Joseph R. Kraft, MD MS, FCAP
A few days ago I received a copy of the second edition of Joe Kraft’s book, Diabetes Epidemic & You. It was autographed this way:
Dear Pedro: You are now a part of this book – forever. Thank you so much. Joe.
I was very touched. And he also included my comments about the 2009 edition in his Preface-2011.
I met him in Bad Kissingen, many years ago, in a meeting of the Neurotological and Equilibriometric Society, presided by our common friend Claus Claussen. But I had been following his line of work before that.
It was in 1972 that Joe Kraft began to titrate insulin in the oral glucose tolerance tests and published the results of the first 500 patients. When he retired in 1998, he had tested 14,384 patients! He established the concept of diabetes in situ, or occult diabetes, and established hyperinsulinemia as the most important sign of early diabetes.
Otologists have known for a long time the relation between changes in carbohydrate metabolism and hearing loss and dizziness. In the early 1960's it was demonstrated that the administration of insulin in guinea-pigs reduced the cochlear potentials and in 1972 it was proved that it changed the chemical composition of the inner ear fluids.
William Updegraff, in the United States, began to study insulin in patients with Menière’s disease and this led my late friend and associate Yotaka Fukuda and I to study the insulin patterns in patients with dizziness and vertigo. We used Kraft’s criteria to interpret these insulin patterns. Many of these patients are cured by simple diets. And yet...
We still have a problem with endocrinologists. They say they do not believe that these insulin patterns are meaningful. When my patients go to them, they insist that their oral glucose tolerance tests are normal. And, of course, these patients abandon their diets. They prefer to believe the doctors that let them eat sugar. This sort of situation has been described by many otolaryngologists throughout Brazil.
Maybe this happens because Joe Kraft is not an endocrinologist. He is a pathologist. But he showed us that the patients with certain insulin patterns are going to have diabetes in the future. And that diets will delay this condition.
And he is right. I have seen many patients who abandoned their diets and became diabetics.
Besides, Medicine must be based in evidence, not in beliefs. And we do have the evidences. These endocrinologists are a disservice to their patients, failing to prevent them from acquiring a serious disease.
I am happy that Joe wrote this book. He has done a wonderful job.
Kraft JR. Diabetes Epidemic and You. 2001,Trafford.
Mangabeira-Albernaz PL, Fukuda Y. Glucose, insulin and inner ear pathology. Acta Otolaryngol (Stockh) 1984; 97: 496-501.
Dear Pedro: You are now a part of this book – forever. Thank you so much. Joe.
I was very touched. And he also included my comments about the 2009 edition in his Preface-2011.
I met him in Bad Kissingen, many years ago, in a meeting of the Neurotological and Equilibriometric Society, presided by our common friend Claus Claussen. But I had been following his line of work before that.
It was in 1972 that Joe Kraft began to titrate insulin in the oral glucose tolerance tests and published the results of the first 500 patients. When he retired in 1998, he had tested 14,384 patients! He established the concept of diabetes in situ, or occult diabetes, and established hyperinsulinemia as the most important sign of early diabetes.
Otologists have known for a long time the relation between changes in carbohydrate metabolism and hearing loss and dizziness. In the early 1960's it was demonstrated that the administration of insulin in guinea-pigs reduced the cochlear potentials and in 1972 it was proved that it changed the chemical composition of the inner ear fluids.
William Updegraff, in the United States, began to study insulin in patients with Menière’s disease and this led my late friend and associate Yotaka Fukuda and I to study the insulin patterns in patients with dizziness and vertigo. We used Kraft’s criteria to interpret these insulin patterns. Many of these patients are cured by simple diets. And yet...
We still have a problem with endocrinologists. They say they do not believe that these insulin patterns are meaningful. When my patients go to them, they insist that their oral glucose tolerance tests are normal. And, of course, these patients abandon their diets. They prefer to believe the doctors that let them eat sugar. This sort of situation has been described by many otolaryngologists throughout Brazil.
Maybe this happens because Joe Kraft is not an endocrinologist. He is a pathologist. But he showed us that the patients with certain insulin patterns are going to have diabetes in the future. And that diets will delay this condition.
And he is right. I have seen many patients who abandoned their diets and became diabetics.
Besides, Medicine must be based in evidence, not in beliefs. And we do have the evidences. These endocrinologists are a disservice to their patients, failing to prevent them from acquiring a serious disease.
I am happy that Joe wrote this book. He has done a wonderful job.
Kraft JR. Diabetes Epidemic and You. 2001,Trafford.
Mangabeira-Albernaz PL, Fukuda Y. Glucose, insulin and inner ear pathology. Acta Otolaryngol (Stockh) 1984; 97: 496-501.
Dear Pedro,
ReplyDeleteYour blog regarding the book was very kind.We must never forget your clinical leadership without which correlation to the clinical pathology was so essential. We must be patient with our clinicians.In both Prefaces I identify their lack of knowledge of the pathology of diabetes. In the USA the decline of the autopsy which has an effect on all disciplines of medicine accounts for the lack of understanding of the correlation of the anatomic pathology of hyperinsulinemia with its clinical pathology. The same applies to the lack of personal experience of the insulin assay with the glucose tolerance. I thank you again for your friendship.
With kindest regards,
Joe