Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

By Satyajit Dash, LCHF Nutrition Coach

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), diabetes is currently one of the biggest health
concerns that the world is facing today. It is also India’s fastest growing epidemic with an official record
of 72 million cases recorded in 2017, an increase of over 20 million from 2011, this figure expected to
nearly double by 2025 for India.

Type 1 diabetes occurs when the body produces insufficient quantities of insulin. It is usually detected
more in children. Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body does not effectively use the insulin produced.
This is due to lack of physical activity, obesity coupled with incorrect dietary habits. Gestational
diabetes occurs among pregnant women. In about 90 percent of cases, it is Type 2 diabetes that
people are suffering from. The occurrence of Type 2 diabetes (Diabetes Mellitus) may be prevented
or reversed by adopting a healthy eating lifestyle.

In Diabetics (T2), blood sugar is a symptom of the underlying problem of insulin resistance and
carbohydrate intolerance, so when we manage diabetes by indirectly reducing blood sugar with either
medicines or insulin, we are only treating the symptoms of the disease and not addressing the root
cause.

The big question, is diabetes is a disease? No, its not. I will explain you how. Now, understand this. AS
its not a disease, it can not be cured with medicine. Diabetes is a nutritional disorder and can only be
treated with the right knowledge of Nutrition, only if you are open to learn the basic nutrition science.

Todays diabetes treatment is more focussed on management only and not towards the reversal. I will
today help you to understand the why & how behind type2 diabetes.

1: How food affects blood sugar.

What happens when we eat carbohydrates, protein, and fat?

Your blood insulin responds very differently to different macronutrients. Fat does not impact blood
insulin levels. Carbs have a high impact, and protein impacts them moderately, but fat has no impact.
Carbs and fats can both provide energy for the body—but not at the same time. When carbs are
abundant in the diet, carbs function as the preferred fuel source. But when carbs are limited in the
diet, fat becomes the preferred fuel source.

When you reduce your intake of one macronutrient, you have to increase your intake of at least one
other macronutrient to avoid feeling hungry and not have enough energy.

In a low carb, high-fat diet, fat provides you with the energy your body needs, and it also reduces
hunger and cravings.

2. Carbohydrate intolerance and insulin resistance

Type 2 diabetes is a disease of high blood sugar. It can also be thought of as carbohydrate
intolerance or insulin resistance. That means when someone with type 2 diabetes eats
carbohydrates, it causes their blood sugar to rise above a healthy level.

Everyone has a different carbohydrate tolerance. One person may able to eat a carb-heavy diet with
no problem, and another may get blood sugar spikes and gain weight from eating very few
carbohydrates. Both people can be healthy, as long as they are eating within their personal tolerance
levels.

What is a carbohydrate? It’s one of the main energy sources in many foods, including bread, pasta,
fruit, and starches. When carbohydrates are digested, they are broken down into glucose in the blood.
You may know this as blood sugar.

But it’s important to know, how much Sugar required by our body?

An adult body on an average have 5 litters of blood. And a healthy body always try to maintain a blood
sugar level of 100 mg/dl. What does these no tell you. 100mg/dl comes out to be 1 gm. Per 1 liter of
blood, which is 5gm. Per 5 liter of blood. What is the minimum safe level of blood sugar level a healthy
person can achieve in fasting condition? Its 70mg/dl. That’s 3.5gm. per 5 liter. So for optimum brain
function, the minimum sugar (glucose) that is required by the body is just 3.5 mg. way less than a
teaspoon (~5gm). But how much sugar we eat on daily basis? Let’s ask our self and do a self-check.
The below infographics will help you doing that.

The body allows for only 1 teaspoon of sugar per 5 litres of blood, but there are 9 teaspoons in a cup
of cooked white rice.

The excess glucose in your blood is pulled out by the hormone insulin. In a person with a high
carbohydrate tolerance, this process works well, and excess blood sugar is promptly removed.

In a person with carbohydrate intolerance, type 2 diabetes, or prediabetes, this system breaks down.
The body loses its insulin sensitivity and more and more insulin is required to remove the excess blood
sugar. As a result, blood sugar levels remain high and insulin levels are high as well, and these high
insulin levels can make your body even less sensitive to insulin.

The result? The cycle will happen over and over again, and the problem will get worse.
3: How type 2 diabetes became an epidemic

Have you heard about a 1958 study named “Seven Country Study” by Ancel Keys? If not, I will urge
you to do a google search and do some research to find more on this. Ancel keys seven country study
gave us this new food pyramid in 1970s.

The food pyramid recommended 6-11 servings of carbs per day, and very little fat—a typical very low-
fat, & a very high-carb diet. As we discussed earlier type 2 diabetes is a disease of carbohydrate
intolerance. Someone with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes has a low carbohydrate tolerance, so eating
carbs will lead to exaggerated blood sugar spikes. While those with a high carb tolerance may be able
to eat a carb-heavy diet and remain healthy, someone with a low carb tolerance will experience
chronic high blood sugar and likely even weight gain if they eat a high-carb diet.

Soon after these guidelines were recommended in 1977, type 2 diabetes prevalence increased
dramatically, and it hasn’t slowed down since. These dietary recommendations have made high carb,
low-fat foods a staple across globe including India. Under the fear-psychosis, Diary Ghee, butter,
cheese & coconut oil consumptions were replaced with the unhealthy hydrogenated industrial oils
(which are loaded with trans-fat), in the name of “Healthy”, sugar laden and low-fat processed grains
flooded the market. The so-called healthy diet began to include more sugary & processed flours as
well as more processed grains. Since all carbohydrates (even complex carbs) are broken down into
sugar in the body, these dietary recommendations meant that the average blood sugar of sedentary
humans began to rise, and the diabetes epidemic began to grow.
4: Why ‘eat less, exercise more’ doesn’t work

With the explosion of type 2 diabetes, there has also been an explosion in the treatments offered.
Many new drugs have been brought to market, and there are hundreds of lifestyle interventions to
choose from.

The problem with a medication-based approach is that you’ll most likely have to be on these
medications for the rest of your life. They are expensive, and many come with a host of side effects.
The medication approach focuses on management of diabetes, not reversal. Taking medications for
type 2 diabetes combats the end result, which is rising blood sugar, but does not address the root
causes—insulin resistance and carbohydrate intolerance.

Shifting the paradigm to diabetes reversal, however, means addressing the root causes of type 2
diabetes.

Most lifestyle interventions focus on eating less and exercising more. I am pretty sure, many of you
must have followed this advice. Are you getting any better? Did you manage to stop your diabetes
medicine? And are you able to maintain your HbA1c below 5? And then, the most important thing,
you just can not stay hungry most of the time.

The problem with these programs is that they tend to be high in carbs, even if they are cutting back
on calories. When you eat a high-carb diet, the resulting increase in your blood sugar triggers an insulin
response in your body, and insulin blocks your body’s ability to burn fat.

Insulin actively blocks the breakdown of stored body fat, meaning that as long as insulin is high, it
will be very difficult to lose weight, even if you are eating very little.

When you eat too few calories, you typically feel exhausted and experience hunger and cravings.
However, a low-carb, high fat diet can help keep your blood sugar and insulin levels down. It may seem
counterintuitive, but to lose fat, you have to eat fat. This way of eating style is called low-carb, healthy-
fat or LCHF way of eating.

5: LCHF & diabetes reversal.

Before this, we need to understand the problem with the current approach of diabetes treatment in
a little more detail. Current approach is all about diabetes management & works on three lies.

• It is a progressive disease
• Treat the sugar
• Control the sugar with medicine / insulin.

Any disease (in this case diabetes) is your body’s intelligent response to a perceived threat. This threat
can be physical, chemical or emotional. In this case increased blood sugar is a response to a threat.
We try to suppress the blood sugar with chemicals, but the body responds to our abuse and neglect
(by the food we feed it) by further increasing blood sugar levels.

Conventional treatment is oriented towards the blood sugar, whereas the real culprit is insulin
resistance. In the case of diabetes, insulin resistance is the disease, blood sugar is only the symptom.
And the medication or insulin shots are just to suppress or manage the symptoms only. Therefore, it
cannot cure or reverse the diabetics ever.
2 approaches:

Approach 1 – Treat the symptom

If you aim to treat the sugar, the only treatment is medicines – tablets or medicines or both. And
may be at a later stage insulin injections…. More , more & more……

Approach 2 – Treat the root cause

If you aim to treat the insulin resistance, the only treatment is diet.
In approach 1, by giving medicines to the patient, the blood sugar will come down for some time,
then it will go up again. Medicine is attached to money. The manufacturing and selling of medicines
makes money.

In approach 2, the blood insulin and the blood sugar come down and stay down. There is no money
involved.
Now you may be able to understand why the conventional treatment of diabetes has taken
approach 1.

The right approach to treating diabetes should be approach 2.

The culprit of diabetes is insulin resistance.

The problem – high level of insulin

Conventional treatment of diabetes is similar to pinching the baby and rocking the cradle – advising
a diet that increases your blood sugar and prescribing medicines / insulin to bring the blood sugar
down.

The science is simple. The journey may be little longer & difficult. But just like a rocket uses boosters
to escape the force of gravity of the earth, we need to empower ourselves with knowledge and
launch out of the faulty beliefs that are holding us down. Once we launch out, we’ll be in a different
zone.

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