What is the Best Diet to Reverse Diabetes?, by Alex Ortner
January 15, 2009 by admin
Filed under Diabetes, Featured Raw Food Information
Gabriel Cousens, M.D.
According to Gabriel Cousens, M.D., a specialist in the area of diabetes, the diet that works the best is a raw, vegan live food diet that is organic, plant-source only, low-glycemic, low-insulin index, high-mineral, low fat (especially animal fat), high-water content, that is individualized to your constitution. This means no meat, no dairy, no bread, no cooked grains, no sugar, no caffeine, no alchol and nothing cooked over 118 degrees.
I know what some of you may be thinking…why can’t I eat some of those things?!
Let’s start off with meat.
According to Diabetes Care 7, “A quarter pound of beef raises insulin levels in diabetics as much as a quarter pound of straight sugar.” Eating meat is simply not as natural for the human body as most people think it is.
It wasn’t until about 10,000 years ago that humans started eating more meat because of a shift to a herding and farming culture. Before that, for perhaps 3.2 million years according to Dr. Cousens, humans had been eating mostly a live plant based diet, a diet that is much more natural for the human body to digest, the basic chimpanzee diet. In fact, between 1840 and 1974, the quantity of meat eaten per person in the US increased by FIVE FOLD!
So why not dairy then?
According to Dr. Cousens, “The problem is that the antibodies to the milk antigens cross-react with the beta cells of the pancreas, creating inflammation and scarring. This consequently blocks or destroys beta cell production of insulin. According to two major studies in Finland and Chile, the rate of juvenile diabetes is 11 to 13 times greater in children who had cow’s milk before 3 months of age.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has recocnized this as well and made a decision in 1994 to strongly encourage families with a diabetic history not to give their children cow’s milk or cow’s milk products for at least 2 years because it significantly increasing the likelihood of developing diabetes.
Japanese children, who have the lowest consumption levels of milk, have 1/36th the rate of Type I diabetes as does Finland, the country with the highest level of milk consumption.
How about fruit?
Dr. Gabriel Cousens recommends “against fruit for three to six months until the fasting blood sugar (FBS) stabalizes at between 70 and 85, and then only have low-glycemic fruit such as berries, cherries, citrus, goji berries, cranberries, and an occasional apple.
So What Can You Eat?
Your diet should consist of raw, vegan live plant based foods. Some people need more protein (plant based of course) and others need a diet higher in complex carbohydrates. Everyone’s bodies are different so it depends on your body. Regardless of your body type you should have a diet that is high in vegatables and phytonutrients. You should make sure that there is a variety of colors in the foods that you are eating as these colors are actually the pigments of the phytonutrients. Phytonutrients are critical because they turn off the diabetes causing genes and turn on the anti-diabetic genes.
DISCLAIMER: The above information is for education only and is not meant to diagnose, prescribe, or treat illness. It is valuable to seek the advice of an alternative health care professional before making any changes.
Hi I loved your Raw eats for 30 day video ;The problem with that is that I have lots of Family commitments to just leave for 30 days away from home thats why i’M CONSIDERING THE lAPbAND SURGERY SO iM ONLY OUT FOR A WEEK mAX. dO U HAVE ANY OTHER PROGRAMS LIKE FOR 2 WEEKS AT A TIME or in a state closer to my home New york area. or if I go with your program can relatives visit and how frequent and please let me know when the next available time u have starts .I weigh now about 360 and my sugar level is around 130 controlled with medication already like Januvia and what type of facilities do you have there like private or semi private rooms?and of course whats the fee structure for this and do most of your patients keep the weight down?like in the lapband method the weight drops weekly and then the diabetes drops automatically1 and do you acommodate people who are Kosher as well? Thanks in advance Joe rosenberg
Joe,
I would recommend doing your research on the surgery you are considering. Talk to different doctors and see what they recommend. We ourselves do not run events. The events are run by the Tree of Life. You can see their site at http://www.TreeofLife.nu. You don’t have to attend an event to change your eating habits. If you look on the social networking area you will seee numerous people who have made changes on their own and have come off of their drugs under medical supervision. I would suggest emailing one of them to see what they think.
Hope that helps.
Hi,
I have been a diabetic with (syndrome x) for about 15 years. 9 years since I found out.My mother,2 sisters,2 sons,brother, aunt,niece. Are all diabetics.when I first found out I went down the same path as all the others I know.Took meds.exercised,ate what the dr. said. changed my a1c from 14. to 6.
Then I found I would eat this or that, suger gradually crawled up..to where I was taking the meds.eating wrong sometimes..Finally my sugar climbed up to 360.I saw everyone else do the same,but then the dr. would put them on 2 pills….then when the same routine would repeat itself..then came the insulin! I always said it was the pills that cause alot of the problems!
I absolutely dispise taking chemicals! Every time you have something wrong a dr. will just give you another pill!
1 year ago I prayed very hard! I found the raw movement. My husband and myself
went 100% raw for 5.5 months.I love raw food! and I believe in it totally!
but..We started feeling sorry for ourselves, during holidays..when family came over…at work when everyone ate around us! mentally we started to breakdown!
I would listen to all the raw things for motivation.I have the movie, And your book There is a cure for diabetes!.We started eating a little here a little there off the raw foods. Then about 3 months later we had been back to eating the way we were!..I am a person who hates routine! I think salad for every meal just was to boring! I bought all the raw recipe books, and made all the stuff when we first started, but then it seemed better and easier to eat simple! After I went off, My husband went through a gallbladder surgery.
He had a very infected gallbladder.That he had way before he ever went raw!
I actually believe that the raw diet must have helped him cope for awhile as it was less fats. Then I found out through a cat scan that I had early stages
of diverticulitis.I Actually think I had it worse then before.when I went raw it helped it.I used to have to take lisinipril for blood pressure when my sugar was high all the time.It makes you very constipated.
Anyway to make an even longer story shorter;before I went raw my sugars were 360 my a1c had went back up to 14.when I went raw..my sugers went down to 150
I feasted got them down to 95.but they would climb back up to 130 and 150…I would juice again they would go down.then they would go up to 150 I would juice they would go down.this went on for about 6 mo.The last time I went 7 days it only went down to 136.I had to start taking antibiotic for diverticulitis.now I just got off of them.My sugar is 276.
I’m not sure and neither is my husband if we can stick to this drastic of a change for the rest of our lives.It’s really hard when you’ve eaten a different way for almost 60 years! but we both lost around 25 pounds, for me …35 for my husband..arthritis got better…didn’t realize how much until we went back to eating the old way! we gained weight back.
My dalema is no matter how you say it ..its salad salad salad! I LOVE SALAD!
but If I could have fruit it would be SO EASY! NOW WITH THE DIVERTICULITIS
I’M NOT SUPPOSE TO HAVE SEEDS AND NUTS! Thats the only thing I could really have for Breakfast!I eat ground nuts and fresh almond milk. If there was some kind of ceareal or something else
I could eat for breakfast it would me so much easier.
We are going to try this again..I so do want it to work..But like I said I need variety something besides just vegetables! I drink sun warrior protien
but it feels like I still need something to eat!..can you help?
Bonnie, you DEFINITELY should pick up a copy of “The 80/10/10 Diet” by Dr. Douglas Graham. Dr. Graham works with diabetics regularly and teaches people to eat raw food the low-fat way, with LOTS of fruit. When you’re eating very low fat, the fruit is NO problem, and your blood sugar will not spike. I know three several people who have diabetes and eat several pounds of fruit a day, including a type-1 diabetic who is taking just a fraction of his original insulin and eating 20 or more bananas each day. These people also eat a TON of greens (more than any other raw food teacher recommends), so it’s definitely NOT all fruit. Do not miss this information. It is priceless, and everyone should know about it. The seeds and nuts will CAUSE your diabetes, because fat is the problem and not sugar. It’s all in chapter 2 of The 80/10/10 Diet. I typed a little of it here:
“On a high-fat diet, whether cooked or raw, people experience nutritional deficiencies, plummeting energy, hormone imbalances, intense cravings, and mood swings … everything goes haywire, not the least of which is blood sugar.
The mechanism that causes blood sugar to rise out of control is actually very easy to understand. Let’s begin with a highly simplified description of how our bodies process sugar.
Sugar’s Three-Stage Journey Through the Body
To be used as fuel for our cells, the sugars we eat travel a three-stage journey through our bodies:
Stage 1: Sugars start out in the digestive tract when we eat them.
Stage 2: They pass through the intestinal wall, into the blood¬stream.
Stage 3: They then move smoothly and easily out of the bloodstream and into our cells. This occurs rapidly, often in minutes.
When we eat a high-fat diet, the sugar gets trapped in stage 2, and the body works overtime, sometimes to the point of exhaustion and disease, in an effort to move the sugar out of the bloodstream. Meanwhile, the sugar backs up in the blood, creating sustained, elevated blood sugar that wreaks havoc on the body in the form of candida, fatigue, diabetes, etc.”
You may say fruit is no problem, but we see in clinical reality that fruit is a problem in 100% of the hundreds people we see. We take diabetic people’s blood glucose after they try fruit. This is true, whether they have nuts and fats, or not.
This is our clinical observation of diabetic people, who nutritionally are our “canary in the mine.” Their blood sugar significantly rises and they cannot get the healing results they get when they keep off fruit. Please keep in mind that this is designed and observed with the diabetics taking their blood sugar every time they eat, four times a day.
Once the people are healed from the diabetes, then we allow fruit because then they are not in diabetic physiology. Diabetic physiology is a different physisology from a healed physiology of someone who is no longer diabetic.
What we are stating is not an opinion but clinical experience and scientific results. If it weren’t the case, then we wouldn’t be saying it. That is why we get such good results with reversing type-two diabetes.
Question about fruit. I use bananas mostly to make my green smoothies–making sure to vary the greens. I am not diabetic but it runs in my family and I wish to remain healthy. Should I eliminate bananas from my diet?—again I use them almost exclusively to make green smoothies. Thanks for any feedback!
I am not an expert in the area of diabetes so I am not entirely sure but I believe from what Gabriel Cousens, M.D. says that you can have fruit but not when you are trying to reverse diabetes. If you are not a diabetic than I don’t think it is a major issue for you as long as you are balancing your diet and have lots of vegetables as well! If Gabriel is able to I will have him answer your question. You can also read more about what he suggests by reading his book “There is a Cure for Diabetes.”
Hope that helps!
How does what’s being said relate to a child (age 10) with Type 1 diabetes? Dr. Cousens, I’d love to have your thoughts on that. Is Type 1 reversable? We’re already vegans, and limit fruit to some blueberries for my daughter’s breakfast. In general, what are the most important things to know regarding the healthy diet for a Type 1 child?
My husband was just diagnosed with diabetes. we were in total disbelief because we basically “eat right”. We don’t eat junk foods and make everything from scratch. OUr downfall has maybe been the snacking after 5:00 PM. My husband is about 50 lb overweight. He once brought it down to 178 lb but later, when he stepped on the scale and f0und he had lost close to another 5 lb
he panicked and from that day on his weight went back up to 238 lb where it has remained since. The extend of his activity is from the computer to the bathroom, kitchen or to the TV. His sciatic nerve problem keeps him from exercising…. since finding out about the diabetes I’ve been reading a lot and counting carbs, protein, fibre, fat etc. and I’m near my wits end because his reading has not come down to a managable level. I’d be more than willing to go all raw but he believes in following the alopathic route.
Is there any way I can combine the two in some way without going totally raw?
He is very meat oriented and I doubt I could get him completely away from it. Any suggestion would be much appreciated. Would love a specified daily menue with carbs, fibre, protein etc. spelled out I just need to follow.
ruth
Ruth,
Have you read Gabriel Cousens, M.D.’s book “There is a Cure for Diabetes”? I would recommend reading his book as it will give you a lot more insight into it all. You can get the book at their website at http://www.TreeOfLife.nu. Also, has he seen “Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days” yet?
It is a common thing for somebody to lose weight and get to a certain point and then panic and go back up in weight. When people go outside their comfort zones they will do whatever is necessary to get back into it.
Hope that helps. Let me know if you have more questions.
I’m always suspicious when people tell stories about people who can eat TONS of this or that, or make claims that do not seem based in science or reality. I have Type 1 and if I ate 20 bananas I’d be in a coma. I have to pay attention to fats but I always find fruit spikes my blood sugars no matter what else I eat. I take excellent care of myself, my A1Cs are usually 6.5, but I still don’t feel “well.” I feel like I’m coping well - no complications - and I’m about 80/20 raw at the moment. I’m reading and learning as much as possible. I’ve had Type 1 for 16 years - I was diagnosed when my youngest was 3 and I was also “boderline” for gestational diabetes. I wish I knew then what I know now but no use fretting over what I didn’t know. I have always felt it was possible to reverse my Type 1. I hope I will realize that some day, but for now I’m reading, taking classes and doing my best to find a balanced approach to healing this condition.
Hi,
I have a Type I Diabetic father who I am trying to help with the raw food diet. I have the DVD that explains how to reverse diabetes in 30 days, however I am having a hard time finding the apropriate diet for this program. I have read a few Raw Food books, and have recepies but I would like to do this right for him. The whole family is going on a raw “plan”, or we will try to change our diet slowly, but I need some help with what is right for him and what is not.
I hope you can give me some guidence.
Thank you,
Susan
Hi Susan,
I suggest reading the book “There is a Cure for Diabetes” by Gabriel Cousens, M.D. In that book he explains the diet that the participants were on during the 30 day period. You can find the book on http://www.Amazon.com. Hope this helps.