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Reverse Type I diabetes with diet?

Maeby

New Blood
M
Joined
Nov 19, 2006
Messages
6
I am in a meetup.com group and someone scheduled a meetup for a screening of a movie which says you can reverse your diabetes (type II and I) in 30 days with a raw food diet. They specifically said in the meetup description at least that you could reduce or eliminate the need for insulin. Now my understanding is that with Type I you don't have a choice as to needing insulin, but the fewer carbs you eat the less you need. I objected to this meetup stating that I felt it was dangerous to suggest that people with type I diabetes could just give up their insulin with diet alone. (although I have heard of research supporting that diet, and in particular a vegan diet can help type II.) Am I correct that this is potentially dangerous? Any supporting information you can direct me to to give them?
The movie is called "raw for 30 days" (sorry I can't post links yet)
 
In theory you might be able to control type I diabetes with an extremely strict diet, even to the extent of not using insulin - but that's (a) not reversing it and (b) impractical.

To be fair, the raw for 30 days website does say -

The program featured in the film at the Tree of Life Rejuvination Center is most effective with diabetes type 2 but is also very effective at increasing quality of life and reducing insulin levels for diabetes type 1.
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Reducing insulin levels for type 1 through diet is a perfectly respectable goal, so I suspect it's the guys calling the meetup who are being a little hyperbolic rather than the movie itself.
 
Many people confuse Type two diabetics who need insulin with Type ones. True type ones produce NO insulin. Diet won't help them. Even on a starvation diet they need insulin to use the sugar made by the liver.

Type Twos who need insulin are greatly benefited by diet and exercise. I fit into this category. Over two months I lost 60 lbs by going low carb and working as physically hard as I could. I got to where I didn't need any day time insulin if I was at all active. Still took 20 units after dinner, down from a total of 220 units per day. That was two years ago. Nowadays I'm up 20#, needing 60u/day. That is still a 70% reduction.

But looks like next week I've got a laborious project to do, enough to work off thirty pounds maybe. If my tendons don't die first...
 
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I just watched the trailer - it's about type 2, not type 1. Same guy who did the "Super-size me" doco.

I've no doubt that virtually all cases of type 2 can be reversed through diet and exercise.

casebro - if you're not already, look also into your omega-6, omega-3 diet ratio. Too high in 6 and too low in 3 makes makes it tough for cells to get glucose, triggering insulin production and, obviously, insulin resistance and problems. It also has direct effects on insulin receptors.

Unfortunately too much of the research into omega-3 supplementation completely ignores the confounding effects of too much omega-6 in the diet. It's like putting people under water, then pumping oxygen into the pool water and pronouncing that oxygen doesn't prevent drowning.
 
You can certainly get about 80% of diabetic cats into remission by feeding the right diet. This is more analagous to type II in man though. And it doesn't work in dogs.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Linda, that was fascinating. I hadn't heard that story before. Indeed, for some reason I wasn't aware that it had been Banting who made the breakthrough - I was mainly associating him with fad weight-loss diets. I reacall "banting" as a verb, meaning dieting, was in use in the 1920s.

Rolfe.
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Still does in Swedish - "bantar" - to diet

I wasn't aware of that possible etomology either, interesting!

It was a fascinating read, thanks Linda.
 
icerat said:
casebro - if you're not already, look also into your omega-6, omega-3 diet ratio. Too high in 6 and too low in 3 makes makes it tough for cells to get glucose, triggering insulin production and, obviously, insulin resistance and problems. It also has direct effects on insulin receptors.

Unfortunately too much of the research into omega-3 supplementation completely ignores the confounding effects of too much omega-6 in the diet. It's like putting people under water, then pumping oxygen into the pool water and pronouncing that oxygen doesn't prevent drowning.
Click to expand...

Omega 6 is from vegetable oil, 3 is from fish? I don't like veggie oil, we use coconut oil instead. And I like salmon and sardines.
 
icerat said:
I just watched the trailer - it's about type 2, not type 1. Same guy who did the "Super-size me" doco.

I've no doubt that virtually all cases of type 2 can be reversed through diet and exercise.

casebro - if you're not already, look also into your omega-6, omega-3 diet ratio. Too high in 6 and too low in 3 makes makes it tough for cells to get glucose, triggering insulin production and, obviously, insulin resistance and problems. It also has direct effects on insulin receptors.

Unfortunately too much of the research into omega-3 supplementation completely ignores the confounding effects of too much omega-6 in the diet. It's like putting people under water, then pumping oxygen into the pool water and pronouncing that oxygen doesn't prevent drowning.
Click to expand...

Back when I was an undergrad, I did a self-directed experiment for organic chemistry. I compared the various egg products for cholesterol, saturated fats, w3 and w6 composition, and charted them by unit cost.

My biggest surprise was that the w3 enriched products were also highest in saturated fat and w6 and cholesterol. My concern is that they were boosting the w3 composition by simply upping fat in general. This also probably explains higher taste scores and higher customer satisfaction.

The problem is that customers buying w3 enriched products are probably intending to get a healthier product, but are ironically buying something that is likely much less healthy.

Sadly, the best ratio of high w3 / low w6, low cholesterol, and low saturated fat was in the bulk-bin store brand eggs (superstore president's choice). The worst ratio was "Born Three," which was also the most expensive per gram.

(These results are probably out of date, so don't use them as a contemporary buying guide.)
 
To continue the de-rail, I'm just not a believer in the fats/cholesterol/saturated/poly/mono/6/3 proposition.

I'm betting my life on allergies/mast cells as the biggest culprit in coronary artery disease. Seems the CAD plaques have 200 times as many mast cells as healthy artery lining. So, to supplant the 'thrifty genes' theory, we need the "thrifty inflammatory' theory. Just as storing too much energy for our modern life is bad for us, putting out too much inflammatories is worse.

The only OTC preparation I can find that inhibits mast cells is Curry powder. In hospitals, cromylin and h1 and h2 (histamine) blockers are used. Aspirin, tagamet, famitidine, Claratin are examples. Probably helps explain why aspirin helps prevent heart attacks, but is not very additive with statins. Isn't aspirin both an h1 and h2 inhibitor? So it helps with body pains, but allows the stomach to bleed due to inhibition of the other H?

So far, Curry a day keeps the angina away. For me.
 
casebro said:
Omega 6 is from vegetable oil, 3 is from fish? I don't like veggie oil, we use coconut oil instead. And I like salmon and sardines.
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You may not like vegetable oil, but virtually everything you buy today is full of it. Also wild meats used to have a nice o3/o6 balance but commerical meats (including chicken) are now crazy high in 6. Fish is still good if you avoid the heavy metals and toxins! Even there though things are changing with farmed fish. For diabetes issues (but not for the brain) things like flax oil are good too. Coconut oil is primarly other types of oil altogether. The problem isn't so much the vegetables oils are bad, it's that too much of them inhibit the body's ability to metabolise o3.

blutoski said:
The problem is that customers buying w3 enriched products are probably intending to get a healthier product, but are ironically buying something that is likely much less healthy.
Click to expand...

Interesting, but not surprising. The one that makes me most furious is health food stores and elsewhere selling combination "omega 6/omega 3" products - which in todays diet pretty much is self defeating. An utter waste of money that may in fact be bad for you. Some even throw in omega-9, which isn't even necessary in the diet as your body makes it. Nothing but marketing hype with zero interest in health.

casebro said:
To continue the de-rail, I'm just not a believer in the fats/cholesterol/saturated/poly/mono/6/3 proposition.
Click to expand...

Placebo effects aside, belief doesn't have much to do with it :)

I'm betting my life on allergies/mast cells as the biggest culprit in coronary artery disease.
Click to expand...

I mostly agree with you there - and it's another reason why the o6/o3 issue is important. Too much o6 is linked to inflammation, and in particular mast cell activation. o3 on the otherhand is an anti-inflammatory, though it appears through other mechanisms.

So far, Curry a day keeps the angina away. For me.
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It's the curcumin that does it.
 
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I tried the pure curcumin, no help. But I had read that black pepper helps increase the absorption, like 200x. So I put some curry under the magnifying glass, and could see black flecks, pepper I suppose. So now I've been opening the curcumin capsules and adding some black pepper. The are available with piperine added, next bottle. I believe it helps absorption, my mouth seems to taste of curry after taking a cap. While I do like curried food, not every day, so caps help. I do use it instead of chili powder in pots of home made beans though.
 
Rolfe said:
You can certainly get about 80% of diabetic cats into remission by feeding the right diet. This is more analagous to type II in man though. And it doesn't work in dogs.

Rolfe.
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You're making me feel bad that my roommate and I were ultimately unable to control his cat's diabetes. Admittedly, she was in her late teens and had chronic pancreatitis for which she got prednisolone. She did well for a while on a special diet plus a very small dose of insulin. Eventually, though, even a tiny dose of insulin was too much, but she was NOT in remission.
 
Some Rawfoodists can be dangerous.

A lot get big heads about their diets and go as far to say that a Raw Vegan diet can cure all disease and disproves the germ theory of disease.
 
Lucian said:
You're making me feel bad that my roommate and I were ultimately unable to control his cat's diabetes. Admittedly, she was in her late teens and had chronic pancreatitis for which she got prednisolone. She did well for a while on a special diet plus a very small dose of insulin. Eventually, though, even a tiny dose of insulin was too much, but she was NOT in remission.
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It's very difficult to manage a diabetic cat or dog which is on prednisolone (which is gluconeogenic). The prednisolone is often the actual cause of the diabetes and it makes it hard to control. However, if it's medically necessary because of some other condition, you simply have to make the best of a bad job. I wouldn't expect a cat on prednisolone to go into remission no matter how strict you were with the diet. (And even apart from that, I said 80% - that doesn't mean the owners of the remaining 20% are doing something wrong.)

But I don't get what you say about a tiny dose of insulin being "too much". If a very small dose of insulin produces a hypo episode, I'd be very suspicious indeed that that cat was in remission. (The quick and simple defiition of remission is maintaining normoglycaemia without insulin treatment.)

Rolfe.
 
Just a note: To the best of my knowledge, you cannot reverse type 2 diabetes (in humans) even with exercise, weight-loss, and diet. The insulin resistance persists. what you CAN do, however, is stop the progress of the disease and get your system within its self-regulation range. The latter meaning that you may be able to retain normal BG with very reduced, or even without medication. The difference between this virtual remission and a real remission is that the disease is there waiting for you to slack up.

There are some new types of medication in the offing which may change this.

Hans
 
Better yet would be a way to improve the body's handling of AGEs, the glycocylated proteins that causes the diabetic complications. There is an enzyme in white blood cells that breaks down the AGEs. Getting rid of the AGEs would prevent the foot and nerve complications, maybe help the kidneys too. If we cleared them out, the body might heal itself.
 
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