Since I last wrote I have been asking people with type 2 diabetes if they believe there is a cure.  On the whole their answer was that diabetes can be managed but not cured.  If your diet is strict and you adhere to the recommendations by the professionals i.e. Doctors, diabetic nurse, dietician etc then complications will be a long way in your future.  Regardless of how well you manage your diabetes they all agreed that in time it will progress and they will eventually be on insulin and living with some of the complications we all hope to never get.

There is some debate what ‘a cure’ means.  Is it that you will never have the symptoms every again no matter what the diet and lifestyle is?  Or is having being strict and having good management a cure?  Could we say that a change in lifestyle and diet may eliminate all signs of the disease, is this then the cure?  Many professionals believe that it is genetic and once the gene is turned on then it cannot be turned off.

What do people mean when they say that diabetes can be cured? 

A little more research and pondering are required to define this.

In the meantime....

I have been experimenting with food and recording how my body reacts to different diets.  Amazingly for one whole day I was off my insulin with normal readings for one meal and lower readings for the others!  This is worth investigating a little further.

A little something for you to consider –

Would you rather change your lifestyle and diet to be free from all the signs and symptoms for the rest of your life?  Do you think like many other people that your health and wellbeing can never be retrieved and it is too much effort to change which results in complications and an early death?

Drop me a line and let me know.

Till next time.

Is this the cure?

Cousens is not the only one who professes that diabetes can be cured.  Fellow Americans Dr Neal Barnard ‘The Reverse Diabetes Diet’ [not read] (http://www.nealbarnard.org/) and DeWayne McCulley Death to Diabetes [not read] (http://www.deathtodiabetes.com/) also claim that diabetes can be cured.  There are variations on the same theme, that processed foods should be reduced and/or eliminated from our diets, more emphasis on fresh greens, no sugar, and eat low Glycemic (GI) foods.  Don’t forget to exercise!

It’s all well and good having this information from America but like so much other information, that’s all it is, and it is frustrating!  Cousens book There is a Cure for Diabetes is really heavy to read. There are words in it that I haven’t a clue what they mean.  You are probably familiar with these types of words.  Medical in every sense for example do you know what Glycation means or Glycosylaated Protein? The last one should be familiar to all of us as it is the HGBA1C that tests our red blood when we have our 6 monthly check-up.

Cousens book is interesting in small bites and the case studies are interesting to see but they don’t really share what is the affects of the change in diet.  Yes they share that they are now or at least by the end of the program cured but not what the process was like.  It would be interesting to see how they have managed away from the centre and if they have retained the lifestyle change.

Closer to home, last month I read about a clinical study conducted by researchers from the Human Nutrition Research Centre that claimed that they had found a cure for type 2 diabetes.  The diet consisted of 600 calories for 8 weeks.  When I read this I cringed with the thought of only each 600 calories a day, a woman should have 1940 calories a day.  Crazy!

NHS Choice has more information on the research if you are interested.

The results: After one week their blood sugar levels were normalised and by week eight they had improved their pancreatic sensitivity to insulin and lost weight.  Fat stored in the liver also decreased.  None of the participants were on insulin and had only been diagnosed for less than 4 years.

Are they cured?

The quick answer to that is no.  Four weeks after the diet had stopped the participants not only gained weight but their fasting blood sugar increased.  I am sure that we all could have told them that this would happen.  As for being cured?  According to Cousen if they had remained on the diet they may have been. For there to be a cure it means a lifestyle change for life!

Our choices are simple. 

Die earlier than we would be expected to after years of developing complications, if we stay on the diet that we currently have.  This includes people who are good at managing their diabetes with diet.  It will by all accounts sooner or later catch up with you.  Or decide that we want to live a full life, without all the complications and be alert, have energy to spare and feel good.  

I know what I am going to choose, do you?

Till next time.

Raw for 30 days

After reading Cousens book There is a Cure for Diabetes as mentioned previously I watched the DVD Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 days.  The DVD follows six people, five have type 2 diabetes and on has type one.  The DVD ‘chronicles six Americans with diabetes who switch to a diet consisting of vegan, organic, live, raw foods in order to reverse diabetes naturally.  The participants are challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food and even cooked food’ (www.RAWFOR30DAYS.com).

What a challenge!

‘Meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food and cooked food is the typical staple diet of people in the UK too.  Other than the nicotine and alcohol this is also my typical diet, with the addition of lots of chocolate.  I am addicted to chocolate and although I have tried to make raw chocolate I need more practice to make it give me the chocolate buzz I need.

The switch proved to be hard for different reason on the people taking part in the challenge with one person leaving before the end of the 30 days.

 But did it work? 

Read for yourself.  Americans sugar readings are slightly different from ours, to give you a base to understand the readings a normal blood sugar reading after eating should be 140 or less.  This is the results that I took from the DVD.

Male 1 (type 2) by week 4 he was off his medication and his blood sugars had dropped 214 points to as low as 73 without the medication.  His total cholesterol dropped from 216 to 160. (According to Cousens he is cured!)

Male 2 (type 2) was on 19 different medications (it makes you wonder what they were giving him; it’s a crazy amount of meds!). By week 4 he was off his medication and his blood sugars had dropped from 219 points to as low as 74 WITHOUT any of the meds.  He also lost 32lbs (2 stone 3lbs)

Female 1 (type 2) by week 4 she was off his medication and her blood sugars had dropped 291 points to as low as 109 without the medication.  Her total cholesterol dropped from 257 to 171 and she lost 23lbs in weight (1 stone 6 lbs). (According to Cousens she is cured!)

Female 2 (type 2 by week 4s he was off her medication and her blood sugars had dropped 167 points to as low as 112 without the medication.  Her blood pressure at the start of the 30 days was 135/76 by week 4 it was 120/64 and she lost 26lbs in weight (1 stone 9lbs) (According to Cousens she is cured!)

Male (type 1) by week 4 he had reduced his insulin intake from 70 units to 5 units per day. His blood pressure had lowered and he had lost 20 lbs in weight (1 stone 4lbs).

At the start of the DVD Cousens suggests that a high fibre, high carbohydrate, low fat, low protein diet is the only diet that will work.  Not everyone is cured especially if you have type one.  Cured or not this lifestyle change is promising.

Day 16

Day 16

A lot has happened since day 3.  I had an episode of hypoglycaemia which knocked me for six.  It happened quickly and started with feeling very shaky then moved onto a racing heart and fast breathing.  It escalated and lasted for a good 30 minutes.  It is not something that I want to happen again!

Normally if you are diabetic you have to be aware when your blood sugars drop below 4 (UK) you could have a hypo.  They are not nice and the first time you have them can be scary.  It has unsettled me for a while as my reading was on 4 not below.  I had given myself the same amount of insulin (70 mM) as two days ago after I had a higher blood test reading (6.9 previous and 8.4 this time). A change in needles may have been the cause but it has been the catalysis to make the changes to my diet.

After researching different diets and looking at what is happening in America I have begun the transition to a raw diet.  It may sound strange but it is mainly a vegetarian diet with emphasis on seeds, juices and smoothies.

Gabriel Cousens is a medical doctor from America who believes there is a cure for diabetes.  Though other medical professionals may tell you that it is incurable and that diabetes is a chronic disease that will progressively become worse and may cause your death.

Cousens runs the Tree of Life 21-Day + Program and according to the forward to his book, There is a Cure for Diabetes, written by Brian M Connolly (Founder and CEO, Healthful Communications Inc, and a Type 2 Diabetic) the Program has nearly 100% success rate for curing diabetes. That is amazing when you consider that it was done on food alone with no drugs or side effects.

The diet is

organic, plant-source only, live (raw) food, relatively high complex carbohydrate, 15 -20 percent (low to moderate) plant-based fats, moderate protein,  low glycemic index, low insulin  index, high minerals, no refined carbohydrates (especially white flour and white sugar), high fiber, moderate caloric intake’ (Cousins: p161)

It’s a heavy book so I am still reading through it but I have started by including a green smoothie for the last two days.  Green smoothies are a complete meal and are made with bananas, water, two generous handfuls of spinach and a teaspoon of superfoods.  They don’t lay heavy on your stomach all night and moves through your digestive system with ease.  To make a green smoothie you will need a good blender.

Resource

Cousens. Gabriel, (2008) There is a Cure for Diabetes, Berkley California, North Atlantic Books