Can The Paleo Diet Help Diabetics? November is National Diabetes Month, so now is a great time to reflect upon the 2. If you fall into any of these groups, or know someone who does, take the time to consider what kinds of food choices may lead to better health. Sometimes, better health means that weight loss is necessary. Obesity increases the risk for diabetes, and losing weight can help keep your blood glucose level on target. Luckily, it may not be necessary to lose all those excess pounds to improve diabetes outcomes. Losing just 5- 1. Here, we will outline one eating plan that can help people with diabetes lose weight, among many other possible benefits. The Paleo Diet. Often, people do not make time to prepare their own meals or even monitor their food intake. This can lead to regular intake of packaged, processed foods. Many experts believe that this trend away from carefully prepared whole foods has contributed to the rise in obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. A growing number of nutrition researchers and doctors now suggest that we try a return to simpler diets, based on grass- fed and free- range animal products, fresh seafood, and whole fruit, vegetables, seeds, and nuts. The Paleo (Paleolithic) Diet, also known the Hunter- Gatherer Diet, is a healthy- eating plan based on fresh, unprocessed plants and animals. Even though it is modeled after human diets from thousands of years ago, the Paleo Diet consists of easy- to- find foods, such as fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and grass- fed meats. Most versions of the diet do not include grains (like wheat, rye, and barley) or legumes (like beans). Only a few versions include dairy, if it is from grass- fed cows or raw (“unpasteurized”). Supporters of the Paleo Diet also think that you should avoid all processed fats, such as vegetable oil, soybean oil and margarine. About The Paleo Diet Team. The Paleo Diet, the world’s healthiest diet, is based upon the fundamental concept that the optimal diet is the one to which we are.A healthy type 2 diabetes diet plan includes low glycemic load foods like vegetables, beans, brown and brown rice. Sample diets (Paleo, Mediterranean, ADA Diet. The Dairy and Grain-Free Diet People Are Using to Destroy Type 2 Diabetes. This is because they are not whole foods and have been shown to contribute to heart disease. However, they do approve of several types of oil, including flaxseed, walnut, macadamia, avocado, olive and coconut. Most sugar is also limited. The Paleo Diet can be adjusted for your specific tastes, weight loss goals and blood glucose needs. The Paleo Diet is very strict about the types of foods you can consume, however those foods that abide by the Paleo premise can be consumed in unlimited quantities. On this diet, you and your healthcare team can choose how much carbohydrate, protein and fat is best for you. Why Switch to The Paleo Diet? The Paleo Diet is high in vitamins and minerals, unprocessed, and low in foods that trigger allergic reactions. People with diabetes may benefit from improved blood glucose control, weight loss, and higher energy on this eating plan. Here are other possible benefits of the Paleo Diet: Lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Better blood glucose control. Better brain health. Stronger muscles. Better digestion. Increased absorption of vitamins and minerals. Diet is a crucial tool for managing diabetes, and weight loss can help people who are overweight prevent Type 2 diabetes. The experts who rated the 38 diets below. The Promise. Eat like a caveman and shed pounds. That's the theory behind the Paleo Diet. Loren Cordain, PhD, who literally wrote the book on The Paleo Diet, claims. Sites by Individuals. The Paleo Diet Defined is my concise definition of the core paleo diet and the many variations of it. Life Expectancy in the Paleolithic by Ron. Type 2 diabetes is caused by a lack of glycogen storage capacity resulting from insulin resistance and excessive glucagon mediated hepatic gluconeogenesis. Target blood glucose levels for people with type 2 diabetes are: 4 to 7 mmol/l before meals and when fasting; 4 to 8.5 mmol/l 2 hours following meals. What was once thought to be a passing trend, the Paleo diet has been shown in several studies to be an effective approach for treating and reversing diabetes. Increased immunity. Relief from allergies and skin diseases. Improved energy levels. Increased insulin sensitivity. Reduced depression and anxiety. Improved sleep. If you have poor digestion, allergies, high blood glucose, or any other symptoms of nutritional deficiency, think about speaking with your healthcare team about the Paleo Diet. With good planning, this healthy eating plan can be very nutrient- dense, low in allergens, and made specifically to suit your individual needs and tastes. It is a good idea to read more about this subject if you do decide to talk about it with your doctor or healthcare team. Have a look at some of the many books and articles written about the Paleo Diet, the Primal Diet, and “ancestral diets.” These are all slightly different eating plans based on the same basic idea: whole, unprocessed, and low- allergen foods are best. Jonathan Jarashow, Publisher. Diabetes Digest Family of Magazinesdiabetesdigest. Learn how adopting The Paleo Diet can help diabetics: Paleolithic Diet is Best Bet for Diabetes and Other Diseases. Cow’s Milk and Type 1 Diabetes. About The Paleo Diet Team. The Paleo Diet, the world’s healthiest diet, is based upon the fundamental concept that the optimal diet is the one to which we are genetically adapted. The therapeutic effect of The Paleo Diet is supported by both randomized controlled human trials and real- life success stories. View all posts by The Paleo Diet Team. Is Type 2 Diabetes Reversible at Scale? But to really understand longevity, you must understand metabolic health, insulin resistance and, by extension, one of its end- results: type 2 diabetes (T2. D). Though my medical practice does not focus on type 2 diabetes, I have taken care of several patients with T2. D over the past few years. When I was in medical school I was taught many things about T2. D, but one stands out most: T2. D is incurable, I was told. Once you have it, you’ve always got it, and the best one can do is “manage” it as a chronic—but irreversible—condition. But is this really true? Asked another way, is T2. D reversible? My obsession is partly due to my personal journey to better metabolic health, which I’ve documented elsewhere on this blog, and spoken about publicly. But those facts alone, don’t fully explain why I wanted to be involved with Virta Health (I’ll get to them shortly). T2. D is a massive societal problem that has the potential to literally bankrupt countries: More than 2. Americans have T2. D and more than 8. And whether you view it through the lens of population health, or the lens of an individual patient, T2. D is perhaps the biggest healthcare challenge of our generation. At the population level, T2. D costs Americans more than $3. Medicare dollars is spent on T2. D, and one of every six healthcare dollars is spent on T2. D. At the individual level, patients and payers (employers and insurance companies) spend thousands of dollars (often more than $1. Alzheimer’s disease, blindness, amputation and kidney disease. The traditional approach—which is clearly not working—is to “manage” this chronic condition with medications and the ever- ubiquitous “eat- less- avoid- fat- exercise- more” lifestyle interventions. At best, this approach only slows down the progression of the disease. Furthermore, many diabetes drugs have their own side- effects and diabetes management has a dismal diabetes reversal rate of about 1%. If one great thing has come from bariatric surgery, besides the obvious help to those have been successfully treated, it is that any physician or scientist paying attention to the results can’t help but notice that the reversal of T2. D in these patients post- operatively seems uncoupled from their weight loss. In other words, adiposity, while correlated with T2. D, is not likely the cause. Every doctor has his (or her) “Patient 0”—the one who really got him (or her) thinking. I’d like to introduce you to mine, RB. When I met RB, he was a 3. Mexican man with a family history of T2. D who had a “high” glucose level on a screening blood test. His two- hour oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) is below. You don’t have to read these for a living to see this isn’t ideal. As you can see, his fasting glucose was 2. L and his fasting insulin, 3. U/m. L. When given 7. L at 6. 0 minutes and 4. L at 1. 20 minutes, all the while his insulin level fell from 3. These numbers alone confirm the diagnosis of T2. D. But if we needed more evidence, his Hb. A1. C was 9. 7%, corresponding to an average blood glucose of 2. L (today the diagnosis of T2. D is defined by Hb. A1. C > = 6. 5%, but I much prefer to use OGTT). Ordinarily, for a patient with this degree of disease and beta- cell fatigue, I would have opted for at least two drugs, metformin (cheap) and a DPP4 inhibitor (not cheap) and most doctors would have gone straight to insulin, as well. However, due to the patient’s financial circumstances, we opted to only use metformin and dietary modification. The patient worked very long hours in construction and, frankly, was pretty much exercising all day, so there was no way adding more exercise to his day was going to work. If we were going to fix him, it had to be through nutrition. I spoke with one of my mentors, Dr. Naji Torbay, a remarkable endocrinologist who has the largest diabetes reversal program in Dubai and Lebanon, about this case. Even he thought it would be tough, but he’d reversed cases like this, so we gave it a shot. What happened over the next 5 months surprised me, as even I did not anticipate the alacrity of RB’s reversal. Below is a snap shot of RB’s labs from March 1, 2. OGTT, above. On the right side you can see the results from September 2. Hb. A1. C of 9. 7%, the fasting glucose of 2. L, and the fasting insulin of 3. U/m. L (HOMA- IR calculated at 1. As you can see, the Hb. A1. C fell to 5. 3%—that’s even below the threshold of pre- diabetes—and the fasting glucose and insulin fell to 1. HOMA- IR calculated at 2. RB doesn’t have diabetes any more. RB will avoid the amputations that destroyed the lives of his family. RB will not die prematurely from heart disease in his 5. RB got a new lease on life. If you think I’m telling you this story to impress you, you’re mistaken. Countless doctors (though not enough) know how to do what I did with RB—it’s actually simple biochemistry, and if a former surgeon like me can learn it, certainly anyone can, as long as one has the ability to frequently and safely manage medications and guide necessary behavior change. But sadly, most people like RB don’t have this option, and even if I and countless other doctors devoted the rest of our lives to helping everyone like RB out there, we could not put a dent in this problem, which is where Virta Health comes in. Disclosure: I am an advisor to Virta Health and I have invested in the company, because I believe their approach is the best one to solve this problem—not the other way around. Is it possible to deliver systematic diabetes reversal results (like the case above) safely, sustainably, and at scale among average diabetics? Of course, even with the correct biochemical/nutritional approach, there are number of challenges to make T2. D reversal possible at scale: Eliminating diabetes medications safely requires day- to- day (not monthly) careful adjustments by a physician. This is not how physicians work and would not be cost- efficient. Anything nutrition related requires a very high degree of individualization based on health status, lifestyle preferences and other life circumstances. For the 1% DIY’ers (who probably disproportionally read blogs like this one) any extreme approach can work, but at a population level, it won’t be enough. Both the patient and physician would need near real- time biomarker (e. CGM) data to adjust meds and the overall intervention. This would require a near real time “personal coach” who can address any situation (e. It appears that we may be a step closer to somebody solving this challenge. Today, the first results of a T2. D reversal clinical trial were published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research that show a promising new way to look at T2. D: it is reversible in a large percentage of average patients, safely and sustainably. The trial was conducted by Virta Health, an online diabetes reversal clinic, which uses technology and artificial intelligence to solve the above mentioned care delivery challenges. The entire intervention is managed by physicians and the nutritional approach is based on highly individualized carbohydrate restriction and nutritional ketosis (which I’ve written about extensively in the past and throughout this blog). The trial took place in Lafayette, IN, in partnership with Indiana University Health. Average age was 5. Stdev: 8); BMI 4. Stdev: 8. 9) and two- thirds of the patients were female. With the combination of the right science and technology, it can be reversed at scale and among average diabetics. I’ve seen some of the preliminary 1+ year analysis and the results look very impressive. I’m excited to be a very small part of this organization and I look forward to the day when every patient with T2. D at least has the chance to try an approach that can potentially reverse their condition.
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