From spending a considerable amount of time with our wonderfully intellectual and talented contributors, plus several days at the office of www.diabetes.co.uk, I can tell you for sure, that for many people who have type 2 diabetes it is very possible to put it into remission. Now I know big pharma will say it’s not possible and that it is both chronic and progressive, but that is just a convenient myth that they want sufferers to believe. Diabetes.co.uk, with their Low Carb Program, has peer-reviewed documentation that they have helped over 50,000 people place their diabetes in remission!
While there are undoubtedly a lot of people suffering from type 1 diabetes, which sadly in the vast majority of cases is not possible to put in remission (there has recently been a report where a handful of people did reverse it immediately after diagnosis), type 2 diabetes is not only avoidable, but for many sufferers, it is possible to put into remission and to de-prescribe medication.
As I have already mentioned you could view type 2 diabetes as an equation:
Refined CARBS lead to too much sugar in the blood, which creates too much insulin.
Looking at the above, it’s logical to arrive at the conclusion that type 2 diabetes is
in fact an intolerance of carbohydrate overloading! Of all the diseases we are about to cover, type 2 diabetes is in some respects one of the more straightforward to suggest a potential cure. Cut out all CARBS and other sugars from anything other than vegetables. If you have diabetes or are close to someone that suffers from this Westernised disease, please buy the book Fixing Dad. It’s wonderfully written and explains the journey the Whitington family took to rid their father of the condition.
Type 2 diabetes is not a chronic, degenerative, incurable disease. It’s caused by insulin resistance which can be lowered by eating foods that don’t cause the body to release as much insulin, along with intermittent fasting and exercise. However, the current solution, one that is more palatable to patients, one that generates income for big pharmaceutical companies, is to gradually increase the doses of insulin, which progressively worsens the patient’s resistance to it. This makes me furious as it is the advice that my own diabetic father has been repeatedly given by his doctor.
Dr Jason Fung
Most health professionals consider type 2 diabetes to be a chronic and progressive disease. A one-way street, a life sentence with no possibility of parole: the disease continually gets worse until you eventually require insulin injections. But this is actually a great big lie.
It is ridiculously easy to prove that type 2 diabetes is almost always reversible.
When the insulin levels can no longer keep pace with rising resistance, blood glucose spikes. That’s when the doctor is likely to diagnose type 2 diabetes. Your doctor may prescribe a medication such as insulin injections or perhaps a drug called metformin to lower blood glucose, but these drugs do not rid the body of excess glucose. The blood glucose got better with insulin, but the diabetes got worse. The medication only hid the blood glucose by cramming it into the already engorged cells. The diabetes looks better, but it is actually worse. Here is an analogy. Consider that hiding garbage under your bed, instead of discarding it, allows you to pretend that your house is clean. Once you can’t cram anymore in, you put it in your wardrobes and any space you can find. But if you keep hiding your garbage, then eventually it’s going to start smelling really, really bad because it is going to start to rot. Instead of hiding your garbage, throw it out.
What happens when excessive glucose piles up in the body over ten or 20 years? Every cell in the body begins to rot, which is precisely why type 2 diabetes, unlike virtually any other disease, affects every single organ. Your eyes rot, and you go blind. Your kidneys rot, and you need dialysis. Your heart rots, and you get heart attacks and heart failure. Your brain rots, and you get Alzheimer’s disease. Your liver rots, and you get fatty liver disease and cirrhosis. Your legs rot, and you get diabetic foot ulcers. Your nerves rot, and you get diabetic neuropathy. No part of the body is spared. Standard medications do not prevent the progression of organ failure because they do not help excrete the toxic sugar load.
Dr David Unwin
In the past, I used to say to patients that everything is okay in moderation. But when I think back, that was nonsense. What does moderation mean, is it different for everyone? I used to think moderation in biscuits was six a day but is it? What does moderation mean? Just those six biscuits kept me needing sugar and made it impossible for me to metabolise my own fat. If you have type 2 diabetes, sugar is kind of poison to you, and as you struggle to metabolise it, why would you have more? And as it is a poison for you, why would you want to be moderately poisoned?
One word of warning on going low carb if you are already on medication for type 2 diabetes. You can’t just go low carb without chatting to your doctor about it first, because there are some medications that you may be on, that if you cut the carbs and cut the sugar, and if your medication is also reducing sugar, then you could experience a hypo. A hypo is where you have low blood glucose, and that can also be dangerous. But, if you have just been diagnosed with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, which by the way used to be called ‘sugar diabetes’, then the best thing to try before being prescribed medicines is to cut out the sugar - it can make all the difference. In my own practice, for most people, they don’t actually need drugs at all. Most people, if they go and cut out the sugar and the starchy carbs that turn into sugar when digested, that’s the wonderful message of hope. Because instead of it being chronic, progressive and deteriorating, for so many of them they are able to avoid lifelong medication.
What I find if I say to patients: “You have got type 2 diabetes, and we can approach this in one of two ways, we could start the metformin, we could start the drugs today, but that’s for the rest of your life, and there are pros and cons, there are possible side- effects. Or are you interested in a lifestyle alternative, where you cut out sugar, and you are able to avoid medication?” And what is so interesting is that I have asked every single patient in this position for six years and not one person has turned down my offer. And we get amazing results. We have actually got to a point now where our practice spends around £40,000 less per year than the average for our area, just on drugs for diabetes alone. And last year, we sent back to the treasury £57,000 of unspent drug budgets.
