Unhelpful and Wrong Information

"What is Type 2 Diabetes?"

Clearly Health, 2008

This video tells us that the excess glucose in our blood is the problem. That's misleading. In fact the problem is the increasing amount of insulin in the blood, as the body tries is desperation to get rid of the excess glucose. The best solution is to remove the original glucose spike.

The video also assumes that there is capacity inside the cells for more glucose to be stored as glycogen. That may not be the case. Glycogen stores may already be full, especially in non-active people. More insulin might FORCE some extra glucose into your cells, but more likely, it will convert that glucose into adipose tissue. FAT.

So in the long run, the insulin stores the excess glucose as adipose tissue. You get fat. But it does other damage too. The insulin causes the blood vessels to become red, inflamed and swollen. You become metabolically unwell.

ALL your blood vessels are affected, but you'll notice in the toes and fingers and in the eyes, where the deterioration first becomes obvious. By the time you notice it, this damage has been going on for several years.

With a well formulated low-carbohydrate diet, diabetes patients should be able to develop very flat blood glucose levels, and avoid all medication for diabetes. (Please do this with your doctors supervision.) After several months with weight loss and less inflammation, much of the damage done in the past might repair itself.

We all need encouragement and help, to give us the confidence to keep our nutritional plan going.

The Diabetes Business

In our modern consumer society, Type II Diabetes has become a widespread disease. Companies are developing drugs that are increasingly expensive, but not necessarily more effective. There are strong commercial pressures working against any change in the "progressive illness model" for treating type II diabetes.

Modern societies struggle to adequately treat many chronic diseases. Diabetes is a classic example, spreading rapidly all over the world. The disease destroys lives and puts a strain on public budgets. The UN is calling on governments to take action. Health authorities appear powerless when faced with a real health problem and the pressure to buy more and more pharmaceutical products.

In the USA with turnover of $46 billion, diabetes is a massive and extremely lucrative market. Constantly promised miracle cures have not led to satisfactory treatment, with patients either taking too many drugs or no longer being able to afford them. It’s a desperate situation, and the only ones benefiting seem to be pharmaceutical companies.

A medical focus on blood glucose levels has led to an over reliance on medication, sometimes without due concern for dangerous side effects. Patients become trapped in a cycle of treatment, which does not halt the disease’s progression. This can lead to amputations, blindness and heart attacks.

There are alternatives that could flatten the curve of the Type II Diabetes epidemic, while reducing health care spending. Improved diet can be a preventative measure, and a strict adherence to diet can also bring about remission in the case of Type II Diabetes.

But these solutions require effort, as well as a complete rethinking of chronic disease management.

Getting too fat

When insulin is "on" the body is trying to eliminate glucose from the blood. If carbohydrate intolerance/insulin resistance is developing, insulin struggles to deliver glucose into the cells as it should. Too much glucose in the blood signals the fat storage response.

Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic syndrome is a form of pre-diabetes. It's caused by a growing intolerance of carbohydrates in the diet. The metabolism of glucose becomes faulty. It develops slowly and progressively unless you take steps to stop it.

Carbohydrate restriction

When you restrict carbohydrates as on the Banting Diet, the amount of insulin the body needs declines, and insulin sensitivity over time increases.

Nutritional Ketosis

When for several days the carbohydrates in your diet are less that about 50 grams, your body switches to a different metabolism, burning ketones rather than glucose. Once you achieve nutritional ketosis, the ideal is to sustain that metabolism as your normal state.

Turning Insulin On and Off.

You have some dietary control over insulin. When you wake up in the morning, having not eaten for eight hours, you'll be quietly burning fat, and insulin will be "off."

When you eat breakfast, if you avoid toast, porridge, Weetbix, bagels, cereals, all sugars and carbohydrates, you can keep burning fat until your next meal.

Breakfast; Bacon and eggs, with some vegetable, kale, tomato, silver beet, cabbage, spinach or egg plant is an easy option.

Nina Teicholz tells us that in 1961, cooked breakfast, often bacon and eggs was common in America. By 2010, almost everyone was eating cereal or oatmeal, with low-fat milk and low-fat yoghurt, for breakfast.

In 1961, one person in seven was obese, and 1% of Americans had type 2 diabetes. By 2010, one person in three was obese and 11% were type 2 diabetic.

Lunchtime?

Can you keep burning fat? No sandwiches, no pizza, cakes or muffins.

I've found a simple solution in a small tin of fish and a salad, plus a mug of saturated coffee.

Medical Ways of Treating Diabetes

A new method, that does work within the treatment guidelines.

Jason Fung, Treating Diabetes by Fasting

I'm very impressed by Dr Fung's presentation. The clarity of his description of the interaction between carbohydrate and insulin is excellent. He then recommends fasting to reduce the glycogen stored in your body, and the glucose load in the blood. I wondered why on earth he would do that. And concluded that it was a way to preserve his status as a "professional" within standard practice.

At the end of the lecture he confirms that fasting was simply an alternative to a low carbohydrate diet. The ketogenic way of achieving the same result, is the simple reduction of obvious carbohydrates to less than 50gm a day. This lecture is very informative.

Dr. Jason Fung

The Intensive Dietary Management (IDM) Program was developed by Dr. Jason Fung and is based in Toronto, Canada. The program focuses on treating our generation's great epidemic – metabolic syndrome. This is a spectrum of disease including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fatty liver, Alzheimer's disease and cancer. Diabetes puts people further at risk for heart disease, stroke, peripheral vascular disease (PVD) including amputation, blindness, kidney disease and more.

Open Future believes Dr Fung's description of diabetes and how to treat it, makes complete sense.

There are also numerous lectures and podcasts by Dr Fung that you can explore at your leisure.

If you've got an hour to spare, here is Dr Jason Fung, giving a lecture for physicians, about the causes of diabetes and it's cure by simple dietary methods.

Another new method, that does work, but outside the treatment guidelines?

"Reversing Type 2 diabetes through diet with Dr David Unwin"

"Dr. David Unwin - resolving Diabetes and Obesity - with Science"

Ivor Cummins: Published on 9 Oct 2017

Dr Tim Noakes

Dr Noakes, tells us that diabetes is a disseminated vascular disease caused by our poor diet. Our diet forces the body to continually produce insulin, after some time carbohydrate intolerance/insulin resistance develops. That causes the body to store fat, the fat we notice around our hips and belly, but more importantly the fat we don't notice around our liver and other internal organs. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, is an early sign of type 2 diabetes, but like insulin resistance, it's usually never diagnosed.

More Information about Diabetes

Type I diabetes. This is the diabetes that seems to be an autoimmune response perhaps caused by genetic factors.

Type II diabetes. This is caused by a faulty lifestyle and diet. Sadly the "healthy diet" we've been told to eat is the prime cause of type II diabetes.

Type III diabetes; we usually call it Alzheimer's. Just as we can force type II diabetes into remission by dietary methods, we can do the same to stop or reverse Alzheimer's.

Dr Bret Scher (5 minutes)

Published by: Diet Doctor - September 2020

A new study shows the power of a Dutch lifestyle intervention program to treat type 2 diabetes. This comes just a few days after we reported in a major US health insurer doing the same. The tide has shifted, and we should all now strive for complete remission of type 2 diabetes.

Full report on the program.

(10 minutes)

Published by: Diet Doctor - 23 December 2021

Diabetes remission reduces the risk of cancer and the risk of dying from all causes. That seems like an obvious goal for everyone with type 2 diabetes. But how can someone best achieve remission? Let's discuss!