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I was encouraged to read this article. I’ve often wondered when researchers outside addiction research would realize type II diabetes is the result of addiction to foods that chronically elevate insulin levels, thus acting as antidepressants. Once physicians recognize carbohydrate abuse as drug abuse, we’ll be better situated to provide appropriate interventions.

Betty Streett
Clarksdale, Miss.

A prediabetic person is on a glycemic roller-coaster for years before becoming clinically diabetic. This includes fluctuations in weight, exercise, diets (rich in simple carbohydrates and poor in fiber), blood sugar, and insulin concentrations. Every organ system in the body is affected. Why shouldn’t this result in some depression? Why instead assume depression causes the diabetes? It always amazes me how many things people are willing to blame on mental illnesses without considering the possibility that the human mind is affected by the human body.

Eric Wolf
Santa Fe, N.M.