Prevention, Management, and Reversal

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas. When there are troubles with insulin, glucose builds up in the blood.

• A fasting glucose level below 100 is considered normal.
• A fasting glucose between 100 and 125 signals pre-diabetes.
• A fasting glucose of 126 or higher means you have diabetes.

Though "silent," at least at first, diabetes can turn into a horrible disease. It can greatly increase our risk of heart attacks, strokes, peripheral arterial disease, erectile dysfunction, blindness, diabetes neuropathy, poor wound healing, and kidney failure.

There are two main types of diabetes – Type 1 and Type 2. At least 90% to 95% of diabetics in America have Type 2 diabetes. Studying the evolution and lifestyle habits of humankind, we can confidently assert that Type 2 diabetes is virtually entirely preventable. Worldwide, many populations are now suffering epidemic rates of Type 2 diabetes because many populations live in a "food toxic" environment and exercise little or not at all.

Type 2 diabetes usually starts after the age of 40. But because of America’s childhood obesity epidemic, more and more of our youth are being diagnosed with the disease, including children as young as 10 – and occasionally even younger.

Type 2 diabetes affects more than 20 million people in the U.S. Roughly 40 million more Americans have pre-diabetes.

There’s more troubling news. The pre-cursors of Type 2 diabetes – pre-diabetes and the Metabolic Syndrome – increase our risk of heart disease almost as much as Type 2 diabetes does. These pre-cursors are so widespread in 21st century America that scientists now estimate that the majority of the current U.S. population over the age of 65 has them.   And these pre-cursors put people at dangerously high risk of developing full-flown Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and dying prematurely.

All this suffering, all this early death, is preventable. It is the direct result of the way we live – by our sedentary habits and our Western-style diets, bereft of whole, fiber-rich foods and full of fast foods and other calorie-dense junk.

Strangely and sadly, it could be argued that you’re lucky if you get to the Type 2 diabetes stage. Far too many people, like NBC’s renowned political journalist Tim Russert, succumb to cardiovascular disease in the earlier stages of diabetes – when they have Metabolic Syndrome or pre-diabetes.

The power of prevention

There is much you can do with lifestyle alone to prevent diabetes. In a landmark study, the American Diabetes Association’s Diabetes Prevention Program, scientists tracked 3,234 pre-diabetic men and women for three years. Half were following lifestyle changes. The other half took a drug – metformin (Glucophage®). Compared with the drug-takers, those on the lifestyle-change plan were 60% less likely to progress to full-blown Type 2 diabetes. Their lifestyle changes, similar to the Pritikin Program, focused on eating low-calorie-dense, high-fiber foods, exercising five days weekly for at least 30 minutes, and a 7% weight loss.

Can diabetes be controlled or reversed?

Absolutely. The disease process associated with diabetes (which leads to heart attacks, strokes, and other crippling illnesses) can be slowed and even partially reversed by controlling blood glucose and other cardiovascular disease risk factors. For maximum effectiveness, blood glucose must be controlled at near normal levels throughout most of the day via loss of excess weight, particularly belly fat, as well as daily physical activity, and, if necessary, medications and insulin injections.

Results of the Pritikin Program in controlling Type 2 diabetes

Researchers at UCLA followed 652 men and women with Type 2 diabetes who attended the Pritikin Longevity Center and found that within three weeks, 76% of those recently diagnosed with the disease (they were not yet on oral drugs) were able to lower their blood glucose to normal ranges.

Many diabetics can even get off their medications. A meta-analysis of 864 Type 2 diabetics found that 74% who arrived at Pritikin on oral drugs no longer needed them when they left the Center three weeks later. They had reduced their blood glucose to normal ranges without drugs. Of those diabetics taking insulin injections, 44% were successful in getting off insulin.

Several studies have also found that the Pritikin Program reduces fasting insulin by 30 to 40%.

New research has also found that the Pritikin Program can reverse the Metabolic Syndrome. In 50% of adult Americans studied, the Pritikin Program reversed the diagnosis of Metabolic Syndrome, and in just three weeks. In new research following children with the Metabolic Syndrome, 100% no longer had the syndrome within two weeks of starting the Pritikin Program.