I am apart of a vegan FB site. On this side the topic of diabetes and how a vegan diet will heal diabetes. Of course I stated this a myth. When you ask for proof…they wanted me to go to all these youtube videos that really don’t explain anything of how the healing works. They show a few clinical studies. Then tell me I have been lied too for years. I have not seen any studies that suggest the pancreas beta cell are regenerated after starting any type of diet let alone a vegan diet.
There isn’t any scientific evidence behind the claims that vegan diets cure or reverse diabetes. That is totally ridiculous. A vegan FB page is not a place to have an open discussion about that. You should ask yourself hard questions about what the prominent claims are and who made them. You will no doubt double back to core group involved with PRCM, PETA and animal rights. Why is that? Because a core belief comes from the ethical decision not to eat animals. The claim that diabetes is cured with a vegan diet is just a made up argument that vegan diets is good.
Don’t be fooled by alternative facts and beware, some of the vegan community take this as religion and questioning or criticizing their arguments are tantamount to heresy.
There is a very well known “dr” from Northern Calif who advocates a vegan diet as a way to “cure” diabetes. His approach is to completely overwhelm your body with excessively high carb counts (mostly grains) so your body would theoretically reset itself when the carb counts are reduced after a period of time. As a former vegan, in my personal opinion based on my experiences only, this concept is utter rubbish. I have since gone back to the flesh eating world and severely limit my carbs just so I have a clear head and don’t feel like utter dreck. Hope you find a solution that works for - just remember that diabetes is a progressive disease. Many diabetic side effects are a result of cumulative high blood sugars.
Pretty sure if all it took for a cure was to change our eating habits to a new form of diet, vegan or otherwise, we’d have discovered this a long time ago and almost everyone on here would be eating it.
All too often we hear of groups that make claims they have a cure to (insert ailment here). They use this as a platform to get people to read and rely on the gullible nature of those who don’t know otherwise or are looking for the miracle cure. Then they fall in, hook, line, and sinker.
There are ways to manage diabetes, but unfortunately at the moment there is no cure… if only we could relay that message and have them believe it!
I agree with David’s cynicism/skeptism though… gave me a chuckle.
Yes; it’s nonsense. This reminds of the flat-earthers who have an answer for every plausible denial of their crazy idea that the earth is flat. There are websites where sufferers gather together to bolster each other’s arguments to the outside world. You would not believe the long winded explanations they have of ordinary things we non-flat-earthers can see with our own senses, as well as common sense. There is a family member who suffers from this malady and it’s a sign of (in his case) of some mental instability. Being vegan isn’t going to cure diabetes. It’s not going to prevent it.
No. As far as we know nothing cures it. Jason turner who is type 1 has been basically cured with two islet cell implantations. Can a diet help treat it. Yes and the diet is different according to the person. That said some people with type 2 do seem to have held it in check by some dietary means and or surgery like the stomach wrap surgery- I’ve forgotten the name of that now. Someone who is type 1 on YouTube had changed her carb ratio to 1-60 by eating a vegan, mostly fruit diet.
I note that you are Type 2. Diabetes reversal in type 2’s through weight loss is being demonstrated in the UK the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiReCT) coordinated by Prof Mike Lean at University of Glasgow, with local clincians. This clinical trail highlights that sustained dieting at 800Calories a day can reverse type 2 insulin resistance. Before I was diagnosed as LADA I did the diet and reversed the type 2 aspects. If you want to read more I suggest your order the Blood Sugar Diet Book by Dr Michael Moseley. Although not Vegan his book offers a nutrious (Vegetarian/non-vegetarian) solution to most type 2’s conditions. Hope this helps.
Just to summarize what people (and reputable doctors) are saying - these diets, weight loss, etc., are ways to control diabetes. They do not cure it. Once a diabetic, always a diabetic - T1 or T2.
That said, I do have a friend who is a T2 and has gone off insulin and metformin due to his change to a vegan diet, with no grains and fruits. He has excellent non-diabetic blood glucose and A1C levels - but when he goes off his diet, his numbers go back up.
Actually, if you believe that starvation diets cure T2 then you should also believe that starvation diets cure T1. It is important to remember that the first treatment for T1 was the “Allen Diet.” I think the longest any T1 patient lived on this diet was about 4 years (Elizabeth Hughes). In some ways this was a miracle, in other ways it was a terrible thing.
I guess if you don’t mind dying then eating a starvation diet will cure your diabetes.
Brian, thanks for your input and highlgihting the inaccuracy in my post. The Moseley book does a better job explaining the process by which the ‘starvation diet’ works. Essentially at 800 calories a day visceral fat is eventually used and by doing so drains the fat that saturates the pancreas which is considered to be the reason for insulin resitance. There is no intention that patients stay on this diet for ever but sustain it over typically 8 to 12 weeks to get their BMI to healthy levels. MRI scans pre and post dieting have confirmed this reduction of fat in the pancreas and this has been associated with reduced insulin resistance and BG levels. My experience was that 8 eeks on this diet reduced my weight from 90kg to 77kg (BMI post diet of ~25) and my fasting BG dropped to normal levels (<6mMol/ltr). I also had a friend who was type 2 and coincidentally was on the same regime and also succeeded in reversing their T2 BG levels to normal. Since resuming a normal diet my weight like many others has gone up but only to 79-80kgs and I have managed this level now for over a year. The book is worth a read as it explains more about the science with case studies before the diet is covered. It isn’t aimed at T1s with no insulin production (but it works for pre-transition T1 LADAs). Hope this clears some points up…honest I am not on any commission
They are still “controlling” their diabetes, not curing it:
“The term ‘reversal’ is used when people can go off medication but still must engage in a lifestyle program in order to stay off,” says Ann Albright, Ph.D., RD. She’s the director of diabetes translation at the CDC.
For some people, reaching a healthier weight will mean taking fewer medications, or in rarer cases, no longer needing those medications at all.
“The earlier in the course of the [condition] that you make these changes, the more likely you are to stack the deck in your favor that you won’t progress,” Albright says.
I have been a vegan for 33 years and a type 1 diabetic. My diabetes is considered very well controlled. I have never seen the “normal” vegan community claim they can cure type 1 diabetes. A vegan diet can be a very healthy diet, it still depends on what you eat. Type 2 diabetics can benefit from a healthy diet and some can solve their issues because of switching to a healthier diet. PCRM has a lot of very healthy recipes they offer and a lot of suggestions to switching to a healthier diet.
“Fat in the pancreas” as a cause of insulin resistance makes absolutely no sense whatever. The pancreas doesn’t use insulin; it produces it; what is there to “resist”?
Are you sure you didn’t mean fat in the liver? That would (at least superficially) make a whole lot more sense.
Another feature of these starvation diets is that they are inherently “low carb.” It turns out that low carb alone is an effective tool to losing weight and reducing visceral fat. Personally I just find the use of starvation diets to potentially very dangerous to your health and unnecessary. If you can manage your diabetes using a low carb diet that is much safer.
ps. The big “feature” of starvation diets (like Medifast and the Newcaste) is that they require constant and expensive medical oversight. One can see how in a doctors eyes this would be a superior diet to one that doesn’t require any medical oversight.
