Diet "Failure " in Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes results when cells cannot use insulin efficiently enough to allow glucose(sugar) to enter the cell. The common culprit is fat: fat in the bloodstream and fat in the cells gum up the entry receptors in the cell wall. The cells want their glucose so the body responds by increasing serum glucose, primarily by breaking down other material stored in the liver to make more glucose. Blood glucose rises and the patient becomes diabetic. Best treatment is not drugs which help insulin work better (in spite of what our friendly pharmaceutical industry tells us all day long on television) but changing what we eat. Less fat, sugar and total calories will always solve the problem. Oral drugs should never be used unless a patient refuses to change diet.

When type 2 diabetes is diagnosed there has usually been a lot of damage. The worst is blood vessel damage and all the subsequent injury to every body organ. A primarily whole food plant based diet will reverse this vascular disease. But the pancreas has also been damaged by the overuse that has occurred. Years later the pancreas can wear out in spite of healthy diet and will be no longer able to make enough insulin. When this happens insulin injections are necessary for the rest of life. Two people I helped reverse type 2 diabetes by diet have had this occur. One had done her homework and realized that a diet mainly of whole plant foods was still necessary to protect blood vessels; the other did not and reverted to an unhealthy diet since insulin was now necessary to control blood glucose anyway. This is a guaranteed road to heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, neuropathy. Insulin will allow enough glucose into cells so that the body can function but does little to protect against deadly vascular disease.

                           Christmas Present

I recently received an email from a friend who was overweight, probably technically obese:

"At the beginning of the year, I was overweight, I was feeling bad ,I knew I had to do something . even though i was doing excercise , my blood pressure remained high and my glucose level was out of normal range,  I was struggling to loose weight.

I read your blogs taking about your son John, losing weight with fasting, so i kept reading all your blogs about health and diet. 

This is what i did :

I changed my diet, I incorporated more vegetables, cut back on sugar and carbs, no sodas, I started reading more about

fasting and prediabetes, so i started doing intermitent fasting, excercising regurlarly, since i have my electric bike, makes it more easy to do it. 

these are my results :

In the last 4 months  I have lost almost 30 pounds, my blood pressure is back to normal (120/80) and my glucose levels in normal range .

I have 20 more to go. 

I read in many articles that fasting can put your body into self healing and self repair, my biggest miracle that i experienced  is the partial recovery of  hearing on my left ear, 

it has been dead for the last 6 years, now i can hear better, perhaps 50 % ."

Recovery of hearing may surprise many people but this is not unusual for someone who is eating a terrible diet and corrects to healthy food. Microvascular disease is the result of poor blood vessel health and capillaries constantly clogged with fat globules. If blood is drawn after a high animal fat meal, and it is centrifuged to measure the hematocrit, the naked eye can see a big clump of fat on top of the red cells. The effect in capillaries can be seen with a microscope in living animals and people. Red cells clump together and blood flow slows to a small fraction of normal, depriving tissues of oxygen and other nutrients. Common effects include vision loss, hearing loss, vertigo, and impotence which can be permanent after a while.

I'm not into gifts for myself, Christmas presents included, but this email was one I really liked.

Happy Holidays to all and Mele Kalikimaka from Deb and me.

                          Hawaii Lifestyle

Deb and I are in the middle of two months on Kauai where we are enjoying the weather, scenery and long walks through beautiful countryside, mountains and beach. People are healthier here because of an outdoor lifestyle providing lots of vitamin D and many easy, pleasant opportunities for exercise. Many also eat well- lots of local fruits and vegetables, more fish than meat.   

Sadly, native Hawaiians are behind the curve, still relishing Spam and other unhealthy foods that replaced their traditional diet after western colonization. Obesity and resultant diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer and orthopedic problems abound because they have not embraced Hawaii lifestyle, their birthright. Westernization has meant short lives and poor health as well as loss of power and land for Hawaii's natives. Hawaiian leaders have finally recognized the major lifestyle issues decimating their people. Several Hawaiian politicians, suffering from obesity and diabetes themselves, publicly embraced a return to a vegan diet comprised mainly of taro and other Hawaiian foods. They've lost weight and their diabetes and proclaimed it to their constituents and pacific islanders everywhere. Eric Adams, the African-American borough president of Brooklyn, has done the same but eating whole plant foods available in Brooklyn rather than Hawaii. He's publicized his reclaimed health and energy, encouraging his constituents to do likewise. Westernized black and asian peoples suffer from the same health problems as Hawaiians as they abandon traditional foods for the rich western diet. Their genetics often make them much more susceptible to the diabetes now ravaging third world countries as they become wealthier and more westernized.

Schools here now emphasize healthy foods and many have programs teaching gardening skills at a school garden.  Local community centers have programs in planning and preparing healthy meals. Community gardens are also flourishing, providing information, skills and access to produce which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive in a place where most food is imported in spite of huge tracts of unused farmland and a perfect climate for growing most things.

Cafes, coffee houses, fast food chains and food trucks provide moderately priced meals for locals and tourists. Most of this is still the garbage which addicts to fat, sugar, salt and destroys health.

                 Lisa Schwartz, an Obituary

New York Times obituaries have been an important source of information for me over the years. The writings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher and teacher, have provided me with a new way of looking at the world after I learned about him and his work in a NYT obituary. I discovered that the proprietor of a small Scottish country inn, a laird whose family had been local nobility for centuries and who kindly gave me some of the scotch whiskey he had distilled, then taught me the correct way to drink and enjoy its flavor, was the model for James Bond because of his daring WW II feats as a spy. The Times did some soul searching this past year as more and more stories of abuse of women surfaced. They concluded that women who had accomplished significant things had often been ignored in their obituaries section ever since the paper was established. Recently an amazing woman who died in 2017 was honored with a long obituary.

Lisa Schwartz was a professor of medicine who, with her husband, was co-director of the Center for Medicine and Media at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, part of Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine. There they trained hundreds of journalists to become more skeptical about claimed scientific breakthroughs and miracle cures, and to better communicate the benefits and risks of medical tests and treatment. They concluded that medicine has become a huge business where the dominant people, physicians, are well trained in procedures and prescribing but not in appropriateness, side effects and alternatives, especially lifestyle medicine. Her work was endorsed and supported by the NIH and other authorities.

A link to her obituary:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/obituaries/dr-lisa-schwartz-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries