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Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine


A Solution For Diabetes: A Plant-Based Diet
Kathy Freston
Author, Health and Wellness Expert
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/a-solution-for-diabetes-a_b_312219.html
Posted: October 7, 2009 08:50 AM

I've been researching the most common and devastating diseases Americans are 
dealing with, with the aim of finding a common thread running throughout both 
cause and reversal. As it is now, one out of every two of us will get cancer 
or heart disease, and one out of every three children born after the year 
2000 will be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. These are devastating diseases, 
certainly to those who are burdened by them, but also to a health care system 
that is struggling to keep up.

The extraordinary doctors and nutritional scientists I've talked with seem to 
be saying - and saying fervently - the same thing: a diet high in animal 
protein is disastrous to our health, while a plant-based (vegan) diet 
prevents disease and is restorative to our health. And they say this with 
peer-reviewed (the gold standard of studies) science to back them up. Even 
the very conservative ADA (American Dietetic Association) says: "Vegetarian 
diets are often associated with a number of health advantages, including 
lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood 
pressure levels, and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes. 
Vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index (BMI) and lower overall 
cancer rates."

Diabetes does not just mean you take a pill or injection every day. It means 
you can lose a decade of life. And you while you inch toward that 
uncomfortable end, you deal with an increased risk of heart attack, 
blindness, amputation, and loss of kidney function. It's a very serious 
disease. The good news is that diabetes can be halted and reversed in a very 
short time through some diet modifications.

To understand diabetes better, and to learn how to reverse it, I've talked 
with Dr. Neal Barnard, president of The Physician's Committee for Responsible 
Medicine. He is an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the George 
Washington University School of Medicine, and the author of numerous 
scientific articles in leading peer-reviewed journals, and a frequent 
lecturer at the American Diabetes Association's scientific sessions. His 
diabetes research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. 
Government's research branch. He is also the author of Dr. Neal Barnard's 
Program for Reversing Diabetes.

KF: Why is type 2 diabetes suddenly so prevalent?

NB: Diets are changing, not just in the U.S., but worldwide. Diabetes seems 
to follow the spread of meaty, high-fat, high-calorie diets. In Japan, for 
example, the traditional rice-based diet kept the population generally 
healthy and thin for many centuries. Up until 1980, only 1-5% of Japanese 
adults over age 40 had diabetes. Starting around that time, however, the 
rapid westernization of the diet meant that meat, milk, cheese, and sodas 
became fashionable. Waistlines expanded, and, by 1990, diabetes prevalence in 
Japan had climbed to 11-12%.

The same sort of trend has occurred in the U.S. Over the last century, per 
capita meat consumption increased from about 150 pounds per year (which was 
already very high, compared with other countries) in the early 1900s to over 
200 pounds today. In other words, the average American now eats 50 pounds 
more meat every year, compared with a century ago. In the same interval, 
cheese intake soared from less than 4 pounds per person per year to about 32 
pounds today. Sugar intake has gone up, too, by about 30 pounds per person 
per year. Where are we putting all that extra meat, cheese, and sugar? It 
contributes to body fat, of course, and diabetes follows. Today, about 13% of 
the U.S. adult population has type 2 diabetes, although many of them are not 
yet aware they have it.

KF: What causes diabetes?

NB: Normally, the cells of the body use the simple sugar glucose as fuel, the 
way a car uses gasoline. Glucose comes from starchy or sweet foods we eat, 
and the hormone insulin escorts it into the muscle cells to power our 
movements. Glucose also passes into our brain cells to power our thoughts. In 
type 2 diabetes, the cells resist insulin's action, so glucose has trouble 
getting into the cells.


KF: What happens to the body when one develops diabetes? What's the fallout?

NB: If glucose can't get into the cells, it builds up in the blood. It is as 
if gasoline coming out of a gas pump somehow can't get into your gas tank, 
and it ends up spilling over the side of your car, coming in through your car 
windows, and dribbling all over the pavement. It is a dangerous situation. 
The abnormally high levels of glucose circulating in the bloodstream are 
toxic to the blood vessels, especially the tiny blood vessels of the eyes, 
the kidneys, the extremities, and the heart.

KF: Is it really that serious, or can we just take a drug for it?

NB: A person with diabetes loses more than a decade of life, on average; 
about three-quarters will die prematurely of a heart attack. It is also a 
leading cause of blindness, amputations, and loss of kidney function. Many 
drugs are available, from insulin to oral medications and an ever-increasing 
variety of other medications. In order to protect the heart, many patients 
are also put on medications to lower cholesterol and blood pressure. A person 
with diabetes who walks into my office is typically using $3,000 to $5,000 
worth of medications each year. And yet these medications only slow the 
progression of the disease; many people have serious complications despite 
being on medications.

Let me emphasize that this grim scenario does not have to occur. If an 
unhealthy diet is the cause, a better diet can provide the answer to this 
problem.


KF: How can we avoid it?

NB: The key is to help our body's insulin to work normally. So long as your 
body's insulin can escort glucose into the cells normally, diabetes will not 
occur. The resistance to insulin that leads to diabetes appears to be caused 
by a build-up of fat inside the muscle cells and also inside the liver. Let 
me draw an analogy: I arrive home from work one day, and put my key in my 
front door lock. But I notice the key does not turn properly, and the door 
does not open. Peering inside the lock, I see that someone has jammed chewing 
gum into the lock. Now, if the insulin "key" cannot open up the cell to 
glucose, there is something interfering with it. It's not chewing gum, of 
course. The problem is fat. In the same way that chewing gum in a lock makes 
it hard to open your front door, fat particles inside muscle cells interfere 
with insulin's efforts to open the cell to glucose. This fat comes from beef, 
chicken, fish, cooking oils, dairy products, etc. The answer is to avoid 
these fatty foods. People who avoid all animal products obviously get no 
animal fat at all, they appear to have much less fat build-up inside their 
cells, and their risk of diabetes is extremely low. Minimizing vegetable oils 
helps, too.

And we can go beyond prevention. When people who already have diabetes adopt 
a low-fat vegan diet, their condition often improves dramatically. In our 
research, funded by the U.S. Government, we found that a vegan diet is more 
effective than a traditional current diabetes diet, and is much safer than a 
low-carb diet.

KF: What about the claim that a vegetarian diet has too many starches, which 
raises blood sugar?

NB: Starchy foods, such as whole grains, beans, and vegetables, are healthful 
foods, and the body is designed to use the glucose that they hold. In type 2 
diabetes, the body has lost some of this ability. But the answer is not to 
avoid starches, but to restore the body's ability to use them. After all, 
cultures whose diets are traditionally high in carbohydrate--Japan, China, 
Latin America, etc.--have had very low diabetes rates until meat, cheese, and 
other fatty foods displace their healthy carbohydrate-rich diets; only then 
does diabetes becomes more common.

The Atkins fad unfortunately left many people imagining that carbohydrate 
(that is, starch) is somehow risky. That notion is as unscientific as 
suggesting that water or oxygen is dangerous. The body needs all these things 
for good health.

A similarly persistent but misguided idea is the blood-type diet approach. A 
popular book on this subject said that people with type A blood should follow 
a vegetarian diet but that people with type O blood should not. Unfortunately 
many readers with type O blood followed this advice, which turned out to be 
quite wrong. The fact is, people with type O blood do as well as everyone 
else on a plant-based diet. A vegan diet is helpful and effective, regardless 
of blood type.

KF: Can diabetes be reversed?

NB: Yes. When people begin a healthful diet, most see big improvements in 
weight, cholesterol, and their blood sugar. Their need for medications 
diminishes, and some may not need medications at all. In some cases, you 
would never know they had had diabetes. However, I caution people not to 
simply throw their medications away. They need to speak with their doctors so 
they can alter their medication regimens only when and if it is appropriate.

Let me describe a case: A man named Vance joined our study. His father was 
dead by age 30, and Vance was 31 when he was diagnosed with diabetes. As our 
study began, he started a low-fat, vegan diet and gradually lost about 60 
pounds over a year's time. His blood sugar control returned to normal, and 
his doctor discontinued his medications. Imagine what it feels like to see 
family members assaulted by this disease, but then to realize that you have 
effectively tackled it by making healthful adjustments to your diet.

Vance also encouraged me to mention that it is not only blood sugar that gets 
better, his erectile dysfunction also improved dramatically, too--in case 
anyone needs an extra motivator.