Posted on 06/22/2018 2:42:10 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Diabetes is reversible. That’s the exciting conclusion of a study I’m leading at Indiana University Health.
Two hundred and sixty-two patients with type-2 diabetes recently completed one year of a clinical trial examining the impact of a low-carbohydrate diet, which limits foods such as grains and pasta while boosting consumption of healthy fats such as avocados and butter. The diet didn’t restrict calories.
Using smartphone technology, health coaches worked with participants while physicians monitored and adjusted medications.
A control group of 87 patients with diabetes received the American Diabetes Association standard nutritional treatment.
A full 94 percent of patients on the low-carb intervention have been able to reduce or eliminate their need for insulin. For six in 10 patients, average blood sugar levels fell so low that, technically, they had reversed their diabetes.
These findings are promising for treating one of America’s deadliest, most expensive diseases.
Diabetes is a public health emergency. Thirty million Americans suffer from diabetes. The illness is the nation’s seventh leading killer, with serious side effects such as heart disease, kidney damage, limb amputation and blindness. Last year, diabetes cost the country approximately $327 billion in medical bills and lost productivity.
Despite this staggering cost, health experts have focused on managing the disease rather than reversing it. When patients consult the ADA website, they learn that “there is no cure for type 2 diabetes, but it can be managed.”
“Management” usually involves costly medications. Medical expenditures for people with diabetes total about $13,700 per year—double the figure for people without the disease.
Bariatric surgery, the procedure that helps people lose weight by stapling, binding or removing part of the stomach, has even become a “first line” treatment for obese individuals with diabetes. This procedure was once seen as a last resort, as it costs approximately $26,000 and one in six patients experiences complications. Yet in 2016, the ADA led 45 international diabetes organizations to begin recommending the surgery as standard treatment.
That’s misguided. Plenty of research—including our own—shows that dietary adjustments can curb diabetes. A 2017 study from University of California San Francisco found that 60 percent of diabetic patients put on a very low-carb diet were able to stop common medications for their condition at one year. A 2008 study found that 95 percent of patients on a low-carb diet either cut back on diabetes medications or stopped taking them entirely.
With conventional treatment regimens, according to a study in Diabetes Care, only 0.1 percent of patients achieve complete remission.
Nutrition-centric treatment was once the standard. In the 20th century, people with diabetes were told to avoid foods high in carbohydrates. That treatment fell from favor with the commercialization of insulin. Employing insulin, patients could again consume carbohydrates, and when the U.S. government launched its low-fat, high-carbohydrate advice via the dietary guidelines in 1980, those with diabetes fell in line with everyday Americans, eating bread and pasta with gusto.
Critics worry that low-carb diets are too difficult. But in our study, 83 percent of patients stayed with it. With individualized support, changing a grocery list is far less daunting than a lifetime of dependency on costly medications.
Reversing diabetes is possible—and should be our goal.
*****
Sarah Hallberg, DO, MS, is the medical director and founder of the Medically Supervised Weight Loss Program at Indiana University Health and an adjunct professor at Indiana University’s School of Medicine.
Take Alpha Lipoic Acid, over the counter 600 mg time released.You will be schocked!!
Great website for low carb & reversing type 2 diabetes - info, recipes, etc.:
Lots of guides to best/worst foods, veggies, fruits, sauces, nuts, drinks, etc. The recipes are good - lots to choose from.
All true. Very well understood and accepted within some circles. You can’t patent avacado and butter, flax seed, coconut oil etc so no money to be made.
Once per day?
Thanks for posting this, 2DV.
Looks like no MD participated and I wonder why. This was led by an osteopath. Not quite the same.
Type II is linked to every type of metabolic disease and is completely reversible. Ditch the sugar, then ditch the junk carbs. There’s a two month blood sugar diet that slims you down quickly and deals with the blood sugar issues. Google 8 week blood sugar diet
Self-ping for later.
There is another thing that most can do—lift weights and walk regularly!
Muscles eat blood glucose!!!!
Bookmark
Walking is great for the whole body.
Minerals chromium and vanadium are supposed to help lower blood sugar.
"Reversing Type 2 diabetes starts with ignoring the guidelines | Sarah Hallberg |"
"How to reverse type 2 diabetes – the quick start guide"
by Dr. Jason Fung
And here's another link to Amazon for a good book by Dr. Fung relating to this subject.
 "The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally" by Dr. Jason Fung |
Low carb high fat worked for me...
while it used to be you needed to be morbidly morbidly obese to get the surgery, now you only need to be somewhat overweight....its insanity...
people shouldn't think that the surgery doesn't have risks...I see plenty of people in the hospital a few yrs or many yrs after the surgery with problem after problem because of what they did to themselves...
low carb..ugh....trying to do it....I've limted my carbs but I can't rid of all them....
osteos are doctors, usually very good ones...much more rounded education....
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