It depends on the causes of your diabetes and how long you have had high blood sugar. If you are new to diabetes you can often lower your blood sugar to pre-diabetes levels with dramatic caloric restriction and exercise, or with bariatric surgery, if you qualify. I don’t think it matters much how you restrict the calories, as long as you do it dramatically. But diabetes usually comes back after a while, as does the weight in most cases. So, in the end, there is no natural way to “cure” the disease.
Don’t get hung up on treating diabetes “naturally.” If I had pre-diabetes or new type 2 diabetes I would certainly start taking the medicine called metformin, as well. It’s natural, too, derived from the lilac tree, and has been used for centuries. If you actually succeed at losing a lot of weight, you can always stop the metformin later. In addition, controlling blood sugar prevents cardiovascular complications of diabetes and helps you lose weight.
And remember that the life-threatening dangers of type 2 diabetes come mostly from high blood pressure and cardiovascular risk, not high blood sugar (unless blood sugar gets greatly out of control). You must take statins to lower CVD risk and take blood pressure meds if you also have elevated blood pressure. (Diet and exercise will help with the blood pressure, too.)
Type 2 diabetes can be reversed through diet. Absolutely.
Firstly this is what is a normal insulin reaction looks like: Insulin is manufactured in the pancreas and secreted when your blood sugar levels rise. Blood sugar needs to be not too high and not too low. Insulin’s mechanism to remove sugar from the blood is to put it into cells, like your muscles.
If there is excess after blood glucose has gone into cells it is then put in the liver and further excess becomes fat.
What happens with type 2
When insulin is secreted the body’s cells have ‘‘receptors’ that accept the insulin’s key that then opens the doors to the cell to let the glucose in. Sadly in type 2, the receptors become resistant to the insulin key. Therefore not enough energy gets into the cell.
The body has a negative feedback system. Once the cells do not get enough energy a signal is sent back to the pancreas to manufacture even more insulin.
This is a vicious cycle. Insulin keeps going up and resistance keeps getting worse. A drug called metformin works by making cells receptive again but it has limitations and eventually, other drugs are needed. This is not ideal; so how can we reverse this? Well quite simple really.
- The crux of this scenario is that it is the sugar spikes in the blood that are causing the high levels of insulin in the first place.
- Certain foods cause insulin to enter the system in a fast and high volume way and some foods hardly disturb insulin at all.
The insulin index is similar to the GI system and by picking foods that cause little insulin response the type 2 diabetes begins to reverse.
This is a snapshot. The lower the number the lower the insulin response
Sadly many government guidelines are not beneficial and largely driven by big food and the sugar industry. Therefore medical doctors are following terrible guidelines and their hands are tied. Thankfully diabetes organization website now recommends high fat, low carb diet.
This diet will make the body feel fuller, have fewer cravings, assist in weight loss and reduce insulin levels and make the body start to be more and more insulin sensitive.
Those that like the science of this can find it in Joslin’s diabetes mellitus. A medical textbook. Or better, in Guyton’s medical physiology textbook.
Coming off refined carbohydrates (bread, pasta, crackers, pastries, sugar, and fructose are all carbohydrates) needs to be done slowly and with careful planning. Cutting down on fruit and fruit juice is beneficial but keep eating vegetables as they are a good source of carbohydrates due to high fiber and vitamins.
Other great ways to lower insulin and improve all your blood and overall health is the inclusion of intermittent fasting. But that’s for another post!
