In a four-year-long study, overweight and obese diabetics placed
on a calorie-restrictive diet along with nearly three hours of
exercise per week fared much better than controls
After one year, 11.5 percent of the program participants no
longer needed medication to keep their blood sugar levels below
the diabetes threshold. Only two percent of the non-intervention
group experienced any significant improvement in their condition
Obesity has now become a greater global health crisis than
hunger. It is also the leading cause of disabilities around the
world
According to a national study there’s been a modest decline in
obesity rates among 2- to 4-year-olds from poor families. While
the cause for the drop is unclear, some of the potential
contributors include a massive increase in breastfeeding over
the past three decades, and reduced advertising of junk food to
young children
By Dr. Mercola
It has taken decades, but medical professionals are finally
starting to give diet and exercise for the prevention and reversal
of type 2 diabetes some well-deserved attention.
"... the new study can give people with the disease hope
that through lifestyle changes, they could end up getting off
medication and likely lowering their risk of diabetes-related
complications," Reuters Health reports.1
The research,2
also featured by MedPage Today,3
demonstrates that diet and physical activity are the answer
diabetics have been searching for, which is exactly what I've been
teaching since I started this web site, 16 years ago.
It's worth noting that I do not at all agree with some of the
dietary recommendations given to the participants in this study. For
example, I believe including healthy saturated fats and
avoiding processed liquid meal replacements would be a wise
move.
I also believe following the dietary recommendations laid out in
my free
Nutrition Plan can provide far better results than
those achieved in this study.
The researchers randomly assigned diabetic participants, who were
also overweight or obese, to an intensive program of diet and
exercise, in which they were urged to cut calories down to
1,200-1,800 calories per day and engage in nearly three hours of
physical exercise per week.
After one year, 11.5 percent of the program participants no
longer needed medication to keep their blood sugar levels below the
diabetes threshold. Only two percent of the non-intervention group
experienced any significant improvement in their condition.
Those who'd had been diagnosed with diabetes more recently saw
greater blood sugar improvements on the program. Ditto for those who
lost the most amount of weight and/or made the greatest progress in
raising their fitness level. The lifestyle intervention group also
managed to sustain their remission better over the following three
years.
The Only Way to Avoid and/or Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
Amazingly, one in four Americans has some form of
diabetes or pre-diabetes. If this is not a clear sign that
conventional health recommendations are flawed, I don't know what
is. I too have personal experience with this disease. I developed it
myself for a short while, when I tried to implement an Eat Right for
Your Type program in the late 90s.
Additionally, most of my paternal relatives (my dad included),
have, or have died from, diabetes. My personal experience with
diabetes and subsequent review of the literature made it very clear
to me that virtually every case of type 2 diabetes is
reversible...
And the cure for type 2 diabetes has nothing to do with giving
insulin or taking drugs to control your blood sugar. In fact, giving
insulin to someone with type 2 diabetes is one of the worst
things that can be done.
The truth of the matter is that type 2 diabetes is a fully
preventable condition that arises from faulty
leptin signaling and
insulin resistance, both of which are directly diet- and
exercise-related. It is NOT a disease of blood sugar.
Once you understand that, the remedy becomes clear: To reverse
the disease, you need to recover your body's insulin and
leptin sensitivities. The ONLY way to accomplish this is through
proper diet and exercise, as detailed in my free
Nutrition Plan. Bariatric surgery, which is being increasingly
recommended as a diabetes treatment, will NOT do the trick, and
there is NO drug that can correct leptin signaling and insulin
resistance... Adhering to the following guidelines can help you do
at least three things that are essential for successfully treating
diabetes: recover your insulin/leptin sensitivity; normalize your
weight; and normalize your
blood pressure:
Severely limit or eliminate
sugar and grains in your diet, especially
fructose which is far more detrimental than any other type
of sugar. Following
my Nutrition Plan will help you do this without too much
fuss.
Exercise regularly. Exercise is an absolutely essential
factor, and without it, you're unlikely to get this devastating
disease under control. It is one of the fastest and most
powerful ways to lower your insulin and leptin resistance. If
you're unsure of how to get started, I recommend reviewing my
Peak Fitness program for tips and guidelines.
Avoid trans fats.
Get plenty of omega-3 fats from a high quality, animal-based
source, such as
krill oil.
Optimize your
vitamin D levels. Recent studies have revealed that getting
enough vitamin D can have a powerful effect on normalizing your
blood pressure and that low vitamin D levels may increase your
risk of heart disease.
Optimize your gut flora. Your gut is a living ecosystem,
full of both good bacteria and bad. Multiple studies have shown
that obese people have different
intestinal bacteria than lean people. The more good bacteria
you have, the stronger your immune system will be and the better
your body will function overall. Fortunately, optimizing your
gut flora is relatively easy. You can reseed your body with good
bacteria by eating fermented foods (such as fermented
vegetables, natto, raw organic cheese, or raw milk kefir) or by
taking a high-quality probiotic supplement.
Address any underlying emotional issues and/or stress.
Non-invasive tools like the
Emotional Freedom Technique can be helpful and effective.
Monitor your fasting insulin level. This is every bit as
important as your fasting blood sugar. You'll want your fasting
insulin level to be between 2 and 4. The higher your level, the
worse your insulin sensitivity is.
Diet and Healthy Aging
In related news, an article in the New England Journal of
Medicine4
reviewed the conflicting research on calorie restriction and
mortality.
"Two long-term studies of the effect of calorie
restriction in rhesus monkeys conflict: one concludes that
restriction does not affect mortality, and the other concludes
that it does. Differences in dietary composition and extent of
restriction may explain the discrepant results," Linda
Partridge, PhD, writes.
Yes, as always, the devil is in the details, and this is
particularly true when it comes to diet. A calorie is not "just a
calorie," for example. There's every reason to believe that the key
to improved health and longevity lies not in calorie restriction per
se, but in restricting certain kinds of calories—calories
from sugars, to be specific. And possibly also those from poor
quality proteins.
Dr. Ron Rosedale has been passionate about diabetes and aging for
over 30 years and he is constantly reviewing the literature in this
area. He is one of my primary mentors on this topic. He is
convinced, as most other experts are, that calorie restriction does
indeed provide life extension. But it is likely not because there
are decreased total calories. He believes the key is to limit the
carbs and excessive protein. The fat calories are "essentially free'
and do not impair insulin or leptin signaling, or the mTOR pathways,
which can contribute to decreased longevity.
Dr. Partridge points out two primary differences between the two
studies that may account for the conflicting results:
The control groups in the two studies were not fed in the
identical manner. In the first study, which did find
calorie restriction reduced chronic disease and mortality, the
control group had no restrictions on their food intake. Rather
they were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. In the second
study, which did not find a correlation between calorie
restriction and reduced mortality, the control group received a
fixed amount of food, which was lower than the ad libitum
intake. This was done in order to prevent obesity.
"Work with laboratory animals has shown that the
benefits of caloric restriction are quantitative, with
stronger reductions in food intake producing a greater
extension in life span, provided that malnutrition is
avoided," Partridge writes. "The controls in the
most recent study received a diet that was somewhat calorie
restricted, and indeed they were lighter in weight than
controls in the earlier study. Thus, they may have had some
benefits of caloric restriction, limiting the power to
detect any additional benefits from the substantively
restricted diet comprising the intervention."
The nutritional composition of the diets also differed
between the two studies. Proportions of carbohydrate, fat, and
protein were similar, but in the first study (which did find a
correlation between calorie restriction and mortality), sucrose
made up nearly 30 percent of the animals' diet. In the second,
which did not find such a correlation, the diet contained only
four percent sucrose.
This should come as no surprise to any of you who have read
any of my articles about the health hazards of sugar. The sugar
molecule is one of the most ravaging, and eating a high-sugar
diet is the most efficient way to accelerate the aging processes
in your body. So clearly, a diet low in sugar will significantly
help reduce mortality. When both the study group and the
controls are fed a fixed low-sugar diet, their outcomes can be
expected to be fairly comparable...
Dr. Partridge also mentions that studies have shown the
composition of the protein in your diet can have a
substantial effect on your health. According to Partridge:
"Studies of animal models, including rodents, have
shown that reduced intake of particular nutrients,
especially specific amino acids, rather than reduced calorie
intake underlies the health improvements brought about by
reduced food intake. This observation underscores
the importance of dietary restriction over caloric
restriction: the effects on health of reducing
overall food intake will often depend on the composition of
the diet that is fed to the controls."
I believe this is an important point to remember, as most
people simply eat far too much protein of poor quality; thinking
it's all the same. This simply isn't true, as the nutritional
content of meats and other animal products, such as eggs, are
dependent upon how the animal was raised and fed. There are
major nutritional differences between protein sources raised
in confined animal feeding operations (CAFO's) and those
raised according to organic standards, such as grass-fed beef
and pastured chickens and their eggs.
Obesity Bigger Health Crisis than Hunger
Understanding what makes for a healthy diet and lifestyle has
never been more important. Shockingly, obesity has now become a
greater global health crisis than hunger! Obesity is also the
leading cause of disabilities around the world, according to the
latest Global Burden of Disease study, published in The Lancet.5
As reported by CNN Health:6
"The report revealed that every country, with the
exception of those in sub-Saharan Africa, faces alarming obesity
rates -- an increase of 82 percent globally in the past two
decades. Middle Eastern countries are more obese than ever,
seeing a 100% increase since 1990. 'The so-called 'Western
lifestyle' is being adapted all around the world, and the
impacts are all the same,' [co-author Ali] Mokdad said.
... for the first time, noncommunicable diseases like
diabetes, stroke and heart disease top the list of leading
causes of years spent sick or injured. 'All these problems are
tied to obesity,' Mokdad said. 'We're even seeing a large
percentage of people suffering back pain now. If we could lower
the obesity rates, we'd see the numbers of noncommunicable
diseases and pain decrease as well.'
People are living longer than projected in 1990 -- on
average, 10.7 more years for men, and 12.6 more years for women.
But for many of them, the quality of life during those years is
not good. On average, people are plagued by illness or pain
during the last 14 years of life..."
Yes, modern medicine may be able to keep sick people alive
longer, but it fails miserably when it comes to providing a high
quality of life. Lifestyle-related chronic diseases are also
threatening to bankrupt nations across the globe. Dr. Margaret Chan,
director-general of the World Health Organization has referred to
noncommunicable diseases "a slow-motion disaster" that may
eventually become financially unsustainable. According to a 2011
report7
by the World Economic Forum and Harvard School of Public Health,
noncommunicable diseases is expected to cost more than $30 trillion
over the next two decades alone!
Clearly, something needs to change. Part of the problem is that
so many of the recommendations issued by conventional medicine are
seriously flawed, having been thoroughly corrupted by conflicts of
interest. The notion that you cannot trust your doctor's advice on
diet and exercise is disconcerting for most people, but the fact is
that many doctors are clueless when it comes to nutrition
and fitness. There's no shortage of physicians that will OK
aspartame for weight control and diabetics, or tell you to avoid
saturated fats and stick to a low-fat diet, for example. The list
goes on. The failure of such recommendations to produce good health
can clearly be seen among the general population that believes such
myths.
I've spent the better part of the last two decades researching
and trying to pin down the necessary ingredients of a healthy diet
and lifestyle. The end result can be found in my comprehensive
Nutrition Plan, which is available free of charge.
There's still cause for hope however. According to a national
study8
featured in The New York Times,9
there's been a modest decline in obesity rates among 2- to
4-year-olds from poor families, which is a good sign, however small
it might be. As reported by the NYT:
"The study was based on data from 30 states and the
District of Columbia and covered the years from 1998 to 2010.
The share of children who were obese declined to 14.9 percent in
2010, down from 15.2 percent in 2003, after rising between 1998
and 2003. Extreme obesity also declined, dropping to 2.07
percent in 2010 from 2.22 percent in 2003... It is unclear what
drove the decline, but Dr. Blanck offered hypotheses.
Breastfeeding, which often leads to healthier weight gain
for young children, has increased since 2000. The percentage of
6-month-olds still being breast-fed increased to 47.7 percent
among children born in 2009, up from 34.2 percent among children
born in 2000. Breastfeeding of infants from low-income families
has risen over the years. In 1980, only 28 percent of infants
from those families had ever been breast-fed, compared with 66
percent in 2011. ... the amount of money spent on food marketing
to children declined by nearly 20 percent from 2006 to 2009,
with the biggest drop in television advertising."