By Toma Grubb(PART II)
"When I first told my doctor about the clinic and said I would probably be able to stop having insulin injections, he said he would eat his hat if that ever happened. He never has, even though I have given him several serving suggestions!"
Another doctor also claiming dramatic success using diet to treat diabetes is Dr Neal Barnard, an American expert whose book, Reversing Diabetes, was published in the UK last week.
"We've run trials showing that a diet with zero animal fats can control blood sugar three times more effectively than the diet recommended by the American Diabetes Association," he says.
He claims his zero fat approach makes the body more responsive to insulin, allowing patients to cut down their drugs or stop using them entirely. One problem with Dr. Barnard's methods is the need for the healthy fats, particularly Omega 3, EPA/DHA which is most abundant in seafood. The best sources of these essential fatty acids are fish from deep cold ocean waters. while the approach may control blood glucose very well it is not optimal for other health issues.
In the UK, nutritionist Patrick Holford will be appearing on GMTV to report on the results of treating one diabetic patient with a diet similar to Dr Lindberg's.
Dr Lindberg's Mediterranean type diet is based on unprocessed food such as fruit, vegetables, pulses and whole grains. It also involves a lot of olive oil, which means it contains more fat than the conventional weight-loss diet.
The key aspect for diabetes is that it has a low glycaemic load (GL), which means the carbohydrates don't raise blood sugar levels in the way that processed foods do.
The theory is that this diet not only results in weight loss - and being overweight is strongly linked to diabetes - but also improves the way the body responds to insulin, helping to keep blood sugar low.
Dr Barnard also favours foods that have a low GL. Where they disagree is over the amount of fat you should consume. Dr Barnard rejects all animal fats. Those who back Dr. Lindberg's approach say a diet that is entirely vegetarian with no fat is very hard to stick to long-term. Toma Grubb from www.Diabetic-Diet-Secrets.com says both methods are flawed in that they do not consider other health risks and nor do they offer a good way to track and balance the foods. Toma's approach is similar to Dr. lindberg's but goes farther in suggesting foods that actually lower blood glucose such as cinnamon, buckwheat and others. Additionally Toma's method includes things like pshylliun husk to lower cholesterol and is strictly tracked by state of the art software to insure a proper balance.
The charity Diabetes UK makes the same criticism of both approaches. "The crux of all these diets is losing weight," says a spokesman.
"If you do that, you make insulin work more effectively, and that may mean you can stop taking it. But that doesn't mean you are cured.
"Diabetes is a disorder people have for life. When people stop these diets - which they often do because sticking to them is hard - they will have to go back on the drugs."
The charity recommends a "healthy, balanced diet". The difference between this and the Mediterranean approach is that the Diabetes UK diet is not so insistent on low GL. It is more concerned about fat, on the grounds that more fat equals less weight loss. Diabetes UK, The American Diabetes Association and other similar "Authorities" are giving advice that is suspect. It is far behind the best current research and many claim the advice is tainted by links to the drug companies which do not want diabetics to find better ways that do not require their dRugs.
Clinicians such as Dr Lindberg and type 2 diabetics such as Toma Grubb disagree strongly with the conventional view. Faced with such strong disagreements between the experts, what should anyone with diabetes do?
"If you are on a non-conventional diet, the important thing is to be carefully monitored," says Dr David Haslam of the National Obesity Forum, a medical charity that focuses on the links between ill health and being overweight.
"It is vital your blood sugar levels aren't allowed to get above the healthy level, because we know that the damage to the blood vessels that follows can happen quickly. But if you can keep a healthy level with diet, go for it. A low GL diet for diabetes obviously makes sense." Rely on your meter. test regularly. when introducing a new food test more often to see the effect of the new food.
Dr Haslam is in favor of using drugs to control blood sugar if other means aren't working. But the drugs aren't risk-free either. Earlier this month, doubts were raised about the safety of one of the leading drugs, Avandia, after a report in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested it raised the risk of heart problems by 40 per cent.
All the experts agree there is a need for more research. The difficulty is that funding for dietary approaches is tiny compared to money spent on testing drugs.
This article is free for republishing.
Source: Reverse Diet Solution
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