How To Beat Diabetes

Our nation is currently in the midst of a chronic diabetes epidemic that threatens the health of the next generation in a way never before seen in history. Dr. Alan Cantwell tells us that the CDC in Atlanta reports that 33% of the babies born in 2011 will be diabetic by 2050 (age 39).

Diabetes in The Modern Medical Community

Celebrated medical author and alternative health practioner Dr. Mark SIrcus echoes the warning: “Diabetes is actually an extremely serious warning to civilization; it is an announcement that the rising tide of radiation, mercury, other deadly chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs are poisoning humanity.” We cannot overestimate how critical this epidemic is. Consider the words of author Joseph W. Thompson regarding the severity of the situation: Perhaps the words of Joseph W. Thompson taken from will highlight the severity of the situation:

“Without action on our part, this generation of children is threatened with a future of chronic disease, economic burden, and an eroding quality of life. Indeed, they may become the first generation in our nation’s history to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents.”

There is an obvious connection between the obesity epidemic and diabetes. As worldwide populations become more Westernized (and more obese), the incidence of diabetes skyrockets. Here in the U.S., two-thirds of adults and nearly one-third of children and teens are currently obese or overweight. A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicts that by the year 2020 nearly 75% of the American population will be overweight or obese.

Know Your Risk of Diabetes

This exploding epidemic has led to the shocking prediction that in less than nine years, half of all Americans will be either pre-diabetic or suffer full-blown type 2 diabetes. Even with the previously noted gloomy predictions, there is hope! Type 2 diabetes can indeed be prevented. In fact, with moderate dietary changes it usually can be completely reversed in a very short time. Formerly called adult onset diabetes, Type 2 diabetes is increasingly being diagnosed now in younger children. Tragically, most health care provides do not realize the significant role of diet and lifestyle to both prevent and reverse Type 2 diabetes. Patients are told to learn to live with their diabetes and to learn to control it because it can’t be cured.

“Patients are told to learn to live with their diabetes and to learn to control it because it can’t be cured. ‘No, no, and not!’ I say. Don’t Live with it, get thin and get rid of it, as many of my patients have!” - Joel Fuhrman, MD, author of Eat to Live

The key lies in the fact that Type 2 diabetes is not a blood sugar issue. It is disease of insulin and leptin signaling. Leptin is a critical link between obesity and diabetes. Author Ron Rosedale, MD states in his book, The Leptin Connection, “When your body has clear leptin signaling, this hormone (leptin) regulates hunger and tells your body when to store and when to burn fat.” Ironically, due to today’s poor dietary choices, body fat can actually produce so much leptin that the brain becomes insensitive to the message to burn fat, resulting in leptin resistance. This becomes an ever-increasing vicious cycle with a greater intake of calories, increasing fat storage, more leptin production, and greater insensitivity to leptin’s signals.

Leptin signaling plays an important role in insulin signaling, insulin resistance, and ultimately diabetes. The only known way to restore the sensitivity to leptin and insulin is through proper diet. As the body is nourished with a primarily raw, whole food, plant-based diet (low in starches but rich in nutrients), the body fat begins to diminish, the excess production of leptin slows, and the brain once again becomes sensitive to the signal to turn off the appetite and to burn the fat.

Understanding Leptin and Insulin Better

The first few weeks of any dietary change are critical as the brain is still insensitive to leptin. As leptin sensitivity is restored, the appetite diminishes and achieving optimal body weight becomes easier, and insulin sensitivity is restored as well. In Type 2 diabetes, the problem is not a lack of insulin In Type 2 diabetes, the problem is not a lack of insulin production but the cell’s insensitivity to insulin and the inability of the insulin to transport glucose into the cells where it can be utilized for energy production — and saturated fats from animal source foods are primary contributors to this insulin sensitivity. Our length of life and quality of health depend upon how efficiently our cells communicate and act in harmony.

Leptin and insulin are the most important hormones that carry out this communication in relation to energy. These two hormones deliver messages about energy and, to a large extent, control metabolism and aging. Metabolism can roughly be defined as the chemistry that turns food into life. “Metabolism can roughly be defined as the chemistry that turns food into life. Insulin and leptin, therefore, are critical to health and disease. Insulin and leptin work together to control the quality of metabolism (and, to a significant extent, the rate of metabolism). Insulin works mostly at the individual cell level, telling the vast majority of cells whether to burn or store fat or sugar and whether to utilize that energy for maintenance and repair or reproduction. This is extremely important, because, at the individual cell level, turning on maintenance and repair equates to increased longevity. Turning up cellular reproduction, on the other hand, increases the risk of cancer.” - Metabolic specialist, Ron Rosedale, MD Here’s how insulin affects longevity and the risk of disease:

1. Insulin production is largely determined by glucose and the individual cell’s sensitivity to insulin.
2. Lower levels of insulin are very healthy as long as the cells are sensitive to insulin’s message and allow the glucose to enter.
3. Animal fats in the diet tend to lower the cell’s sensitivity to the message, preventing the efficient transport of glucose into the cells.
4. As a result, greater amounts of insulin are produced (or supplemented with medication) in an effort to force the glucose into the cells.
5. These higher levels of insulin are associated with faster aging and more rapid development of diseases.

To summarize, the primary functions of insulin are transporting glucose into the cells and storing excess energy for future time of need. Tragically, today the Standard American Diet is so loaded with processed foods and animal fats, devoid of fiber, loaded with sugars, and excessively high in calories that the average person’s insulin levels are constantly elevated and way too high to support health. The cells are constantly bombarded with insulin, leading to insulin resistance and increasing storage of fat, leading to diabetes and diseases associate with aging.

Start with a Healthy Diet

What can we do to restore the harmony in the body, to avoid development of diabetes, and to help our body reverse diabetes if we are already dealing with it? If you have Type 2 diabetes, I encourage you to fully embrace The Hallelujah Diet for six weeks. Monitor your progress and you will discover the positive impact of dietary and lifestyle intervention — you will not want to go back to the standard American diet! Incidentally, Type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent diabetes or juvenile onset diabetes) need not occur, either.

Genetics and Diabetes

In fact, Type 1 diabetes may be prevented with dietary intervention by parents prior to conception. Following birth, if a baby is breastfed exclusively for the first six months of life, never exposed to eating animal source foods, and nourished with a 100% whole food plant-based diet after weaning, the risk of ever developing Type 1 diabetes is dramatically reduced. Even for those who now suffer with Type 1 diabetes, dietary intervention can slow the progression, significantly reduce the required amount of daily insulin, and prevent many of the life-threatening side effects.

For more information on how to maintain healthy blood sugars while transitioning to The Hallelujah Diet, consider The Hallelujah Diet Refined, Maintaining Healthy Blood Sugar by Olin Idol, ND, CNC.