Are you a type 2 diabetic, pre-diabetic or have a family history of diabetes? If so, this is one of the most important blogs you’ll ever read. It’s by Canadian nephrologist Dr Jason Fung. He doesn’t tell patients that type 2 diabetes is chronic, progressive and incurable. He says that’s actually a ‘big, fat lie’.
Fung had a Damascene moment a few years ago. He realised he was giving his diabetic, obese patients the wrong treatment. He was prescribing insulin according to orthodox medical protocols. He was making his patients fatter and sicker.
Diabetes is a disease of insulin resistance, Fung says. In other words, it’s a disease of excess insulin. It is a dietary disease, he says, and you can’t cure dietary disease with drugs. Here’s a shortened version of Fung’s blog with a link to the full version. – Marika Sboros
By Jason Fung*
Most doctors, dietitians and diabetes specialists claim that type 2 diabetes is a chronic, progressive disease. The American Diabetes Association almost proudly proclaims this on its website. Once you get the diagnosis, it’s a life sentence. But it’s actually a great big lie:
Type 2 diabetes is almost always reversible and this is almost ridiculously easy to prove. This is great news for the more than 50% of American adults who are diagnosed pre-diabetes or diabetes.
Recognizing this truth is the crucial first step in reversing your diabetes or pre-diabetes. Actually, it something most people already instinctively recognized to be true.
Suppose your friend is diagnosed as diabetic, then works hard to lose 50 pounds. He takes himself off all his medications and his blood sugars are now normal. What would you say to him? Probably something like “Great job. You’re really taking care of yourself. Keep it up!”
What you wouldn’t say is something like “You’re such a dirty, filthy liar. My doctor says this is a chronic and progressive disease so you must be lying to me.” It seems perfectly obvious that diabetes reversed because your friend lost all that weight. And that’s the point: The disease is reversible.
We’ve known this all along. But only diet and lifestyle changes will reverse it, NOT medications. The most important thing, of course, is to lose weight. But the diabetes medications don’t do this. Quite the contrary. Insulin, for example is notorious for causing weight gain. Patients intuitively sense that they are heading down the wrong path.
They would often say to me, “Doctor. You’ve always said that weight loss is the key to reversing diabetes. Yet you prescribed me a drug that made me gain 25 pounds. How is that good?” I never had a good answer, because none existed. It was not good. The key was weight loss, whereupon the diabetes often goes away or at least gets significantly better. So, logically, insulin does not help reverse the disease, but actually worsens it.
Other medications such as metformin or the DPP4 drug class are weight neutral. While this won’t make things worse, they won’t make things better either. Since weight loss is the key to reversing type 2 diabetes, medications won’t make things better. Medications make blood sugars better, but not the diabetes.
We can pretend the disease is better, but that doesn’t make it true. That’s the reason most doctors think type 2 diabetes a chronic and progressive disease. We’ve been using the wrong treatment. We’ve been prescribing drugs for a dietary disease. No wonder it doesn’t work.
So, how can you reverse your diabetes?
The essential feature of type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes is that our bodies are completely filled with sugar. It’s not just too much sugar in the blood. There’s too much sugar in our entire body. Imagine our bodies to be a sugar bowl. A bowl of sugar. When we are young, our sugar bowl is empty.
Over decades, we eat too much of the wrong things – sugary cereals, desserts, white bread. The sugar bowl gradually fills up with sugar until completely full. The next time you eat, sugar comes into the body, but the bowl is full. It spills out into the blood.
Insulin is a normal hormone produced when we eat. Its job is to allow glucose into the cells. When it is no longer able to do it, glucose piles up outside the cell in the blood, and it is called insulin resistance. But why does this happen?The cells are already over-filled with glucose (see Dr Fung’s previous post – A New Paradigm, and Insulin Resistance is Good?). Like trying to blow air into an over-inflated balloon, it simply takes more force. The cell resists the glucose because it’s completely full. Insulin resistance is an overflow phenomenon.
Also read: NOAKES: DOCTORS, DIETITIANS MAKE DIABETES A THREAT TO LIFE?
Here’s the thing. If you are taking more and more medications to keep your blood sugars at the same level, your diabetes is getting worse! Even if your blood sugars get better, your diabetes is getting worse. This is unfortunately what happens to virtually every patient. The body is already overflowing with sugar. The medications only hide the blood sugar by cramming it into the engorged body.
The body is already overflowing with sugar. The medications only hide the blood sugar by cramming it into the engorged body. The diabetes looks better, since you can only see the blood sugars. Doctors can congratulate themselves on an illusion of a job well done, even as the patient gets continually sicker. Patients require ever increasing doses of medications and yet still suffer with heart attacks, congestive heart failure, strokes, kidney failure, amputations and blindness.
“Oh well,” the doctor tells himself, “It’s a chronic, progressive disease”.
What happens over time – 10, 20 years?
Every single part of the body just starts to rot. This is precisely why type 2 diabetes, unlike virtually any other disease, affects every part of our body. 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 Alzheimers disease. Your liver rots – and you get fatty liver disease. Your legs rot – and you get diabetic foot ulcers. Your nerves rot – and you get diabetic neuropathy.
Medications and insulin do nothing to slow down the progression of this organ damage, because they do not eliminate the toxic sugar load from our body. We’ve known this inconvenient fact since 2008. No less than seven multinational, multi-centre, randomized controlled trials of tight blood glucose control with medications (ACCORD, ADVANCE, VADT,ORIGIN, TECOS, ELIXA, SAVOR) failed to demonstrate reductions in heart disease, the major killer of diabetic patients. We pretended that medications to lower blood sugar makes people healthier.
But it has only been a lie. You can’t use drugs to cure a dietary disease.
Another view: CRACKING THE OBESITY CODE: JASON FUNG’S WEIGHT LOSS SECRET
There are really only two ways to get rid of the excessive sugar in the body. The best part? It’s all natural and completely free. No drugs. No surgery. No cost.
Step 1 – Don’t put sugar in
The first step is to eliminate all sugar and refined starches from your diet. Sugar has no nutritional value and and therefore, you can eliminate it. Starches are simply long chains of sugars. Highly refined starches such as flour or white rice are quickly broken down by digestion into glucose. This is quickly absorbed into the blood and raises blood sugar. For example, eating white bread increases blood sugars very quickly.
Doesn’t it seem self-evident that we should avoid foods that raise blood sugars because the body eventually absorbs them? The optimum strategy is to eat little or no refined carbohydrates.
The body also converts too much dietary protein into glucose. Therefore, you should avoid eating too much protein as this, too will only add sugar to the body.
Dietary fat, long shunned for its purported effect of causing heart disease, is back. Natural fats, such as found in avocado, nuts and olive oil are well known to have healthy effects on both heart disease and diabetes.
The Mediterranean diet, high in natural fats, is well accepted to be a healthy diet. Dietary cholesterol is also shown to have no harmful effect on the human body. Eggs and butter are back.
Most importantly, stick to eating whole, natural, unprocessed foods.
Step 2 – Burn it off
Fasting is the simplest, fastest method to force your body to burn sugar for energy. Glucose in the blood is the most easily accessible source of energy for the body. Fasting is merely the flip side of eating. When you eat, your body stores food energy. When you fast, your body burns food energy. If you simply lengthen out your periods of fasting, you can burn off the stored sugar.
While it may sound severe, fasting is at least 2000 years old. It is the oldest dietary therapy known. We only need to lead our bodies down the healing pathway and have the courage to apply our hard-won knowledge.
- A full version of this blog appears on Dr Jason Fung’s Intensive Dietary Management blog.
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Gud velsigne Doctor Arthur Moon for at hjælpe mig med at kurere min diabetes type 2. Brødre, jeg har lidt diabetes i lang tid, jeg har prøvet så mange midler, men det ser ud til at virke. Men jeg havde kontakt med en urtelæge, som jeg så så mange mennesker vidner om, hvordan de blev helbredt af deres forskellige sygdomme og vira af denne læge. Så jeg forklarede hele mit problem for ham, og han lovede at helbrede mig. Så jeg gav ham alle fordele af tvivl, og se, han forberedte urteblandingen og sendte den til mig i mit land. I dag er jeg stolt over at sige, at jeg er sukkerfri, og mit sukkerniveau er blevet genoprettet til det normale. Så hvis du er derude, der lider af diabetes og andre sygdomme eller virus, vil jeg gerne fortælle dig, at du hurtigt kan kontakte: Arthur Moon for din kur. Hans e-mail er arthurmoon01@gmail.com
9/20/18 A recent post of Jason Fung’s – it has some amazing photos from recipe books for diabetics by the CDA. Wow!!! Ha ha he’s a feisty writer. I was sorry when the article ended. We need to get this man on Joe Rogan!
https://medium.com/@drjasonfung/unf-yourself-type-2-diabetes-edition-d9332c42d38c
Dr. Jason Fung
Nephrologist. Special interest in type 2 diabetes reversal and intermittent fasting. Founder of Intensive Dietary Management Program.
Sep 19
UnF*** Yourself - Type 2 Diabetes Edition
There’s a recent bestseller with the wonderfully evocative title ‘UnF*** yourself’, which is quite beautiful in its simplicity and message. That is, we have so many things that we already know that f*** us up, yet we persist in doing them. In Type 2 diabetes (T2D), it’s worthwhile knowing how we mess ourselves up, so that we may avoid it. Unfortunately, in this case, listening to advice from national diabetes associates such as the Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) and American Diabetes Association (ADA) is not likely to help you, and most likely to harm. Let me explain.
I am a type 2 diabetic for almost 15 years. So far I am only on medications. My recent HGA1C was 8.1. I am trying to lower it by exercising regularly and cutting calories. I am also overweight (around 172 lbs). Is it possible for me to reverse diabetes? Can someone guide me with a sample menu. Also, what kind of fasting is good for me to start.
A University of Singapore research team has found that asians who are slim and not obese also suffer from type 2 diabetes compare to Americans who are overweight. The conclusion which the team has arrived at is that Asians do not produce enough insulin whereas Americans produce too much of it. What is your comment?
Yes, this is interesting. My father was slim all of his life, but developed Type II diabetes. ( A factor could be that he took the statin drugs for a couple decades, and some research has associated statin drugs with developing Type II diabetes. In addition, he only had vegetable seed oils ( all vegetable oils are derived from the seeds – not the vegetables ) as his source of fats, and polyunsaturated oils have been shown in rat studies to cause Type II diabetes since need saturated fats in the cell membrane for the protein insulin receptors to function normally. A perfect storm then, with vegetable oils and statin drugs negatively affecting insulin sensitivity ( so insulin resistance ), and he did love the bread and baked goods. So absence of statins and the Low carb – High GOOD fat Diet is one of the keys to combating Type II diabetes.
Did the Singapore study consider % body fat (viz body electrical impedance testing etc) since BMI we all know is a rather INACCURATE measure of obesity. 2 persons with the SAME BMI can have very DIFFERENT %body fat. Someone measured to have a high % body fat is likely to be already having all their energy containing cells so saturated with energy in the form of glycogen, fat etc that they cannot absorb anymore without exploding n spilling everything out.
The Singapore study should have used %body fat if they wanted more useful and more accurate results.
Dr. Jason Fung is working with Dr. Andreas on http://www.dietdoctor.com
They have the same principal when come to diabetes. I also diabetes type 2 by Hba1c 8.4% but by doing what they teach, last month my Hba1c was 5.9%
Dear all,
I am a type 2 diabetic patient too. I too pondered over this theory and my research on the material available on internet and various medical Journals on the subject. Though I still am on medication but feared to venture on switch over to this kind of diet. Now since we have this trove. Could we form a WhatsApp group to share our experiences and motivations to make our lives Diabetes free. If successful we can spread the word around for benefit of billions. If you agree kindly message me on my number 9560019868 (India – ISD code 0091).
All are welcome to join specially some dieticians and doctors who are willing to guide as well.
I need to know if its possible to stop injecting oneself with insulin if you have been in treatment for almost seven years with type 2 diebetes.
Yes. I have just started trying out 16/8 fasting for 3 weeks daily on a ketogenic diet. Originally I was on 70 units moring and 60 units evening of insulin everyday, plus glucobay and acarbose but hba1c is still climbing around 12 every three mths I tested.
Now I have self reduced to about 10 units once a day, fasting blood glucose is around 7..damn the dawn phenomenon.. After meals it doesn’t spike max was around 8. Only when it goes above 10 I’ll take 10units. That’s just after three weeks of 16/8 fasting and lchf.
Planning a 3 day fast this week to improve even more. But I find it really hard to get into ketosis despite the lchf diet
yes, you can stop with insulin, family member with type 2, had it for 20 years cut out; wheat, white bread, sugar, and was able to come off of insulin. Also helped to relieve skin issues, infections, which were the actual catalyst, and a reminder of why it was physically, emotionally better to stop eating bread. However, 1-2 years later, no more pain, started back up with bread, still no usage of insulin, but have to have oral meds on board for my family member. Ideally would like to go towards fasting, exercise, and eating multiple small meals per day. Personally, along with my family member I did the exercise, gym, ate very small meals, lost 60lbs in about 6 months. However, there is an issue, ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’, similarity this can be said of forbidden food and your appetite. Food that I no longer ate smelled better, and the taste was more addictive. It’s a slippery slope, then you’re back down the slide. However, Dr. Fung’s methods works, the advice is priceless. The family member I have still has been able to avoid insulin. Stretching, ice, ice, ice, raising legs up and exercising legs while lowering head, have been necessary to stave off diabetic neuropathy. Diabetes is a strange disease, it feeds into the desire to be comfortable at ease and quietly builds on the diabetic like rust on the moving parts of a vehicle. Once you’re stationary too long, the ‘rust’ seems to bind the individual. It takes concerted effort to knock off the rust, however because we generally reward ourselves with food (sugars, carbs) for our accomplishments, the sugars accumulate, if you stop working out, whether thru injury, being lax, it soon feels like you had gotten no where, and our learned response to stress/ pain is to relax, unless you have chronic pain. In which case you have to do something because living with chronic pain is not an acceptable choice, however its seems more difficult to deal with diabetes, because the warning sounds aren’t blaring, it’s a disease that appeals to a false sense of tranquility, you’re in danger, you have to move, make change
Vitamin B1 will also stave off nephropathy, look it up.
I am a 10-year pre-diabetic, now diabetic male aged 64. I stumbled on to Dr Jason Fung’s interview on Youtube. Thereafter, I watched all of his lectures and the next morning begun water dieting. My fasting blood glucose is down from 167 to 123, to 96 and the third morning to 76….. all without medicines. That was I was taking glyburide and metformin 1.25 mg/250 mg twice a day yet couldn’t come below 150. I am anxiously awaiting the ketosis to start but the damn thing is hiding somewhere in my liver. I would love to know of anyone who was on water diet and how many days before ketosis set in. I’m generally feeling very good and have started walking a mile in 25 minutes.
Hi Umar, well done! You clearly understand the need to take responsibility for your own health. There are many myths and misunderstandings about ketosis. Read the work of professors Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek. They are the “fathers” of LCHF and ketosis.
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last Mar-2017 with a result from my HbA1c at 6.6%. After knowing it, I tried to research how to reverse it or is it possible to reverse. Then I found the video of Jason Fung about how to treat type 2 diabetes. I fixed my diet for 4 weeks and went to a ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting as well. After 4 weeks of intermittent fasting and keto diet, I returned to the hospital to have my blood test for HbA1c. I am really surprised with the result I have gotten. I got my HbA1c at only 5.2%. Is it reverse? hope so…
I got so interested in this work and believe that it can help me to reverse diabetes. but my problem here is that I don’t have obesity but have been on HAART treatment which requires me to eat well. How can I go about this to reverse diabetes please?
Hi Blessing, I’m not a doctor or a dietitian, so I can’t help you to reverse your diabetes. There are many good books on the subject. Also, because of your compromised immune system, you need a doctor or a dietitian who is well-versed in the science and practice of low-carb, high-fat lifestyles. Stay away from doctors or dietitians who tell you that type 2 diabetes is always chronic, degenerative and irreversible. It can be all those things if you don’t manage it properly. I also know of doctors who have significantly reduced the symptoms of their own type 1 diabetes and the medication needed to control their condition.
January 12th, 2017. I would like to know what to do (or is there anything?) when the nerves in the legs are already (just) diagnosed by a neurologist as too far gone and I am losing my balance and much tingling in the legs (not pain just much discomfort). Soon I shall not be able to walk.
Am I too far gone???? All other health is good.
Thanks for the chance to ask the question.
brucegrandfield@hotmail.com
Hi Bruce
I was sad to see you havent had any replies
Do it! Start NOW!
Hope youre feeling better
jane x
A ketogenic diet with RAlpha lipoic acid suppplements ( See Dr Bernstein ) can reverse some nerve damage . I have regained the feeling in my toes that were starting to go numb . I have also lost 6 kilos and I am exercising daily so I have to many variables but it seemed to dramatically improve once I started taking the R alpha lipoic supplements
I don’t think dr Bernstein is the answer in this case if you listen to what dr dung has to say. Dr Bernstein is solely a ketogentic diet . The keto fênix diet will keep your sugar levels down but it will not keep your insulin level down. Bernstein is pretty good at bringing weight down at a rapid pace and this is also an issue. I myself and some friends that have lost a great deal of weight on bernsteins diets have all lost our galbladders. Losing too much fat too fast is hard on my body, on your liver etc now without my gallbladder I have a slew of other issues. I have fatty liver from not being able to digest fats. I’m also prediabetic And suffer from neuropathy in my feet. I have been desperate to try and find a solution. I did a week ago start taking R liphoic acid , b12 And went to a whole plant based diet. I have regained some feeling In my toes and I am jumping for joy! I am not sure what brought back the feeling. The pills or diet.
Try with methylcobalamin (vit B 12 in natural form in large doses sublingual tablets) in the beginning with 30000 mcg a day for a month and then gradually lower your dose until no improvement of symptoms. But first, check vit B 12 in serum and it must be minimal 550 – everything under 550 is deficiency.
Bruce, it’s never too late to start!
Severely restricted calorie intake (sub 800) a day, or complete fast (water only) will allow you to clear the necessary fat from your liver and reverse insulin resistance and diabetes.
If you are currently injecting insulin you need to take advise on this, because depending on what you do you will need to reduce/stop taking insulin during a fast.
Experience shows from people with type 1 diabetes, once blood glucose levels normalise, the body has some power to recover from nephropathy. Take action now and recover your life.
Bruce,
I hope this finds you doing well.
I strongly suggest joining Jason Fung’s Facebook page and post questions there. They are very helpful.
Here is the link to his page:
https://www.facebook.com/jason.fung.313
I hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Don
Without effective treatment for type 2 diabetes, every single part of the body just starts to rot. This is precisely why type 2 diabetes, unlike virtually any other disease, affects every part of our body. Your eyes rot – and you go blind.
The daughter of a friend of mine just lost BOTH of her legs. How I WISH Dr. Fung’s revolutionary approach had been available to her! We really must spread the word that Diabetes IS curable–and how.
The logic is so utterly simple!
You’d think so, wouldn’t you. Yet the logic still eludes many endocrinologists and nephrologists who are still committed to an outdated paradigm – one that serves profits, not patients.
Jason Fung’s logic of the effect of insulin dosage is great. I wonder why nobody has so far thought about it or should I say why have they ignored it. Doctors nowadays don’t think and decide, they just seem to follow whatever the rRep of a pharma company tells them. Five years of study is a waste if they are only going to follow and let the pharma companies decide their prescriptions. There should be more awareness on diabetes among the docs. Now in India, since diabetes is common, I suggest we should have a department to manage diabetes. Adv Arunkumar, Coimbatore.
Well said
When I was a teenager I had a friend whose Mom was diabetic. I remember she was on a diet that included fats and cut out carbs.That was 60 years ago. When I finally went to study pharmacy it was just the start of the cut out fats and eat healthy carbs phase, which I never wanted to believe as I remembered my friends Mom who managed to stay slim and healthy on the old fashioned diet.
Now everyone is busy reinventing the wheel. You can not believe what they say in research. You can prove anything with stats.
Good luck to those who now can enjoy the healthy fats. Just remember too much of anything is bad for you.
I can believe it – particularly when the research is funded by vested interests. You certainly can “prove” just about anything with stats. Massaging and torturing data are unfortunately commonplace with some scientists these days, even at the most prestigious research institutions globally. They really should know better!
Why does the NHS bury its head in the sand? Overwhelming evidence shows they have been prescribing and recommending a diet and tablets which are proving harmfulfor years.
I suspect the pharmaceutical and food industry are also partly to blame for their
lobbying over the years.
More info