Can Type 2 Diabetes be reversed?
Is it possible to reverse type 2 diabetes? The short answer is yes!
In this article we explore how just about anybody can reverse their type 2 diabetes simply and affordably.
Let’s face it – type 2 diabetes is a MASSIVE problem today.
It is so big, in fact, that over 1/3 of the entire American population either has or is pre-diabetes.
1 out of every 3 people reading this article is diabetic.
Now I know that’s a pretty scary statement to make, but just look at these statistics [1]:
- Almost 30,000,000 (30 Million) children and adults in the United States that have diabetes
- 86,000,000 (86 Million) Americans have pre-diabetes (the forerunner to full-blown diabetes)
- 1,400,000 (1.4 Million) Americans are diagnosed with diabetes each year
- That breaks down to 3,835 people per day
- That’s 1 person every 23 seconds!
- Of all those people diagnosed with diabetes, 5% have type 1 and 95% have type 2 diabetes
- Of all those people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, approximately 85% are overweight or obese
- The annual total cost to treat diagnosed diabetes in 2012 was $245,000,000,000.00 ($245 Billion)
- The annual total cost to treat all diabetes-related illness (diagnosed, undiagnosed, pre-diabetes & gestational diabetes) in 2012 was $322,000,000,000 ($322 Billion)
- Individuals with diabetes spend an average of $13,700 per year to treat the disease and its side effects through pharmaceutical solutions (neuropathy, ulcers etc).
Those are some pretty substantial numbers in anyone’s books!
Dangers of Type 2 Diabetes
The additional dangers your body is exposed to when you have type 2 diabetes are substantial. These include:
- hypoglycemia
- hypertension
- high cholesterol
- heart attacks
- strokes
- blindness
- kidney disease
- amputations and more…
It makes sense to keep an open mind to new views on treatments that can eliminate the disease from your body. Especially one as simple as just changing your diet!
The problem with current treatment methods
Unfortunately, most medical approaches to diabetes treatment today focus on only treating the symptoms of the disease.
They do not focus at all on eliminating the root cause of the disease.
Why you might ask?
Well, let’s keep in mind that type 2 diabetes is what is known as a progressive disease.
This means that it gets worse over time and often requires more medicine to treat the additional symptoms that arise.
Which in turn means that a patient with diabetes is actually worth a lot of money over time. In fact a patient becomes more valuable over time as their needs for additional medication increase!
In other words, it is better business to treat the symptoms of diabetes than it is to remove the cause of the problem because it is more profitable!
This market is worth around $322 billion a year remember?
Why would big pharma ever want to find a way to prevent or cure the disease?
Simply put – if they did, they’d go out of business!
The arguments about using diet to treat diabetes
I am always on the lookout for alternative ideas and ways to control and manage diabetes and its related chronic pain.
This is especially so when these ideas involve a natural alternative to treatment.
I recently came across a book that claims to be able to reverse type 2 diabetes, and its related symptoms like neuropathy pain, through simple diet changes.
It also claimed to be able to completely reverse the disease in as little as 3 weeks!
After reading the info on their website, I decided to research this idea a bit further on my own. I wanted to see if there was any truth to the idea that you can control or even reverse type 2 diabetes through diet alone.
I wasn’t surprised to find that using diet alone to control type 2 diabetes has been a controversial topic for years.
The pro-pharma group always saying it doesn’t work and that you need diabetes medication to help manage the disease.
The anti-pharma group always saying it does work, but then are generally thin on science or research info to back up their claims.
Even the American Diabetes Association has dietary guidelines that focus on eating only to treat the symptoms of diabetes. That is in conflict with some emerging theories about how to use diet to control or reverse type 2 diabetes by treating the cause.
Doctor shows it is possible to reverse type 2 diabetes by changing your diet
One such emerging theory I found that seems to be backed up with scientific fact, is that put forward by Dr. Sarah Hallberg.
Dr. Hallberg is a doctor that specializes in treating overweight patients, a high% of whom have diabetes or pre-diabetes.
A TEDx Talk she gave provides some really compelling evidence that it is possible to completely reverse type 2 diabetes through simple diet changes.
In it, she outlines very clearly how the 3 different food types (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) affect insulin production in our bodies. It is the wrong balance in diet here that is the main cause of the disease.
Treat the cause, not the symptom
She illustrates the vicious circle most diabetics or pre-diabetics find themselves in when using traditional pharmaceutical oriented treatments. These treatments only treat the symptoms of diabetes, and not the root cause.
By only treating the symptoms, the treatment actually just perpetuates the disease itself, and the patient never really gets better.
She discusses how she has successfully treated people by simply changing what they eat. By removing the root cause of the disease, they have recovered to the point where they are now living a completely diabetes-free life.
It’s interesting to note that she doesn’t claim to have found a ‘cure’ for diabetes. She is quite clear that if you are predisposed to the disease and you go back to bad eating habits, the disease could well come back.
However, she does state clearly that her patients that have followed her advice on diet now live a diabetes-free life.
Based on her experience with her patients, this treatment option should work with just about anyone that has type 2 diabetes as it treats the root cause of the disease.
I highly recommend that you watch her presentation if you have type 2 diabetes.
It will certainly give you food for thought, and I feel that her advice is well worth following if you are a type 2 diabetic.
The bottom line, however, is that by simply changing what you eat, it seems it is possible for almost anyone with type 2 diabetes to become diabetes free.
Watch the talk below (or on YouTube):
References:
[1] American Diabetes Association – Statistics about diabetes. http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/
