Reversing Diabetes by Julian M. Whitaker, M.D.

Reversing Diabetes by Julian M. Whitaker, M.D. The author states: "I would like to dedicate this book to any diabetic patient who reads it, puts it to use, and benefits from it."

Chapter 1 -What to expect if you have Diabetes

Basically, diabetes mellitus is a disorder of the body's means of utilizing sugar, or glucose-the body's basic fuel. There are two basic kinds of diabetes mellitus, type I and type II. Type 1 diabetes used to be called "juvenile diabetes" because its symptoms often become apparent in childhood or infancy. Type 2 diabetes most often becomes apparent in middle age or later and was once called "maturity onset diabetes". Type 1 diabetes arises because of a lack of insulin in the body, and is therefore known as insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Type 2 diabetes does not reflect a lack of insulin but rather the inability of the body to use it effectively.What is Insulin? Insulin is a hormone produced in patches of specialized cells scattered throughout the pancreas. Insulin is necessary for glucose circulating in the bloodstream to enter the cells, where it supplies the energy to run the functions of your body. If glucose does not enter the cells, it is virtually useless, and the cells of the body starve. In short, the body's cells require insulin to maintain a constant energy supply.
Type I diabetes occurs when the pancreas loses its ability to produce insulin, leading to an acute "key shortage." Usually, this occurs at an early age and manifests itself with the four classic symptoms of the condition:The individual urinates frequently and excessively (polyuria).The individual becomes excessively thirsty and drinks large amount of fluids (polydipsia) to replace the water lost through the excessive urination.The individual becomes ravenously hungry and eats excessively (polyphagia) in an attempt to feed the starving cells. The individual loses weight despite excessive food ingestion because the cells cannot utilize the food. These four symptoms are all related to the elevated levels of glucose in the blood and the body's inability to clear the blood of this glucose and use it for energy. The normal blood sugar ranges between 80 and 110 milligrams per milliliter.

Type 2 - Non-Insulin Dependent Diabetes- Often the type 2 has none of the classic diabetes symptoms, and the disease is usually discovered during a routine laboratory exam. Typically, the patient is middle-aged and overweight. Usually he or she is inactive. The patient is informed that he or she has diabetes and is often put on a diet and/or the oral anti-diabetes pills. This form of diabetes is more subtle than type 1 and usually responds very well to treatment methods designed to increase the cells' sensitivity to insulin.

Chapter 2 - What to expect of this book

This book is a "how-to" book with a program diabetic patients can follow with their physician's approval. You must be under the care of your physician because your medication requirements are likely to change rapidly. The purpose of this book is to bring about the maximum benefit from a low-fat diet and exercise to reduce the chances that you will be harmed by today's mistakes- we really do not know what they are.

Dr. James Anderson demonstrated that a high carbohydrate, high fiber diet similar to the diet regimen recommended in this book reduced blood sugar levels without insulin or the oral drugs in close to 70 percent of type 2 diabetics.

I wrote this book to bring this information directly to those interested in diabetes and to encourage you to put it to use. Often diabetics are motivated and will follow diet instructions, but the diets used most often are too high in fat and too low in fiber, and the benefits that can be derived from diet are not accomplished. In addition, the benefits of exercise are often ignored completely, particularly with the middle-aged, moderately obese, type 2 diabetic who could benefit the most from a prescribed exercise regimen.

About the Author

For me, the treatment of diabetes is a matter of priorities. When faced with a diabetic patient, I look to diet and exercise before drugs or technology. All of my medical training has been geared toward a surgical specialty. I graduated from Emory University Medical School in 1970, took a medical/surgical internship at the Emory University Hospitals in Atlanta, and then entered a surgical residency program in San Francisco at the University of California. Until the, I had absolutely no interest in nutrition. Having had only two credit hours of "nutrition" consisting of a few lectures on the properties of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, I was convinced that the afflictions of man were either acts of God, bad luck, or both, and could only be handled with appropriate drugs or surgery. I signed on as an emergency room physician in Southern California. One day a woman, about 34 or 35, who had sprained her ankle came in for an evaluation, except for a minor injury to her ankle, she glowed with good health. Suddenly, it dawned on me: Healthy people don't see doctors. I was curious about this healthy patient and asked her about her habits. She explained her program of diet, exercise, and vitamins and mineral supplements. This woman believed that the way she lived determined her physical well being. I had been studying medicine for six-and-one-half years, but this patient was the first practitioner of preventive medicine I had encountered. I read materials that she gave me and subsequently went to work with Dr. Wilbur Currier in Pasadena, California. Dr. Currier was a former ear, nose, and throat surgeon who had abandoned surgery to specialize in preventive medicine. While working with Dr. Currier, I read some monographs of a then little-known inventor, Nathan Pritikin. I'll never forget my surprise upon reading sections of a monograph he had written dealing with diabetes. It contained research published in the 1920's and 1930's that clearly demonstrated how excessive fat in the diet could bring on diabetes. To learn more about low fat nutrition in treating diabetes and other degenerative diseases, I worked on the medical staff of the Longevity Center directed by Mr. Pritikin from 1975 to 1976. I was amazed at the power of life-style changes.

I left the Longevity Center to return to my own practice, and in 1979 I opened the Whitaker Wellness Institute, offering patients with diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure a two-week live-in program that taught them how to change their life-style. Since then, over 4,000 patients have come through the Institute, and my experiences with diabetes are the subject of this book.

What to Expect from This Program

This is a program designed to make your body more sensitive to insulin, whether it is injected or produced in the pancreas. More diabetic patients can reasonably expect to lower their insulin dose or eliminate the oral diabetic medications. Some patients may be able to stop injecting insulin altogether. In addition, those who need to lose weight will do so on this program. This program should substantially lower your blood cholesterol levels, as well as your blood pressure. Lowering blood pressure and cholesterol reduces the risk of heart or blood vessel problems.

Chapter 3 - How Diet Can Improve Insulin Sensitivity

Low Fat, High Carbohydrate Diet Put to Use in the 1930's

I.M. Rabinowitch put the high carbohydrate diet to work in patients and published numerous articles on its benefits. In 1930, he outlined his departure from the generally accepted methods of the day ("Experiences with a High Carbohydrate-Low Calorie Diet for the Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus,") He was one of the first to use increasing amounts of bread and to note that the insulin level often went down instead of up. He stated that "fat-protein diets from which carbohydrates are excluded find no logical place in the present day management of the diabetic." Like many of the pioneers during that time, Rabinowitch was baffled that his observations and results were so different from the accepted beliefs. In 1932, he wrote: The interesting question which arises is - Why is this diet successful? Experiences with it are incomparable with our present conception of the metabolism of diabetes... In as yet some unknown manner, exposure to this diet appears to lead to an increase in the available supply of insulin. Much of our experimental data to date fail to support this view. Diabetes does not appear to be due to defective production of insulin, but to interference with the action of normal supply.

From our experiences with the above mentioned routine procedure in determining whether patients do or do not require insulin, our conclusion is that the great majority do not; diet in the majority of cases still remains the most important factor in the treatment of diabetes, and it is my opinion, that providing individuals follow prescribed treatment, the high carbohydrate low calorie diet can do much in not only keeping the patient alive, but in keeping him relatively more comfortable.

In 1935, Rabinowitch summarized his results in 50 diabetic patients who had been followed closely on the high carbohydrate/low calorie diet for five years. Twenty-four percent of these patients were successfully withdrawn from insulin. Insulin requirements were reduced in almost all who still required it. the patients felt better, had more energy, and lived more comfortably.
The optimal diet composition for the diabetic individual would contain between 70 and 80 percent complex carbohydrates, 10 to 15 percent fat calories, and 10 to 15 percent protein calories. It should also contain about 30 to 40 grams of dietary fiber derived from grains, succulent fruits, and bran, particularly oat bran. Once this composition has been achieved, calories should be controlled to stimulate weight loss if necessary.

This rationale is the basis of the diet used here at the Institute and described in detail in the latter portion of this book.

Chapter 4 - Too Much Protein Can Be Dangerous

Most of the degenerative diseases in this country can be traced to our meat-based diet, and diabetes is no different. We Americans eat meat as if we were a nation of dogs and cats, and this food procedure preference floods our system with protein and fat calories that make us sick. Meat, eggs, chicken, and almost all other animal protein foods are void of carbohydrates, providing protein and fat calories only. Second, there is no fiber in any animal protein food, fiber is found only in vegetable foods. An animal protein diet is just plain wrong for the human system, which is designed for the clean burning carbohydrates and fiber found only in vegetable foods. "Vegetable" does not mean only salads. The term "vegetable foods" also applies to grain products, such as breads and pastas, and potatoes, sweet potatoes, and all variety of beans and bean dishes.

What are Americans Eating and Why?

Take the habit and tradition of drinking milk. Of the thousands of mammals that live on earth, only the human species continues to drink milk after weaning. This is strange! Not only do we continue to drink milk, but we drink the milk of different species. this is not to say that some dairy products cannot be a useful addition to our diet, but the manner in which they are incorporated into our food patterns has no precedent in nature. It is obvious that the human physiology is similar, if not identical, to the fruit eaters, and that we are not designed to handle a lot of meat. A man in the wild without tools is more likely to be an animal's dinner, than to eat one himself. He is ideally suited for food gathering, and the structure of his mouth and teeth is designed for vegetable foods that must be chewed well and mixed with the digestive enzymes in his saliva.

Since lions are not partial to salad, why do we flood our system with meat? It is like putting diesel oil in the gasoline tank of your car. No one would do that. It is against the design specifications of the machine. However, that is exactly what we do when we regularly load each meal with animal protein foods.

How Much Do We Need?

If we are eating too much protein, how much do we really need?

We can easily assess the protein requirements for adult men and women now. Most of the work is done with nitrogen balance studies. Protein contains nitrogen, and the amount of nitrogen that is eaten and the amount that is lost can be measured to give an accurate assessment of protein balance. As we become more sophisticated in our measurements of the amount of protein needed for optimum health, we find it to be exceedingly small, between 20 and 40 grams per day. The actual requirements for protein are indeed very low in comparison to the 100 or more grams of protein that the average American eats each day. The reason so little is needed is that the body is very efficient in conserving proteins and synthesizing new proteins when needed.

Excessive Protein Causes Rapid Deterioration

When we eat too much carbohydrate or fat, the body can store this extra energy as fat. This is unsightly and unhealthy, but in many ways excessive protein causes more damage. The body cannot store the extra protein. It must be broken down, and its waste products must be excreted by the kidney. When we consistently eat 300 to 400 percent more protein than we need, we stress the body and cause accelerated aging and disease.

Protein and Kidney Failure In the Diabetic Condition

In the case of diabetes, this mismatch is even more serious because the diabetic condition damages the kidney. With the added stress of a high protein intake, the diabetic individual is even more vulnerable to kidney destruction. Kidney failure does not come on all of a sudden. In the diabetic, you can see it coming from 40 miles down the road and in plenty of time to slow it down or stop in by restricting the protein intake. However, this is not usually done. Most diabetics are informed that their kidneys are deteriorating, but only rarely is the diabetic given any advice to lower the protein intake to slow down the process.

By not using a low-protein diet at the first sign of kidney damage, the patient has lost the opportunity to slow the rate of kidney damage, or, in some cases, to stop it all together.

Excessive Protein: A Main Cause of Osteoporosis

Part of the "milk and meat" myth is that these foods are necessary for building and maintaining strong bones and teeth. In reality, the opposite is true. It is milk and meat that cause the weakening of the bones called osteoporosis. the reason for this paradox is that calcium imbalance is determined not by the amount of calcium you eat but by the amount of protein. Osteoporosis is epidemic in this country, and there are constant warnings that we should consume the recommended daily allowance of calcium that today is 800 mg. However, what is important is not how much calcium we consume daily but how much we are able to deposit into our bones.

High Protein Equals Calcium Low

Nancy E. Johnson, of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, found that a high protein diet would put healthy young men in negative calcium balance even if they were taking in more calcium than the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). We believe that large amounts of protein are good for us, strengthening our bodies, when, in reality, excessive protein does just the opposite. As I have pointed out, our bodies were not designed for such protein excess, and our beliefs on the matter will not change that.

It is a fact that total vegetarians, at any age, have much stronger bones than those who eat meat, because of the lower and healthier protein intakes. In addition, they live longer: Numerous studies on the Seventh Day Adventists have shown that their vegetarian diet leads to far lower rates of heart disease and cancer and increases the average life span by several years.

It is particularly important for individuals with diabetes to keep protein consumption down, for the diabetic condition only accelerates the damage done by protein excess.

Chapter 5 - Exercise: A Must for the Diabetic

Exercise may get more lip service but less action that any other currently ignored therapy for the diabetic condition. Almost all of the articles written about treating diabetes mention exercise as a powerful therapeutic tool. Every diabetic individual regardless of age or type of diabetes should have an exercise program. This chapter will help you understand why exercise is both necessary and beneficial.