snarky remarks about eating habits Re: [Sca-cooks] Sweet potatoes

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Christine Seelye-King:
>Hm... anyone know what they diagnosed diabetes as in the 17th and 18th
>centuries? If an increase in sugar intake WERE the controlling factor in
>diabetes, one would expect an upsurge in diabetes deaths with the
>massively increased use of sugar in that time period.
>
>-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
>
>My great-grandmother (circa 1900) had 'sugar'.  That was what they called
>it, or 'problems with her sugar', etc.  I remember reading about early
>physicians tasting diabetic's urine because it would actually be sweet.  Hm,
>part of medieval healing I'm leaving on the historical shelf, along with
>regular bleedings...
>Christianna

I wonder if some diabetic symptoms were diagnosed as gout, since they 
potentially have some superficial symptoms in common (i.e. foot 
ulcers) and, again, superficially, a common cause ("overindulgence"). 
Note that I'm not saying the symptoms and causes are the same, but to 
the less-then-clinically-observant it might appear so.

And then, if you buy the theory that the diet of the aristocracy was 
massively different from that of the lower classes, with a higher 
protein-to-carb ratio, but also note the phenomenon of increased 
sugar consumption from approximately the fifteenth century on, it 
could go either way, I guess.

Adamantius