Category: Diabetes

Oct30201830th Oct 201831st Oct 20183Commentsby Marika

‘Vegan diet best for type 2 diabetes’ – UK scientists

Posted in Diabetes

By Marika Sboros

A predominantly plant-based or vegan diet may be best for keeping type 2 diabetes in check, say UK scientists. That’s not least because of its potential positive effects on mood, they say.

Their systematic review of the available evidence is in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care– no less.

The authors also claim that a plant-based diet reduces the risks linked to cardiovascular disease. CVD is one of the main causes of early death in people with diabetes. They say their review is first to look at the effects of plant-based diets in mood of people with type 2 diabetes.

Other researchers are less positive about plant-based diets – and the study’s conclusions. They say that there is no valid evidence for this claim. They say that the evidence is strong for diabetics who eat animal-based diets.

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Oct16201816th Oct 201816th Oct 20189Commentsby Marika

Fasting: Fung dishes up quick science to reverse type 2 diabetes

Posted in Diabetes

By Marika Sboros

Fasting is as old as the hills of ancient Greece. Many doctors and dietitians still dismiss it as a fad. It is proving its worth in modern medicine’s arsenal to beat type 2 diabetes.

Planned intermittent fasting may help to reverse type 2 diabetes, a condition that is now epidemic across the globe. That’s according to Canadian doctors in the journal, BMJ Case Reports. Three male patients in their care were able to cut out the need for insulin treatment altogether after a period of planned intermittent fasting.

One of the co-authors is Canadian nephrologist (kidney specialist), Dr Jason Fung, of the Department of Medicine at Scarborough General Hospital in Ontario. Fung is an expert in fasting interventions to reverse type 2 diabetes.

He and his co-authors readily admit to the limitations of the case reports: small in number and men only. The implications, however, are “huge”, Fung says.

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Sep12201812th Sep 201812th Sep 20186Commentsby Marika

Seriously! Stomach surgery first option for diabetics?

Posted in Diabetes

By Marika Sboros

I’m always unnerved when doctors encourage diabetics to have stomach surgery before more effective, much safer, less invasive methods. Like simple dietary changes.

The recommendation has been popping up again on social media.

There is robust evidence to show that bariatric surgery can be life-saving for morbidly obese people. However,  it is invasive and the success rate is nothing to write home about. Complications can also be lethal and include heart attack, stroke and death.

So it should be worrying when doctors advise stomach surgery as first resort, especially for diabetics who are only mildly obese.

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Jul14201814th Jul 20189th Aug 20185Commentsby Marika

SWISS RE: TYPE 2 DIABETES REALLY CAN BE REVERSED

Posted in Diabetes

This is the first in a two-part series on a remarkable event that took place in Zürich, Switzerland, in June 2018. It is a review of a conference that will hopefully help to change conventional medical treatment for obesity and type 2 diabetes dramatically in the near future.

The venue augured well: the elegant buildings of the Swiss Re Institute’s Centre for Global Dialogue in Rüschlikon on the west shore of Lake Zürich.

Speakers came from top research institutions around the globe. They argued that mainstream medical treatment for type 2 diabetes just doesn’t work well. In effect, it keeps people fat, sick and dependent on drugs.

That was fighting talk from physicians and scientists from around the globe. Their alternative was just as groundbreaking: It gives people with type 2 diabetes hope that they can reverse their condition safely and effectively without resorting to drugs or surgery.

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May11201811th May 20186th Jun 201815Commentsby Marika

TYPE 1 DIABETES STUDY: LOW-CARB DIETS DISH UP RADICAL NEW HOPE

Posted in Diabetes

By Marika Sboros

Type 1 diabetes is usually a terrifying diagnosis, more so for parents when doctors diagnose it in their children. A lifetime dependency on increasing use of insulin and other drugs looms large.

If diabetics don’t manage their condition properly, the spectre of life-threatening complications also looms large. These include kidney failure, blindness, limb amputation and premature death.

Now, US scientists offer type 1 diabetics a radically different approach to conventional treatment and management of type 1 diabetes.

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Nov0320173rd Nov 201712th Sep 20185Commentsby Marika

DIABETES: TIME FOR DOCTORS TO LOOK AT IT UPSIDE DOWN

Posted in Diabetes

 Scottish GP Malcolm Kendrick has a wonderful way with words about diabetes – and lots else besides. Here’s an oldie but goldie from Kendrick. In it, he argues why so many endocrinologists have got it so wrong about effective treatment for type 2 diabetes. Why they, in effect, look at type 2 diabetes from the wrong way round.

Upside down, if you like.

Kendrick says that insulin is not really the key hormone. It is ‘merely’ the subservient hormone.  The body produces it counter the effects of too much of another hormone, glucagon.

 He’s not saying that insulin isn’t important, just that it is far from essential. He is also saying that drug treatment for diabetes misses the mark. And while useful, metformin is not a wonder drug. If you don’t follow Kendrick, do so. On his blog, he has written a fascinating 40-part series on heart disease. – Marika Sboros

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Sep20201620th Sep 201620th Sep 20168Commentsby Marika

Type 1 diabetes: when doctors’ good advice turns bad

Posted in Diabetes

doctor

By Marika Sboros

Here’s a fascinating blog that throws up an ethical dilemma for doctors, nurses and dietitians who dish out orthodox advice for type 1 diabetes.

The writer is Lemming Test-Pilot, the alter ego of a British GP who has type 1 diabetes. Last year, Lemming ditched “the almost impossible dark art of carbohydrate counting”, went on a low-carb, high-fat, ketogenic diet and survived. Actually, Lemming  hasn’t just survived but has thrived in body and mind. And has been running half marathons faster ever since, even after fasting.

Doctors and nurses told Lemming to go on the wrong diet for type 1 diabetes for 20 years. Lemming is understandably miffed about that but says with admirable restraint: “Any other condition managed with the wrong treatment for 20 years would rightly merit a lawsuit. The guideline advisers are getting knighthoods.” Here is Lemming’s remarkable, poignant, real-life story:

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Jul0820168th Jul 201612th Sep 201834Commentsby Marika

A ‘cure’ for type 2 diabetes: Dr Jason Fung’s 2 easy steps

Posted in Diabetes

sugarAre 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.

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Jul0620166th Jul 20169th Oct 20168Commentsby Marika

Noakes: doctors, dietitians make diabetes a threat to life?

Posted in Diabetes

Screen Shot 2016-07-06 at 6.49.17 AMHere’s a sobering thought: many doctors and dietitians make diabetes life-threatening when it doesn’t have to be. They do that by giving the wrong dietary advice, says University of Cape Town emeritus professor Tim Noakes. To counter that, he  has set up The Noakes Foundation to do independent research into issues that include diabetes.

Here, Noakes, a medical doctor and nutrition specialist, looks at why conventional medical and dietetic advice on diabetes is likely to be  wrong. For starters, he shows why it has little if any science to back it up. Along the way, he shows why diabetes may turn out to be the most egregious example yet of iatrogenic (doctor-caused) disease. – Marika Sboros

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May26201626th May 201612th Sep 20180Commentby Marika

Real diabetes cure: diet or trimming your innards?

Posted in Diabetes

diabetesBy Marika Sboros

Doctors across the globe believe that bariatric surgery is a “breakthrough” treatment for type 2 diabetes. They claim that it’s the closest that modern medicine has come yet to a cure.

Bariatric surgery is an invasive procedure to reduce the size of the stomach or intestines or change the way the body absorbs food.

Doctors use it to treat morbid obesity that is sometimes a close companion of diabetes. For that reason, they often refer to the co-existing conditions of obesity and diabetes as “diabesity”.

So far, most obesity specialists have recommended bariatric surgery as last resort for people who can’t lose weight by conventional means. Now some say that even if diabetics are only mildly obese, bariatric surgery should be first option. 

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May11201611th May 201612th Jun 201711Commentsby Marika

Low-carb works for diabetes – why don’t more doctors advise it?

Posted in Diabetes

By Marika Sboros

Diabetes treatment is quietly undergoing transformation.

Diabetes treatment is quietly undergoing transformation.

Here’s food for thought: there is evidence to show that low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diets work very well for people with type 2 diabetes. Growing evidence shows that  LCHF diets can reverse the symptoms of diabetes completely. Many diabetics can also come off all medication altogether.

Yet many doctors, dietitians and government health services still won’t advise LCHF for diabetics. 

Why ever not, you might well ask?

The writer of an article on diabetes.co.uk asks that question and suggests answers.

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Apr23201623rd Apr 201618th May 201847Commentsby Marika

A ‘cure’ for type 1 diabetes? Dr Eli Lewis on holy grail trail

Posted in Diabetes

Prof Eli Lewis

(EDITOR’S NOTE: For parents of children newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, Prof Lewis does not see patients individually. He suggests that parents show this link to the doctor treating their child: http://www.lewislab.net/Teaching/InquiriesAAT.html – if the doctor is willing and can access the medication, the child can receive the treatment.)

DIABETES is not always the chronic progressive condition most doctors and dietitians believe it to be. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are shown to improve with diet. Now Israeli biochemistry and pharmacology professor Dr Eli Lewis could be changing the landscape even further for type 1 diabetics.

Here’s the background to his research on a new compound to treat the condition. It could be as close to a ‘cure’ as modern medicine is able to come. This is an update on a Q&A I had with him earlier this year. 

By Marika Sboros

Dr Eli Lewis, professor of clinical biochemistry and pharmacology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, just may have stumbled across one of modern medicine’s most enduring holy grails: a way to reverse type 1 diabetes safely and effectively. Better still, he says, the natural compound he uses to treat the condition has no negative side effects at the dose and duration he uses in his research.

Lewis’s research is on tissue damage that plays a role in type 1 diabetes. He says scientists have often overlooked and understudied this area. He came across it when he began researching the role of inflammation in injured islets back in 2003.

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Mar12201612th Mar 201613th Oct 20164Commentsby Marika

PALEO: WHAT’S THE PRATTLE ABOUT DANGER FOR DIABETICS?

Posted in Diabetes

EVERY now and then a study comes along with such suspect conclusions, you’d think the researchers would be too embarrassed to put their names to it. Not so the Australian scientists behind a study that purports to show the Paleo diet is dangerous for diabetics. And that it  will make them – and you – fat.  Silly stuff!

By Marika Sboros

Paleo

Ingredients for a Paleo meal

Like all low-carb, high-fat eating regimens, Paleo is not so much a diet as a lifestyle. It’s one that has fans across the globe. They would have been surprised at Australian research apparently showing Paleo is dangerous and will make them fat.

That’s the conclusion Australian researchers draw  in a new study in Nutrition and Diabetes, journal. They warn that diabetics shouldn’t go on Paleo because it causes weight gain.

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Feb26201526th Feb 201512th Sep 201811Commentsby Marika

‘Cure’ for type 2 diabetes? A doctor’s personal journey

Posted in Diabetes

Jay Wortman

DIABETES is chronic, irreversible and incurable, right? It means you have  to take drugs for the rest of your life to manage it, right? Wrong. Canadian physician Dr Jay Wortman will tell you differently.

Wortman is clinical assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine. He has personal experience with type 2 diabetes.

He developed the condition 13 years ago. Wortman was about to go the orthodox route but first cut all carbs (sugars and starches) from his diet.  Results were amazing. He has since done extensive research on traditional diets for obesity and type 2 diabetes. It is documented on the hit CBC documentary, My Big Fat Diet (to view it on YouTube, scroll below).

Here’s his personal story in a summary of his presentation to the low-carb, high-fat summit in Cape Town in February 2015. – Marika Sboros

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