN60) \- "Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2) are
widely used as a food additive and are consumed by millions of consumers on a
daily basis, as manufacturers incorporate it into their food products. "

~~~
andai
Worse, it's in most toothpaste.

> Titanium dioxide found to cause pre-cancerous growths in 40% of mice

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/toothpaste-
additi...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/toothpaste-
additive-e171-titanium-dioxide-food-products-cancer-cause-
scientists-a7541956.html)

~~~
theothermkn
> It is unclear whether the product might have a similar effect in people, and
> the scientists said their findings “cannot be extrapolated to humans”.

Cinnamon caused some kind of liver dysfunction (cancer, IIRC) in mice. I turns
out that mice lacked a metabolic pathway for processing a byproduct of the
breakdown of Cinnamon, a pathway that humans possess. Mouse models aren't
perfect, so it's probably premature to use the value-laden word "worse" in
relation to TiO2 in toothpaste.

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man2525
Ceylon or Cassia cinnamon?

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VLM
He's talking about cassia, and the specific substance is coumarin which has a
fairly high fatal dosage for humans. Note that cinnamaldehyde tastes really
good and has nothing to do with coumarin if the chemical processing is done
correctly.

Anyway in rodents at very low doses their liver converts it to some nasty
epoxide which slowly gives rodents liver cancer; not an issue for primates who
an only die from acute liver toxicity.

This was a "thing" generations ago, leading to endless old wives tale type
advice about cinnamon "repelling and killing mice" which actually doesn't work
because its too bitter if dusted around in pure form.

If you're bored its interesting to research cinnamon-flavored liquors, the
more "natural and organic", at least if it uses cassia for flavor, the higher
the poisonous coumarin content and in contrast the more processed refined pure
cinnamaldehyde is essentially non-poisonous (lethal dose for a human would be
about half a liter of the concentrated oil, extrapolating from animal studies,
figure a percent or two of total body mass). From memory the LD50 of common
table salt is about 10% lower than the LD50 of cinnamaldehyde, of course in a
cinnamon flavored liquor the ethanol would kill a consumer long before the
cinnamaldehyde would be an issue.

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Geee
It's relevant that France just set a ban for Titanium Dioxide in food
products: [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/18/france-
ban-e171-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/18/france-
ban-e171-additive-found-sweets-pastries-may-pose-cancer/)

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dvh
Sample size: 8

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victor106
The authors acknowledge this.

From the conclusion:-

“Being a pilot study, it requires sufficient expansion of sample sizes for
statistical analysis as well as blinded studies.”

~~~
ams6110
Yeah, it's probably worthy of further research, but (nonprofessional opinion)
my view is that obesity trends are much more likely the driver for increases
in type II diabetes.

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taeric
This is ignoring that there could be a feedback link between them. If there is
a chemical imbalance that could lead to type 2, it probably does so by
tricking the body to consume more. Such that the two problems could easily be
linked.

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pknopf
A friend tested me a while back and my bloog sugar was over 400.

I changed my life habbits completely.

I just got back from the doctor and my A1Cs are now 4.8!

I'm so excited!

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harigov
What sort of changes? I was under the impression that you know when your blood
sugar levels are so high. Did you lose any weight?

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gebeeson
I've never been able to tell when my blood sugar was high or normal just by
how I feel alone.

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terminalcommand
To a certain level you might not feel if your blood sugar is high or normal.
But after 250 mg/dl, especially at 400 mg/dl you'll feel it. The most obvious
symptom is fatigue and thirst, no matter how much you sleep you will feel
exhausted all the time. You will want to drink a lot of water, you will
urinate frequently. Your eyes will start to hurt. After being high for some
time, your vision might get blurry, your eyes dry, you'll start vomiting.

Also you could smell your urine, if it stinks like ammonia, your blood sugar
levels are high.

If your blood sugar levels are normal you feel healthy.

I've been a T1 since I was 10 and this is my experience. The real problem is
not noticing highs but noticing lows. Because low blood sugar is much more
threatening than highs for the short term.

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rhacker
I might be remembering things wrong, but doesn't a lot of chewing gum have
Titanium Dioxide as its whitening agent for teeth?

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FrozenVoid
Titanium Dioxide is used practically everywhere. Its the "white coloring" in
paint, food,skincare, medicine,plastics,paper, coatings,inks,etc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_dioxide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_dioxide)

~~~
ratacat
It's also widely used in milk, to cover up the blue color of milk from
industrial milk production facilities where thousands of animals are locked up
in big metal sheds with poor quality food.

Strangely, they don't have to list the titanium dioxide in the ingredients.

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refurb
Milk is naturally blue. It’s the fat emulsion that covers it up. That’s why
skim milk has a blue tinge.

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delian66
Milk is in fact white. Source: grew up on a farm.

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_red
Actually, raw milk has an ivory / yellow tint (depending how much grass the
cows have eaten vs hay). Grain and soy feeding tends to produce white milk
however.

Holding up a glass of grass fed cow milk to store bought milk really shows the
difference. The store bought milk suddenly looks bleached white, like liquid
paper.

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kwhitefoot
> it constitutes the dominant light-scattering, that is, “white” component of
> indoor wall paints, drinks, foods, toothpastes, medications, cosmetics,
> paper, and plastics.

I understand why TiO2 is used in paint and even in cosmetics but why should it
be in anything that is eaten or in medicines? None of that needs to be shining
white.

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RobertRoberts
Just saw this, may be relevant:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/diabetes-defeated-by-diet-
ne...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/diabetes-defeated-by-diet-new-fresh-
food-prescriptions-beat-drugs.html)

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Animats
They should try testing NASA employees. NASA loves titanium dioxide white
paint.

~~~
londons_explore
Isn't nearly all paint mostly titanium dioxide?

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fredley
Any opaque, non-black (or very dark) paint, yes. You can add other pigments to
paint, but if you want that paint to be opaque rather than translucent, you
need to add titanium dioxide (or something that'll have the same effect).

~~~
ams6110
Right -- previously lead carbonate was used, until the problems with that were
understood.

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Aloha
this would only account for one form of Type II diabetes.

It doesnt account for insulin resistance or the other issues found with it -
many people who are type II have normal insulin levels

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jazoom
I'm a doctor and would say I'm quite familiar with T2DM, but I'm confused
about what you're saying.

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super_mario
I think the OP is trying to argue that if TiO2 causes T2DM (by modulating
production of insulin in the beta cells), it does not account for peripheral
insulin resistance that is also present in T2DM.

So, it could be that T2DM patients simply don't clear TiO2 from their pancreas
as well as non T2DM patients (perhaps impaired kidney function).

On another hand TiO2 is a "magnet" for other heavy metals. Researches are
proposing using it in water filters to filter out other heavy metals because
it attracts them so much. Consequently, having it accumulate in your tissue
can't be good for long term health.

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jey
Cool early stage work, but why is it noteworthy enough to be here? Has it even
been replicated?

