The Diabetes Type II Epidemic
I recently finished reading a book by Dr. Jason Fung called “The Diabetes Code”. The reason I picked this book was because Michel’s most recent lab results showed prediabetes, with a Hemoglobin A1c of 5.8. 5.7 is the line between prediatbetes and almost diabetes, so I thought it was time to implement a protocol to keep Michel from getting full blown diabetes type 2.
Fortunately for me, Michel has always been very willing to try natural health protocols. When I explained Dr. Fung’s protocol, he was willing to implement it and we had good results. His Hgb A1c went from 5.8 to 5.6 in 3 months without any medication at all. Let me explain what we did and why.
Michel fasted (water fast) for 5 days and then went on a very low carbohydrate diet. The fasting burns up any excess sugar in the cells and fat stored in the organs (like the liver and pancreas). He stops eating around 7:00 pm and then doesn’t eat again until noon. This gives the body a chance to clear sugar from the system. It also promotes autophagy (self eating) which is a natural cleansing mechanism of the body.
Dr. Jason Fung is a nephrologist from Toronto, Canada. Since Diabetes Type 2 is the number one cause of kidney disease, he started doing research on the root causes of this health condition. There are 34 million people in the US with Diabetes Type 2, making it an epidemic in our nation. This disease affects every organ of the body causing much pain and suffering in the lives of these patients and their families.
The current thinking on Diabetes Type 2 is that it is an incurable, progressive disease. You can take medication to slow this progression, but it can’t be cured. Dr. Fung says no to this type of approach. He believes that Diabetes Type 2 is completely curable WITHOUT medications.
He arrived at this conclusion by looking for the root cause of the disease. This is functional medicine at its best, not treating symptoms, but finding root causes and treating those root causes. Dr. Fung believes that the root cause of Diabetes Type 2 is too much sugar stuffed into individual cells by high amounts of insulin.
When a patient has high blood sugar, they might be prescribed Metformin, or other anti diabetic meds, but eventually these patients will be on insulin. Hyperinsulemia is what causes the cells to be stuffed with sugar. Insulin literally pushes more sugar into cells that are already filled to the brim.
I am not sure how many of you out there are sci-fi fans, but 2001 A Space Odyssey has a great example of insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is when insulin receptor sites on cells are no longer open for business. In 2001, they have the first Artificial Intelligence that I know of in a movie. It is the evil Hal 9000 computer. In the story, the evil Hal 9000 kills a bunch of astronauts on a ship that are in suspended animation. There are only 2 astronauts left, one goes outside the ship to fix something but then becomes detached from the ship and floats out into space. The last astronaut left (Dave) gets into a pod and goes after him. Dave is unable to retrieve his friend and comes back to the ship and says “Hal, open the pod bay doors” and Hal responds “You know I can’t do that Dave”. This is insulin resistance. The receptor sites on the cells won’t open the pod bay doors, but not because they are evil like the Hal 9000, but because the cell is already STUFFED with sugar (glucose).
So you are probably asking yourself at this point, “How do I empty all that sugar from my cells?” Well….basically you stop eating. I know that isn’t a very popular answer, but it is the correct one in Dr. Fung’s opinion. Once the sugar is emptied from the cells, the blood sugar levels go down and insulin resistance is remedied. When the cells are no longer stuffed with sugar, Hal will once again open the pod bay doors.
Now, Dr. Fung is not advocating that you never eat again, ha ha. He actually puts his patients on protocols of very low carbohydrate diets with intermittent fasting. The reason for this is that low calorie diets don’t help patients to lose weight or empty the sugar from the cells. What happens in a low calorie diet is that your metabolism slows down to compensate for the lower caloric intake. This is why low calorie diets don’t work. In Dr. Fung’s protocol, you aren’t eating sugars or complex carbohydrates which prevents sugar build up in the cells, but you do eat fats and protein. Then, you SURPRISE the body with a fast to burn off any excess sugar in the cells and also intraorganic fat (fat in the organs). When you have fat in your liver or pancreas, it can greatly reduce the efficiency of these organs that are vital to sugar handling in the body.
Anyway, this is a VERY brief synopsis of the Diabetes Code. I would highly recommend this book to anyone suffering with Diabetes Type 2, since it has all the details of diet and fasting protocols in it.