How to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes reversal, not just treatment, should be a goal in the management of type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes can be reversed not only with an extremely low-calorie diet, but it can also be reversed with an extremely healthy diet.

Even if diabetes reversal can be achieved with calorie restriction, instead of subsisting off liquid diet drinks, on the plant-based diet at least one can eat large volumes of real food. So, even if it only works because it is just another type of calorie-restricted diet, it is certainly a healthier version.

But even participants in the study who did not lose weight – or even gained weight eating enormous quantities of whole healthy plant foods – appeared to improve their diabetes. Thus, the beneficial effects of this kind of diet appear to extend beyond weight loss.

In one study, the control diet researchers used, was the conventional diabetic diet, which actually had nearly twice the fibre content of the Standard American Diet, so it was probably healthier than what the participants had been used to eating.

The study compared the number of units of insulin with which subjects had to inject themselves daily before and after going on the plant-based diet.

Overall, despite no change in weight, insulin requirements were cut about 60 percent and half were able to get off insulin altogether, after just 16 days!

To be clear, we are talking about diabetics who had had diabetes as long as 20 years, injecting 20 units of insulin a day, getting off insulin altogether in as few as 13 days, thanks to less than two weeks on a plant-based diet. Patient 15, for example, had injected 32 units of insulin while on the control diet and then, 18 days later, none. That is the power of plants.

As a bonus, their cholesterol dropped like a rock to under 150 on average in 16 days, making them nearly heart attack proof as well. Just as “moderate changes in diet usually result in only modest reductions” in cholesterol, asking people with diabetes to make moderate changes often achieves equally moderate results, which is one possible reason why most end up on drugs, injections or both. Moderation in all things is not necessarily a good thing.

Dr Greger latest books:  How Not to Die, the How Not to Die Cookbook, and How Not to Diet all became instant New York Times Best Sellers. 100% of all proceeds he has ever received from his books, DVDs and speaking engagements have always and will always be donated to charity.