Diabetes. Dee-ah-bee-tez. Dyabitis. Shoo-gr, as my lovely Punjabi grandma would say. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a killer and it’s capturing more lives by the day. And even when you know it’s there it still can hide in the background until it’s too late for you to turn things around. In the UK, 22,000 people die early from diabetes every year. In 15 years time, 1 in 10 of us will have it. It is costing the UK £9 billion per year. In fact, it’s such a huge public health burden that NHS England have even developed a specific prevention programme for it. It all sounds pretty horrible, doesn’t it?
But here’s the good news: Diabetes reversal is possible. Type 2 that is. Type 1 is a bit more complicated but certainly can be better controlled through lifestyle and there are a couple of cases of type 1 patients coming off insulin. As far as type 2 goes, though, its reversibility isn’t just something in the pipeline, people are doing and have been doing it for a while. BBC’s Doctor in the House Rangan Chatterjee worked with 2 diabetics on the show. After a variety of lifestyle interventions one significantly reduced her medications and one had total diabetes reversal. ITV’s The Fast Fix with Dr Zoe Williams and Prof Jason Gill showed the journeys of eight severe diabetics taking on a four-month challenge, two months in a health centre and two months at home, where they could only have 800 calories per day taken as a milkshake. They all had incredible results having been well on their way to all the complications of diabetes - heart disease, nerve damage, kidney problems, visual issues, Alzheimer’s, you name it.
So now you’re thinking: ‘but how does that apply to me? They’re on TV shows with loads of help, I don’t have any of that!’ Not only are you wrong [I’m here to help] but you also have a number of options to pursue your own diabetes reversal. The low-carb diet from diabetes.co.uk has helped over a quarter of patients come off their medications. The ketogenic diet is essentially a stricter low carb approach which is also having great results. And finally, fasting has been shown to have incredible results. In fact, very recently in the British Medical Journal, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, Jason Fung’s group put forward 3 case studies with patients undergoing an alternate-day fasting routine. They all came off insulin within 3 weeks. So if you can schedule years in your diary to generate diabetes, I’m pretty sure you can spare a few weeks to reverse it!
Obviously, by this point you’re wondering where you can sign up to a diabetes reversal program. But steady on, let’s make sure you’re safe first. Always involve your GP in the process as they can help guide you with the relevant tests and work with someone who has training in lifestyle interventions. Hi, I’m Dr. Dil…