180 Degree Diabetes

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180 Degree Diabetes:

Preventing and Reversing Insulin Resistance, Metabolic Syndrome, and Type 2 Diabetes

By author and independent health researcher

Stone Matt Stone

December 2009 A www.180degreehealth.com presentation

Copyright 2009 180DegreeHealth, LLC. All rights reserved worldwide. This publication and content is protected by law, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights: you are not allowed to sell this E-Book to anyone else. Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful.

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Dedicated to the Pharmaceutical companies, diet industry, agricultural industry, and medical establishment Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when I come for you?

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Table of Contents

Introduction What is type 2 diabetes? Low-Carb Science Never Eades Up Pima Kitava The Saccharine Disease Nutritional History The Metabolism Cortisol is All Metabolic Syndrome The Glycemic Index Catastrophe Diabetes Prevention Exercise For Diabetes Supplements Treatment Programs Conclusion Fasting Nutritarian The High-Everything Diet The Milk Diet HED on Steroids Low-Carb References

6 10 12 18 23 27 35 42 45 53 55 62 65 68 72 74 79 84 98 103 108

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Acknowledgments

First up Ive gotta thank my father. Until now, most of my work has been done at public libraries or with a laptop nestled up against my crotch. Both have been uncomfortable, distracting, and draining. For this eBook, I sat looking out a big window of an incredibly nice, schwanky, office. The difference has been immeasurable, and my focus while working on this project has been tremendous. I didnt even know I was capable of getting so much quality work done in such a short amount of time. That office, of course, was offered up to me by father, adjacent to the office he works out of. Thanks old-timer. As usual, my greatest debt of gratitude is owed to the health pioneers whose work has changed my life, my perspective, and the perspective of many loyal 180DegreeHealth followers. I feel particularly grateful for the work of T.L. Peter Cleave, Denis Burkitt, Hugh Trowell, Melvin Page, John Yudkin, Broda Barnes, and a handful of other health legends whose observations and professional work has created a comprehensive overview of what type 2 diabetes is and where it comes from. Its also been an enlightening honor to study the hormonal and biochemical minutiae associated with the glucose dysregulation disease process in the context of modern science and medical practice. For that, I thank Diana Schwarzbein, Barry Sears, Mark Starr, Stephen Langer, Nancy Appleton, Russ Farris and Per Marin, and many others. Finally, although it may seem a bit ironic, I owe much to the inspiration of vegetarianslanted medical professionals that have given me 100% confidence that type 2 diabetes is a totally conquerable malady. Im talking about you Joel Fuhrman, Mark Barnard, and Julian Whitaker. You guys have seen that type 2 diabetes can be reversed, in ways that few have. And you bet your ass Ive got to thank Aurora, who woke up every morning for 2 weeks and stabbed herself with a lancet to serve up some fasting glucose readings in the personal experimentation segment of the research done for this book. You da best honey. And honey is a great name for you, as I consistently mopped the floor with your glucose readings with less glucose in my blood and more glucose in my diet. This was key of course, as it helped to solidify what I already knew that blood sugar is not a simple matter of what you eat, but of what your body does with what you eat. The idea that Carbs = Sugar = High blood sugar and insulin levels is taken out the woodshed in this book, and shot in the head. And above all else, thanks to the readers and supporters of 180DegreeHealth. You are what makes doing my favorite thing in the world researching and writing about health, a way in which I can make a living. My goal, to spend a lifetime researching, analyzing, and writing about human health for the benefit of our rapidly-degenerating species, is not possible without you. I hope to make you proud someday, maybe put Bob Greene in a headlock on national tv someday or something like that.

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Disclaimer

The material provided here is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. The information contained in this eBook should not be used to diagnose or treat any illness, metabolic disorder, disease, or health problem. If you have developed a serious illness of some kind, such as type 2 diabetes or a related malady, the complexities of dealing with that disorder are best handled by your physician or health care provider, whom you should also consult with before beginning any nutrition or exercise program. Use of the programs, advice, and other information contained in this eBook is at the sole choice and risk of the reader.

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Introduction

Is there a cure for diabetes? No. Researchers continue looking for ways to cure diabetes, but now doctors can only treat the disease, not cure it. -Maria Clavazzo-Clavell from the Mayo Clinic Maria Clavazzo-Clavell might as well be speaking Chinese, because I have absolutely no God-forsaken idea what shes talking about. I have a whole bookshelf of authors and medical professionals that talk about overturning diabetes as if it were overturning a pancake. Crap, dont eat pancakes. They help cause type 2 diabetes. -Me Like Saturday Night Fever, type 2 diabetes is a craze sweeping the globe. Its the hottest thing since sunburn, as character Charles de Marr from 1985 movie Better Off Dead might have phrased it. There is hardly a corner of the globe that has remained untouched by the rising tides of type 2 diabetes. It is everywhere, and it, kind of like The Blob (no offense), is slowly creeping its way into every little crack to commit atrocious murder. Type 2 diabetes is no joke, but rest assured, if anyone can make a joke out of it while still dispensing valuable, unique, and tirelessly thought-provoking ideas regarding the disease its me. I will no doubt seize every opportunity for self-aggrandizement throughout the book as well, then pretend Im just joking and make fun of myself. Okay, on with the story. The Pima Indians of southern Arizona now have a type 2 diabetes rate of 50%. They appear, mysteriously so, to be the most hereditarily prone to develop the disease of any race of people on earth. They offer a glimpse into the future for all races, I believe, as the trend is rising and rising quickly just as it did for the American Pima in all races. But before you think diabetes is manifest destiny of your DNA, consider the profound head scratcher Pima Indians living just across the border in Mexico, with a different diet and lifestyle, do not suffer the same fate. They are almost incomparable to their genetic twins living in white land. No, I dont mean white mans land, I mean the land of white foods white sugar, white bread, white rice, deep fried in hydrogenated oil and washed down with caffeine and alcohol. If you do not have type 2 diabetes, and you hate reading, you could probably stop right here. Strictly avoiding the foods I just mentioned would give a nondiabetic, by my best guess, 98% immunity to the disease or higher. When reviewing health and nutrition history over the last century, you tap into a tremendous database of repeated incidences in which refined carbohydrates, drugs, and vegetable oils displace traditional foods and diseases such as type 2 diabetes appeared for the very first time in recorded history. The pattern is quite clear. To even question what causes type 2 diabetes, at the core, is to be ignorant of this painfully apparent, and very deep crevasse of observational data.

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Modern foods cause modern disease stupid. With careful thought and observation, it even becomes clear that lifestyle plays almost no role in the development of type 2 diabetes and related disorders either. I dont care how many claim that exercise improves glucose tolerance, because that only tells one side of the story. Type 2 diabetes and its root cause is about diet and diet alone. Other factors, of which there are countless, are simply what T.L. Cleave calls aggravating factors, and are not to be confused with the real core of the problem. Could it really be so simple? you might ask. Could refined carbohydrates really be the cause of diabetes, and a rainbow assortment of other conditions? Wouldnt the answer already be discovered and well-known by every health authority in the world at this point? Is there a peer-reviewed, double-blind study to back this up somewhere? T.L. Cleave spoke to this when he said: medical minds throughout the world these days are so preoccupied with detail that they have lost the art of repeatedly standing back in order to gain perspective and think more simply, in terms of fundamentals. Conclusions reached in this way, and which would be strongly indicated by common sense, are discounted because they cannot be proved to the last particular, and ultimately become lost from view. That is precisely what has happened. Now there is a new phenomenon. With the endless array of medical complexities, the gene labyrinth, and unthinkably-advanced procedures, the simple answers are looked at with condescending scorn. Its too complicated to possibly be that simple. William Dufty, the king of bashing complex explanations for simple phenomena, once said: The mind truly boggles when one glances over what passes for medical history. Through the centuries, troubled souls have been barbecued for bewitchment, exorcised for possession, locked up for insanity, tortured for masturbatory madness, psychiatrized for psychoses, lobotomized for schizophrenia. How many patients would have listened if the local healer had told them that the only thing ailing them was sugar blues? And thats just the problem today. How many people are willing to believe that their complex assortment of symptoms and syndromes was caused by sugar? Not many, but it has been proven to me, and I have no choice but to try to convey to you why I am so convinced. Im so convinced, that I truly believe the question is not what causes type 2 diabetes, but why do refined carbohydrates in particular, and potentially other modern junk items such as solvent extracted vegetable oil, cause type 2 diabetes? What is the modus operandi of these killer foods? It is this question that I, Matt Stone, health thinkaholic, address in this book.

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180 Degree Diabetes is fully a multi-purpose book. Although focusing purely on a diabetic audience would have been great, and no doubt very useful to a type 2 looking to go beyond symptom mitigation and roll the dice on disease reversal the vast majority of the population isnt diabetic. It is also far easier to prevent diabetes than it is to overcome it although both can be done in most cases, assuming that most of the research Ive encountered is truthful. Therefore, I feel obligated to not only address the diabetic, but to spend ample time discussing the vital steps the Average Joe and Josephine need to take to sidestep this epidemic. That will simply have a greater and more important impact, stopping the diabetes progression in its tracks and ending the degenerative tumble. This emphasis will be greatly highlighted, as type 2 diabetes is not something that you wake up to one morning, unsuspected. Diabetes is progressive. First, fasting glucose levels are in the 80s. A few years later theyre in the 90s. Then substantially over 100 and youre pre-diabetic, then you finally hit the magic number, 126 mg/dl, and you get a shiny blue ribbon welcoming you to the club. In other words, if youre paying attention, type 2 diabetes sneaks up on you like an elephant with bubble-wrap shoes. Assuming youre not deaf, an elephant would have some trouble pulling that off. If you are alert, know what the hallmarks of homeostasis are, such as a basal body temperature of 98 degrees F and fasting glucose of almost exactly 85 mg/dl, then youre doctor will never throw you a diabetes surprise party. I believe with all my heart, that some of the most exciting and paradigm-shattering advice on stopping the diabetes process can be found in this book. Insulin resistance, the underlying disorder behind most cases of overweight, obesity, and type 2 diabetes amongst other modern ills, is considered to be difficult to reverse. Its thought to be a condition that just develops with age. Its part of the natural aging process Nothing that Ive come across that has ventured beyond conventional wisdumb, has suggested anything but the opposite. Melvin Page, for example, the Godfather of proper glucose metabolism in a sense, brought 33% of a group of 480 patients with impaired glucose metabolism back to normal on his diet. Thats right, a little tweak in the diet, without restriction of fats, carbohydrates, proteins, or overall calories fixed 1 in 3 people. That, in and of itself, is a pretty amazing feat. But thats not the amazing part. The amazing part is that those results were achieved in THREE FING DAYS! Imagine how many could have healed following his diet by the end of a month! Joel Fuhrman claims that More than 90 percent of my diabetic patients who were on insulin at the time of their first visit got off all insulin within the first month. Id call that somewhat promising as well. Broda Barnes, an endocrinologist that dedicated his career to insuring that all of his 2,000 or so patients had an optimized metabolism, as gauged by having a morning basal body temperature (armpit temp) between 97.8 and 98.2 degrees F, had a grand total of ZERO patients develop type 2 diabetes under his care. That doesnt sound so hopeless does it? That doesnt sound like genetic predetermination to get the disease if you ask me. These

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results are echoed by modern day practitioners of Brodas methods, Drs. Mark Starr and Stephen Langer. Do you think Langer, in using Solved: The Riddle of Illness as the title for his book is telling diabetic patients that theres no hope? I dont either! So climb on for a good ride. Sights will include: Shattering the premises of many dietary cults Pointing out plenty of historical examples of degeneration setting in with the dawn of refined carbohydrates Examining insulin resistance and honing in on its cause and cure. Learning about glucose monitoring not just to control diabetes, but as a preventative tool Simplifying the seemingly-complex constellation of health problems and risk factors associated with diabetes Laying out an assortment of options for dealing with the disease head-on and potentially reversing the entire disease process from high-fat to low-fat, and from fasting to feasting.

By the time we get to the destination you will all know a few things for sure. Diabetes is not our destiny, and its prevention is simple and requires no acts of superhuman willpower or determination. If you are diabetic, you will know that there are many alternative nutritional treatments to attempt before giving up hope, and that virtually all of them have been wildly successful for a great percentage of diabetics. And no matter who you are, you will learn many of the secrets of avoiding the entire degenerative process that leads to not only diabetes, but obesity, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, high blood sugars, digestive problems, and more. Most importantly, anyone who reads this will take giant leaps in getting the whole picture. For anyone who has been officially diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic, do not attempt to heal your condition with this information alone. The complexities of having such a serious medical condition must be tracked very carefully, medications adjusted and eliminated at the discretion of your doctor, and you must find an agreeable physician who is willing to support the idea of any attempt of diabetic reversal before commencing any program of action. If you do overcome your condition, it is absolutely mandatory for the benefit of others that you immediately report your experiences to the 180DegreeHealth blog or to me personally, at sacredself@gmail.com. Best of luck in sticking it to the man instead of sticking yourself with insulin and lancets for the rest of your days -Matt Stone December 2009

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What is type 2 diabetes? Before we go any further, lets take a moment to define type 2 diabetes. Just to get the basics down and get everyone diabetic, prediabetic, and healthy layperson alike, on the same page. Type 1 diabetes is a deficiency of the pancreas. It is thought to be an autoimmune disease that typically strikes in childhood, in which the beta cells of the pancreas are irreparably damaged by the immune system. Like most autoimmune illnesses, the particulars of why this happens is totally unknown. The bottom line is that the pancreas can no longer produce insulin, and since insulin is needed to store nutrients, glucose included, out of the bloodstream and into the cells, type 1 diabetics are in serious trouble without supplemental insulin injections. Type 2 diabetes, although it too results in blood glucose levels that are higher than normal, is a completely different illness as different as Ghandi and George W. Bush. Its much more different than apples and oranges. Whereas type 1 diabetes is attributed to a faulty pancreas, type 2 diabetes has nothing to do with the pancreas. In fact, the pancreas of a type 2 diabetic is often a superhero The type 2 diabetic usually has no defect in insulin production. In fact, while a healthy individual produces about 31 units of insulin per day, the type 2 diabetic may secrete as much as 114 units! We are obviously not looking at an insulin shortage here. -Julian Whitaker The reason so much insulin is secreted is due to a phenomenon called insulin resistance. Insulin is the key that opens up the cells and allows glucose to flow from the blood into the cells. Its general function is to nourish the cells while simultaneously keeping the glucose level of the bloodstream within very tight parameters. Too much sugar in the blood causes damage to the integrity of the person from the inside out, which is why insulins function is so vital to human life. Insulin resistance is a condition where the insulin is present, but not working properly. Because it is not working efficiently, the pancreas compensates by overriding the insulin resistance by secreting more insulin. In other words, when you are insulin resistant, you need more insulin to do the same job that a small amount of insulin should otherwise be able to do. This is one of the primary problems of type 2 diabetics and prediabetics, as this large quantity of insulin in the body enhances fat storage while inhibiting its release from cells to be burned as energy. The result: you store fat at a faster pace than you burn it, and body fat slowly starts to accumulate in excess of what is normal and healthy. Barring aggressive force-feeding like that done by Sumo wrestlers who choke down 5,000-6,000 calories per day (and are fat but quite healthy), insulin resistance is the predominant cause of overweight and obesity.

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This is often not a very dramatic metabolic shift either, but slowly creeps up on a person over decades. Going from normal weight to being 40 pounds overweight from age 20 to 60, which is very common, represents a deficit of fat burned vs. fat stored by only 9.6 calories per day. Thats equal to .05 servings of peanut butter a tenth of a tablespoon. Thats like what, a half a peanut? Of course, the weight loss industry would have you believe that if you left that tenth of a teaspoon of peanut butter on your spoon each day, you would avoid gaining a single ounce of fat over that time frame. This is, as I often say, the stupidest thing Ive ever heard in my life. This time I mean it though! This is the reason that virtually all type 2 diabetics are overweight. Mainstream medicine sees the weight creeping up for years and then notices rising blood sugars on down the line, which gives the appearance that body fat causes diabetes, when it is insulin resistance that causes both excess fat accumulation and rising blood sugars long-term. Weight gain is a clue pointing towards a metabolic disorder. Rising blood sugars are caused after insulin resistance has continued for many, many years. The pancreas gradually increases its production to offset insulin resistance until the point where insulin resistance becomes so strong, and the need for insulin so great, that the pancreas can no longer keep up with the huge demand. For this reason, someone with half as much insulin resistance can be diabetic before someone with far higher levels of insulin resistance. Its just that some people exceed the capacity of their pancreas faster than others. This is often all that differentiates someone that is fat and non-diabetic and someone who is not as fat and diabetic (well over 90% of type 2 diabetics are significantly overweight. Those that arent still tend to carry too much fat in the abdominal region beer belly in men and more of a barrel-shaped torso in women). So type 2 diabetes is really a malfunction of insulin at the cellular level. The action of insulin is blocked, typically by an adrenal hormone called cortisol (which I also believe to block the action of thyroid hormones which exacerbates problems and leads to other related disorders such as heart disease), which we will be discussing later. Blood sugars only begin to significantly rise after the capacity of the pancreas has been exceeded in its attempts to override this cellular resistance to insulin. The key to fundamentally reversing this problem, insulin resistance, is the focus of 180 Degree Diabetes, and the principles are just as applicable to someone with insulin resistance that doesnt have type 2 diabetes as it is to someone who has metabolic syndrome (low body temperature, low HDL, high blood pressure, overweight, high triglycerides), is prediabetic (above-normal blood sugars), or is a full-blown type 2 (fasting glucose over 126 mg/dl).

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Low-Carb Science Never Eades Up To get the big picture of what type 2 diabetes is, how it comes about, what the root cause is, and come up with a viable strategy for its reversal one must acknowledge the vital contribution of the low-carbers. The first mainstream low-carber in this era was ol Dr. Atkins a guy Ive always enjoyed calling Dr. Fatkins. Dr. Atkins is the greatest low-carb selling weight loss mastermind in recorded history. Coming in a distant 2nd are Michael and Mary Dan Eades, living low-carb legends and authors of Protein Power, which was 2nd only to like the Bible in sales for quite a while I think. Everyone knows Atkins, and everyone knows what the low-carb diet is. You eat lots of meat and other sources of fat and protein, but you cut the carbs out of your diet. Its considered a fad diet, but unlike other fads like say, the grapefruit diet or that one where you eat nothing but cabbage, the low-carb diet is much more than a diet. The low-carb movement is a complete and total affront to the mainstream beliefs about health, nutrition, cholesterol, heart disease, dietary fat, and more. Its backed up, not just by science, but MORE science than the entrenched low-fat stance on healthy eating and the belief that eating saturated fat and cholesterol-laden foods will cause the arteries to become clogged. Anyone who is literate, and who has used this skill to actually read a book or two, will note that the saturated fat/cholesterol theory of heart disease has been thoroughly disproven. While stubborn health authorities maintain the anti-saturated fat stance on diet, even backwoods institutions like Harvard University are asserting that heart disease as well as type 2 diabetes are diseases of inflammation. This is a savvy way for them to save face by admitting that they were wrong about fat and cholesterol invading the mandible and viciously cutting off blood supply to the heart in an act of beyond-Sigfreid and Roy magic. The low-carb enthusiasts, who have done thorough research, have a totally different and far more elegant and accurate portrayal of how food can kill us and make us diabetic (not necessarily in that order). Low-carb science points out that insulin and blood glucose, two substances that are interdependent in the body, are driven up by carbohydrates more than any other type of food. This is true. All carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the blood, which causes a secretion of insulin to store the glucose into cells and out of the blood. No one is going to argue against this basic low-carb premise. Another assertion of low-carbers that is irrefutable, is that the higher the level of insulin in the body, the greater the propensity for storing body fat and developing heart disease. Theres no question about it. Journalist Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories, concludes that high insulin levels equals higher rates of degenerative disease and weight problems. Bravo Gary. Only a damn fool would fail to notice such a

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correlation. This of course, makes most people fools, as few have recognized such a basic and easily-observable physiological fundamental. The same correlation exists for blood glucose, because where there is elevated insulin, there is elevated blood glucose and vice versa. So therefore, according to the low-carb hypothesis, higher glucose and higher insulin = bad health. Carbohydrates cause a greater rise in glucose and insulin, therefore, eating carbohydrates = bad health. Looks nice, neat, and simple doesnt it? Just dont eat carbs and youll live happily-ever-after. But the low-carb movement unfortunately is no better at solving the whole entire riddle than any other theory. Like a typical scientific crusade, its Achilles heel is its oversimplification of the human body and its infinitely complex dynamism. Dr. Joel Fuhrman, advocate of an equally over-simplified health dogma, can at least see right through the low-carb front. He puts it best when he states: So, it is certainly true as the advocates of animal-food-rich diets, such as Atkins, Heller, Sears, and other proclaim carbohydrates drive up insulin levels temporarily. These writers, however, have not presented the data in accurate fashion. A diet revolving around unrefined carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes) will not raise blood sugars or insulin levels. Studies have shown that such a diet can reduce fasting insulin levels 30-40 percent in just three weeks. Obviously, a low-fat diet that is high in refined sugars and refined carbohydrates and low in fiber is not a healthy diet. To lump refined and unrefined carbohydrates together is inaccurate and misleading. This illuminates the overall problem with low-carbohydrate dogma. Consuming carbohydrate-rich foods temporarily drives insulin and glucose levels up. That is basic nutrition meets physiology. But the secretion of insulin (a perfectly healthy and vital human hormone) upon the ingestion of carbohydrate is no different than your chest rising when you inhale. It is a normal response to food. Its the chronic high levels of glucose and insulin that is problematic. These chronic levels stem, not from what we eat directly, but from what our body does with what we eat. For example, the morning I wrote this I consumed a large breakfast of fatty pulled pork, onions, and a bowl of plain oatmeal with half and half. 70 minutes after finishing this meal, my blood glucose was 73 mg/dl. After a meal of cheese, veggies, and two baked Russet potatoes, medalists on the glycemic index, my 1-hour post-meal glucose is only 75mg/dl. A type 2 diabetic can have double this amount of blood glucose 12 hours after eating a meal, when blood glucose levels are at their lowest. Clearly the glycemic load of a meal isnt the only factor. This is where the most tragically incorrect of all low-carb beliefs comes into play. Lowcarb enthusiasts actually believe that spiking insulin and blood glucose levels repeatedly by ingesting carbohydrates causes the insulin mechanism to wear out, leading to insulin resistance. This, quite simply, is not how insulin resistance develops. In fact, insulin

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resistance can be greatly heightened on a low-carb diet and greatly reduced on a diet with ample carbohydrates or even extremely high levels of carbohydrates. This is why there is no such correlation between carbohydrate in the diet and insulin resistance. Humans have eaten carbohydrates in great abundance in many cultures worldwide without obesity and diabetes epidemics like the one the world currently faces. In fact, as low-fat fans in the medical profession are all-too-eager to point out, the countries that consume the most carbohydrates often have the lowest rates of type 2 diabetes (like Japan but dont try to mimic them, type 2 is on the rise there as much as it is anywhere). If there is a single culprit in the carbohydrate category if you pay attention to what has been extrapolated from laboratory study, then refined fructose appears to be the villain. Glucose has a hell of a time inducing insulin resistance, and in many cases can lower insulin resistance and improve glucose function. Fructose, on the other hand, a type of carbohydrate that is metabolized in a completely different manner than glucose, has an uncanny ability to induce insulin resistance. In fact, fructose is the very substance given to lab rats to induce the myriad of biological changes associated with insulin resistance aka metabolic syndrome, such as low HDL, high triglycerides, hypertension, and weight gain. Note that this is refined crystalline fructose, or large amounts of fructose found in other refined sugars such as high-fructose corn syrup and/or table sugar NOT small quantities of fructose found in natural fruits. For to combine refined carbohydrates with unrefined carbohydrates is a foolish error one that low-carbers often make while repeating the phrase sugar is sugar is sugar, or some close variant. Cue eye-rolling. Nowhere in the greatest works of the 20th century on the diet-disease connection is there a suggestion that refined and unrefined carbohydrates have even a similar net effect on the human body much less an identical effect. The etiology of insulin and glucose-related health problems metabolic syndrome if you will, or a broader constellation: the Saccharine disease, has a strong and undeniable correlation to refined carbohydrates staple foods in all modern nations (all of which are seeing rising rates of type 2 diabetes). This correlation erodes when unrefined carbohydrates: whole grains, beans, corn, potatoes, yams, vegetables, and fruit are considered. Its this simple observation that led astute scientists such as T.L. Cleave to blame refined carbohydrates, and not natural, unrefined carbohydrates, for the causation of modern health problems. You simply cant compare the two, can you Doc Cleave? carbohydrates should not be taken as a single group but as two very different groups; one being natural, unconcentrated carbohydrates, such as unrefined grains,

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potatoes, and fruits, and the other being unnatural, concentrated carbohydrates, notably refined flour and sugar. What a low-carb diet does, and why it can provide some results especially for someone with a lack of insulin due to beta cell burnout, is treat the weakness. Low-carb is a crutch. When someone has poor glucose metabolism, the low-carb diet offers a reprieve by limiting the amount of glucose entering the system. Like a crutch, it does the job of the leg so that the leg doesnt have to perform. But this is no fix. It is an avoidance scheme that limits many peoples recovery capability. Furthermore, a low-carb diet can provoke a great deal of symptoms in the long run, including even high fasting glucose levels and corresponding high insulin levels. Low-carb gurus are baffled by this phenomenon to the point where they will even deny this. They thinketh it impossible, but its not. This phenomenon is why I began spouting the phrase, you can run from carbohydrates, but you cant hide. The body still needs glucose, but the very presence of ketone bodies a result of eating a very low-carbohdyrate diet, causes insulin resistance to intensify. A shortage of glucose will also cause the metabolism to slow down, triggering greater insulin resistance as well. A diet too low in carbohydrates also stresses the adrenals, and higher cortisol levels are thought to trigger insulin resistance as well. As insulin resistance intensifies, the body simultaneously becomes more efficient at breaking down protein into glucose, a process called gluconeogenesis. Likewise, stored glucose called glycogen is released by the liver. So carbohydrates in the diet or not, the brain still runs on glucose and glucose is still entering the blood. The result of this glucose cruising around in a system that is insulin resistant is high blood sugars nearly all the time. Then the body remains in a state of perpetual hyperinsulinemia as the body secretes insulin to override or compensate for the insulin resistance and bring glucose levels back to the normal range, which is 75 to 85 mg/dl. (possibly less as well discuss). In fact, on a low-carb Paleo forum, one guy reported fasting blood glucose levels over 100 mg/dl after several years of an all-meat diet and an A1C test of 6%. Compare that to Kitavans eating potatoes like candy with A1Cs of around 4% (ideal). The A1C test tracks average glucose levels over a 2-3 month period, and is by far the best overall indicator of glucose metabolism. I discuss it thoroughly in the chapter on Diabetes Prevention. Make no mistake, the low-carb diet does help to medicate type 2 diabetes. For example, the comment left on the Paleo forum was from a guy (Lex Rooker), that had fasting glucose levels of 140 mg/dl prior to going low-carb. Theres no doubt that overall health improves, weight is lost, and glucose and insulin levels are better controlled by switching to a low-carb diet. Diabetes specialist Dr. Richard Bernstein to name names, has seen improvements take place when a low-carb diet is adopted for decades, and its a way better option than sticking to the Extra Value Meal, Fruity Pebbles, and ice cream diet.

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But low-carb is not the ultimate solution. It does not cure type 2 diabetes. And even when health problems radically improve on a low-carb diet like they did for me years ago, those miracle cures often go away as the low-carb honeymoon period comes to a close. That is, once the problems of high cortisol or adrenal fatigue, lowered metabolism, and highly adapted gluconeogenesis (converting protein to glucose) catch up with you. Plus, a really low-carbohdyrate diet is torturous emotionally over the long-term, as it can exacerbate neurotransmitter profiles of those with addictive eating tendencies. Most type 2s are sugar, caffeine, white flour, and/or alcohol addicts due to naturally low levels of key neurotransmitters like beta-endorphin. This quote from some mainstream diabetes authorities (authorities on having the disease, which they do, and not necessarily authorities on curing it, which they havent) says it all: Many of us who have diabetes and have taken insulin can tell you that it is the last of the issues of having diabetes. As far as we can see, the biggest issue is not about having to take insulin but about not getting to eat brownies. This deserves far more attention and correction than all the emotion and upset surrounding insulin. Id say Virginia Valentine is onto something with that quote. Its the neurochemistry that causes brownie obsession that should be addressed before type 2s are brutally flogged with the eat less/exercise more whip. The miracle whip, if you will. Kathleen DesMaisons, expert on this neurochemistry profile, says it best: Six or eight weeks into the Atkins plan, a sugar addict will be one cranky puppy. That is putting it lightly. Only four weeks into a zero carb diet I was ready to brutally murder anyone that looked at me funny. This was quite a dramatic shift, as Im kind of like a human Teddy Ruxpin otherwise. Besides, low-carb diets are notorious for causing constipation, which worsens over time, indigestion, foul body odor (and Im not just talking about some ketones being excreted), and a long list of other problems. The development of food allergies seems to be one I hear quite regularly too. Anyway, as a type 2 diabetic or even just as a regular person looking to eat healthfully, do not become overly infatuated with the low-carb chuckwagon. It has its place, and it has contributed to the great debate in priceless ways. Before low-carbohydrate diets came onto the scene, few major health authorities had any real idea that insulin or blood glucose might be linked to the major epidemics of modern man. They thought that egg yolks, butter, and red meat were the problem (and many still do, which is pretty comical so funny I forgot to laugh). For their contributions, we should all be infinitely grateful. But Atkins does not hold the key to the pearly gates of heaven, regardless of whether or not your fasting glucose is high enough to be considered a type 2 diabetic or not. There are other more sophisticated, healthful, and sustainable ways to not just deal with poor

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carbohydrate tolerance by avoiding carbs, but repair the very mechanism that is broken within the body that leads to carbohydrate intolerance. Ultimately, choosing to avoid carbohydrates because they are poorly tolerated is a major copout. Thats like discovering that the air is low on the front driver-side tire, and deciding that the best plan of action is to reduce driving. Well, what if you re-inflated the tire? Then you could drive all you wanted maybe even throw in some hydraulics, flip the switches, and throw gang signs out the windows at all the hotties as you bounce your way over to the Slauson Swap meet. I hope, in illuminating some of the re-inflation strategies in 180 Degree Diabetes, youll have the courage to explore and experiment with them, and ultimately find your own personal answer the one that truly frees you from the bondage of the insulin resistance downward spiral.

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Pima Kitava

A Pima Kitava sounds like a delicious drink. Something sweet. Laced with highfructose corn syrup with ice cream and rum. Crap, sorry. That probably made your insulin surge. Its time to discuss two very important groups of people when it comes to understanding the cause of type 2 diabetes and the party favors that come with it. First off are the Pima Indians. No comprehensive discussion of diabetes is complete without some hefty thought into the Pima Indians. The Pima live on a reservation in the Southwestern United States. They are famous, not in the sense that J-Lo might be, but because the plumpness of the population. I guess in way, there is a connection between J-Los plump bootie and the Pimas plump bodies. Bad example. The Pimas hold the world heavyweight title. Not only are they known to be mysteriously obese, but the rates of type 2 diabetes amongst the Pima Indians is absolutely stunning. It is a true testament to where the rest of the world may be heading if we dont get a handle on the root causes of type 2 diabetes and how to stay out of its grasp. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of Pimas suffer from the disease. They are the kings and queens of diabetes. Their diet doesnt really differ from the rest of the population. They eat a typical American-style diet, rich in cheap meat, trans fats, polyunsaturated vegetable oils, white flour and other white grains, and plenty of refined sugar in the form of cookies, candies, soda, and so forth. Fruits and vegetables are scarce, something that mainstream health authorities would be all too eager to point out Im sure. What the Pimas show us is that type 2 diabetes obviously has a very strong hereditary component. Theres no question that heredity is involved, and that the Pimas are the most diabetes-prone of any race on earth. Only a fool would fail to acknowledge that connection, but note that I say heredity and not genes or genetics. That is intentional and a very careful word choice on my part. Genetics implies that the Pima Indians have some natural propensity to develop obesity and diabetes that was forged by nature. Heredity is a word that refers to what is handed down from generation to generation. It could mean genetic material or it could mean something else handed down. I believe it to be something else. Going back in history, the Pima, when first reported on by early white settlers, were noted as having an abundance of food, healthy, robust bodies, and strong resistance against disease. It was even said that they had fabulous stores of food and were very well-nourished. Modern obesity theorists use the Pima as evidence of the thrifty gene hypothesis, a phrase that makes me cringe. The theory basically states that some clans or races of

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people developed an uncanny ability to store fat as a survival advantage. This worked really well in times of scarcity claim the thrifty gene clergy, but in todays day and age of unlimited food, those genes simply work against them. This is an interesting theory. Im sure Dr. Oz would be all over that like I am baconwrapped ribeye, but the fact of the matter is this theory is painfully easy to shatter into a million pieces. The Pima, just like hundreds of groups of people worldwide prior to the modern dietary era, had a great abundance of food. Not everyone had food coming out of their ears, but for the most part, humans were intelligent and organized enough to figure out this whole feeding thyself thing pretty well. After all, we are, and have been for thousands of years, the top of the food chain. The Pima were no exception. They had great storehouses of corn, beans, and grain. They ate potatoes and wild game. Sure, they were somewhat active doing low-intensity exercise like preparing food or working in the garden, but the exercise theory of obesity has been annihilated in much the same manner as the thrifty gene hypothesis. But the Pima of old were not obese and not overweight. They were healthy, just like every race of humans until modern dietary norms became their staples. Interestingly, when it came to the Pimas, they endured a brief starvation period between the time in which they had great food abundance and the appearance of modern foodstuffs that they were given on the Reservation. Starvation is known to slow down the metabolism of both parents and offspring who are born into the world in a hypometabolic state in preparation for famine. No one would call this purely genetic, as the hereditary material clearly shows that it can change in response to the environment. This, as far as Im concerned is a huge clue. This hypometabolic trigger followed up by a diet that is known to cause diabetes at a much greater rate than any unrefined primitive diet, could have been the one-two punch that earned the modern Pima the heavyweight title. Although refined foods, sleep deprivation, harmful substances in the diet, a nutrient-poor diet, stress, and so on are all causative factors in inducing a hypometabolic state caloric deprivation is the true king. That, combined with the ultimate modern diet, is the perfect diabetic storm. To help the idea sink in a little deeper, one need only to take a look across the border to see how neighboring Pimas are doing. Across the Arizona border into Mexico live a group of Pima Indians that are still relatively subsisting off of their agrarian staples corn, beans, potatoes, and squashes. Thats right. Theyve got plenty of good food, mostly carbohydrate-based, and they do not suffer from massive insulin resistance. Theyve got the same genetics too, but evidently not the same heredity as far as I know, they have no signs of being hypometabolic peoples.

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Makes you think doesnt it? It certainly throws some kinks into the theory that journalist Gary Taubes promotes that the abundance of high-glycemic carbs in the diet of the susceptible Pima has caused their demise. Corn and potatoes, the bread and butter of the Mexican Pima from what I understand, pretty much top the list of high glycemic carbohydrates. Whats absent from their diet in large part, are the trans fats and other oxidized vegetable oils, refined sugars, and refined grains. Some would argue saturated fat or feedlot beef, but I have absolutely no inclination from my research and experience to believe that either is significantly involved in the Pima fattening phenomenon. This simple observation that the Pima Indians living across the border show no apparent genetic predisposition to diabetes, obesity, and the like, is hugely significant. Theories about thrifty genes, about the demise that agricultural advancement inflicted upon the hunter-gatherer (the Paleolithic nutrition cult), the belief that carbs are inherently sinister, and more erode into nothingness. Not a single one of those theories can explain why Mexican Pima are healthy, and the American Pima are not. Still, since Mexican Pima consume less fat than the American Pima, theres plenty out there about fat causing the problems. Yes, just about anyone that can find something to fit into their puzzle will snatch up that piece. Yes, they probably eat less meat too go have a field day with that vegetarians. But as any thorough researcher looking for the answer (and not just more supporting material for a preset theory) will notice there is no historical or etiological link between meat consumption, fat consumption, carbohydrate consumption, and type 2 diabetes. The best and most astute of all researchers over the course of the 20th century never dared to accuse any of the basic three macronutrients of treason. Even the idea of it was aggravatingly preposterous, something that I can certainly relate to. T.L. Cleave put it best when he said, testifying before George McGoverns Senate Select committee on Nutrition and Health in 1973: For a modern disease to be related to an old-fashioned food is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard in my life. That modern disease was heart disease part of the obesity-diabetes network of closelyrelated diseases, and the old-fashioned food was saturated fat, but it just as easily couldve been starch or meat. The same could be applied to calories as well. Quite simply, a huge variety of diets has proven to be healthy. Along the lines of fat, Roger Williams cites Lowensteins work, in which he found various peoples of the earth who have little or no atherosclerosis and are virtually free of heart disease [and presumably diabetes as well] with fat intake ranging from 21 grams per day to as much as 355 grams per day. It aint about the carbs, the proteins, the fats, or even the calories. Its not even about physical activity, for which there has been tremendous variance as well amongst healthy peoples. It has to do with other factors.

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Before getting too carried away here, lets examine the other half of this cocktail the Kitavans. The Kitavans live out near good old Papau New Guinea. They are largely unacknowledged by the mainstream, but a superb Swedish fish named Staffan Lindeberg decided to swim over there and study the folks in Kitava extensively. His mission, like most doctors studying healthy people, was to scrutinize risk factors for prominent health problems in the Western world namely heart disease. Again, not to stray too far from type 2 diabetes, but remember that where there is heart disease, there is diabetes and vice versa. In the study, Lindeberg found the Kitavans to have complete immunity to heart disease. By all accounts, their health was awesome what the Western world so longs for but hasnt found the way to achieve. Their diet consists of regular old foods. A little coconut oil for fat, a little meat, lots of fresh fish (the diet is something like 30% protein), and a broad spectrum of tuberous carbohydrates including potatoes and yams as well as fresh fruits and vegetables in reasonable quantities. The elderly live vibrant, active, and functional lives free of disease up until a few days or weeks prior to their deaths of natural causes more or less. The predominant source of fat in the diet is saturated fat, as coconut is the most concentrated of all food sources in saturated fat. Overall, the diet is around 50% carbohydrate. And everybodys doing just fine even smoking cigarettes like theyre going out of style (note, these are not American cigarettes, laced with pollutants and refined sugar up to 3% by weight). Of course, elsewhere in Melanesia health problems abound. The difference, just like in every circumstance and situation in which type 2 diabetes and related maladies surface, is the diet. Where type 2 diabetes is found, refined sugar and refined grain are present. That is the case in every clan of every society of every state of every nation on every continent. Throw some delightful food additives, chemical pollutants, television, trans fats, vegetable oils, and other garbage into the lifestyle, all of which are known to induce a hypometabolic state, and you get a gift-wrapped box of syringes and Metformin. Yeah, just picture the Pima Indians having frybread (trans fat deep-fried white bread), while drinking a large Pepsi in front of the television when its 110 degrees F outside. Not trying to stereotype (although Im sure Sherman Alexies movie Smoke Signals my girlfriends favorite, paints a pretty accurate portrait of life on just about any American Indian Reservation) because Id likely find little better to do in the middle of Southern Arizona myself. This lifestyle and diet colliding with a prior period of starvation has only served to prime the pump of hypometabolic heredity even further. Now the Pimas have a very, very serious problem. Its one, just like countless other examples of primitive health gone awry, that should echo a warning to us all. We should be eager to learn exactly why the

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Pima have developed these health issues to such a great extent. Instead, fat phobes take a glimpse at the phenomenon and blame it on fat. Carb phobes take a glimpse and blame it on carbs (although, I dont know on what grounds if you factor in the lean Mexican Pima on starchy carbohydrate staples). The point of this chapter is simple. The answer to this question has been answered, with great clarity, time and time and time again throughout the ages. Even now, there are plenty that understand the importance of separating refined carbohydrates and unrefined, natural carbohydrates into two distinct groups that are worlds apart, and that the low-carb theory of diabetes that continues to gain traction is just plain missing the mark. In addition to the priceless comments differentiating between refined and unrefined carbohydrates by Cleave and Fuhrman already mentioned: Carbohydrates do not cause diabetes. And a diet that focuses on keeping carbohydrates out of your diet is not a powerful way to manage let alone reverse the disease. If anything, healthy complex carbohydrates help to prevent it. -Neal Barnard It is the modern, processed, refined foods that we eat each day which leads to degenerative disease. -Melvin Page if you go on a diet and eliminate refined carbs, very often insulin sensitivity returns, and hypoglycemia, prediabetes, or diabetes could go away. -Deborah Metzger First, all of the patients were put on the basic diet which eliminates all sugar and sugar products, [pasteurized] milk and milk products, fruit juices, coffee, alcohol and white bread for 3 days. On the basic diet alone, the number with a normal blood sugar increased to 367 out of 688 (from 208 prior). -Melvin Page Still wanna mope around about how your genes suck (Unlucky Sperm Club) and think that type 2 diabetes is unavoidable and irreversible? If not, then lets give some of the concepts in this book full commitment before we throw in the towel. -Me

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The Saccharine Disease Ive read some interesting and very pivotal works on nutrition and health in my day, but one in particular really takes the cake when it comes to understanding what refined carbohydrates do to the human system. I guess taking the cake is a bad phrase to use though. I have a feeling T.L. Cleave, author of Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis, and the Saccharine Disease (1969) wouldnt have touched cake with a 10-foot pole. Not after what he saw happened to people once they displaced unrefined carbohydrates with white rice, white flour, and white sugar. T.L. Peter Cleave was yet another researcher, along the lines of Denis Burkitt and Hugh Trowell (who reported on the same phenomenon in a similar locale but received more notoriety for it), that had the unique opportunity to witness the crossover from natural, unrefined carbohydrate foods to the white stuff. By white stuff I of course mean highly-refined carbohydrate foods such as white table sugar and white flour the standbys of modern civilization. Cleave studied the rural and urban Zulu tribe in Africa. The urban Zulu, as is so common of urbanized people, suffered from all kinds of typical illnesses. The rural Zulu didnt suffer from a single one of those very common illnesses. The only difference as far as Cleave could tell was the type of dietary carbohydrates that each respective group of Zulus ate. This led Cleave, although he was never sure as to the whys and hows of how these diseases came to be, to give a blanket name that included all illnesses that developed on refined carbohydrate diets. This he called the Saccharine Disease, and his first major published work (that I know of), was called Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis, and the Saccharine Disease. He went on to publish a similar follow-up called, straight up, The Saccharine Disease in 1974. What exactly is the Saccharine disease and what does it entail? We can get a great summary from Capn Cleave-age himself: The saccharine disease includes dental decay and pyorrhea; gastric and duodenal ulcer and other forms of indigestion; obesity, diabetes, and coronary disease; constipation, with its complications of varicose veins and hemorrhoids; and primary Escherichia coli infections, like appendicitis, cholecystitis (with or without gall-stones), and primary infections of the urinary tract. The same applies to certain skin condition. Not one of these diseases is for practical purposes ever seen in races who do not consume refined carbohydrates. Cleaves basic observation, and the assertion which it spawned, was very different from what you might get from todays low-carb crowd. That is unfortunate, as Ive been led to believe repeatedly that very low-carb diets are unnecessary, and in many cases counterproductive in healing the root of the overall disorder (glucose dysregulation). Even crazier, many low-carb authors, including those of the greatest prominence such as

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Michael Eades and to an even greater degree Gary Taubes, use Cleaves work as strong evidence that carbohydrates are the enemy! No way! Cleave was as big of a fan of the carbohydrate as anyone, and his observations in no way support a connection between carbohydrate consumption or overall glycemic load or anything of the like. The rural Zulu ate the absolute baJeezus out of some carbs, but never had any kind of metabolic disorder associated with poor glucose regulation, hyperinsulinemia, or any other facet of metabolic syndrome much less fullblown diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and the like. For the love of all thats holy, they didnt even have tooth decay, constipation, or varicose veins nor did they have diverticulosis, which now affects more than half the elderly U.S. population. What Cleave was observing and comparing were two groups of people on extremely high-carbohydrate diets. One group was healthy and free from glucose-related diseases, and the other was not. Here is Cleave speaking to his theory that the refining of carbohydrates is the primary culprit of these diseases: In that table it was shown that although 90 per cent of the calorific intake in the rural Zulu is provided by carbohydrates (which are generally regarded as the fattening foods), as against only 81 per cent of the intake in the urban Zulu, the crucial point is that, in the case of the rural Zulu, of the 90 per cent figure 89 is derived from unrefined carbohydrates, whereas, in the case of the urban Zulu, of the 81 per cent figure 71 is derived from refined carbohydrates. An explanation, therefore, based on the argument advanced in this work, fits the facts as a glove to its hand. Cleave goes on and on with hard-hitting statements that I dutifully jotted down for my own collection of quotes, stressing the fundamental difference between unrefined carbohydrate foods, such as potatoes, beans, fruit, and grain and white, refined powders. what matters is not the quantity of carbohydrates consumed, but the form in which they are consumed to be more accurate, whether they have been refined or not. there is no doubt, from an evolutionary point of view, that, in any disease in man due to alterations in his food from the natural state, the refined carbohydrates, both on account of the magnitude and the recentness of the alterations, are always the foods most likely to be at fault; and not the fats. To summarize, those who eat unrefined carbohydrates are candidates for salvation over disease; those who eat refined carbohydrates never are. Modern day diabetes researchers are far too buried in an endless sea of pubmed articles and various clinical trials that take such narrow viewpoints to be able to note such obvious effects of refined carbohydrate foods. On top of that, the entire food and agricultural industry is built upon a foundation of producing and selling refined carbohydrate foods turning agricultural commodities into tasty little sweet treats that come in a box and go crunch when you bite into them. Their financial interests and

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tentacles of influence are so great that any trial set up to test the difference between refined and unrefined carbohydrates is more or less un-fundable, and the results easy to write off as having too many variables to draw an accurate conclusion. Plus, for news to surface surrounding such a trial, it has to pass through the filter of corporate media interests, which are often owned, funded, and controlled by the financial interests of the food/agriculture/drug industry too. They have managed to buy off and infiltrate the FDA and USDA in their conquest as well while also having a heavy hand in nutrition and medical information and education. But speaking strictly on the maze of scientific minutiae that the average researcher gets lost in, unable to see the forest for the trees, Cleave directly announces the superiority of his more comprehensive and all-inclusive approach to finding the answers that he found. I agree wholeheartedly, as I too have scanned multiple centuries of information looking for inclusive, congruent ties capable of answering the big questions on heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and more. So yeah, Im all about fundamentals. Excluding all the biochemical, nutritional, and physiological scientific particulars, one fact remains true. A diet of unrefined carbohydrates with accessory factors such as dairy products, meats, and fats to supply essential animal-source nutrients, was a fabulous human diet the world over. It provided complete immunity to every facet of T.L. Cleaves Saccharine Disease, especially diabetes, which is a long-term, often multi-generational consequence of a diet centered primarily around white carbohydrates. Cleaves observations fall in perfect synch with that of Denis Burkitt and Hugh Trowell, Weston A. Price, and other observers able to see the same dramatic shift in quality of health during the big dietary transition. Cleave, like many others, also knew that of the refined carbohydrates, none were more sinister than refined sugar. Not only was sugar more addictive and promoting of tooth decay, it was completely devoid of all nutriment including vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber. It was essentially nothing but a crystallized white drug. Although Cleave may have had little knowledge of the metabolic differences between fructose found in refined sugar for example, and the carbohydrate found in white rice or white flour, Cleave still knew fully that refined sugar not starch, was the primary villain to focus upon. The chief problem in the present diet, however, concerns how to avoid eating ordinary sugar, and all the sweet things containing it. table sugaris always the most serious in the production of disease. And perhaps Cleaves most telling statement, one that can be applied to any historic and natural constituent of the human diet, was the words that he uttered while testifying before George McGoverns 1973 Senate Select committee on nutrition and health:

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For a modern disease to be related to an old-fashioned food is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard in my lifeIf anybody tells me that eating fat was the cause of coronary disease, I should look at them in amazement. But when it comes to the dreadful sweet things that are served up that is a very different proposition. Cleave, like many other astute 20th century observers hits the nail on the head. Heart disease, and its associated ills from diabetes to obesity, are modern diseases. They didnt pop out of nowhere due to foods that humans have always relished and consumed with great abundance (and I mean great abundance, one heart-disease free group of socalled primitive humans averaged 355 grams of fat per day). No. When looking to understand the fundamental reason why diabetes came about and is rapidly on the rise, look no further than the radically new and modern foods that we began consuming en masse for the first time in human history. The primary culprit is the refined carbohydrates, particularly sugar, as white rice eating societies have generally fared far better. Another dramatic change was switching from unrefined, natural fats mostly saturated and monounsaturated fats, to plant-based, highly unstable polyunsaturated fats. Trans fats from hydrogenated vegetable oil and the new interesterified fats are the epitome of switching over to newfangled foods. The same can be said of food additives, chemical preservatives, pesticides, and herbicides. These are, without question, the causes of most modern disease they all functionally remove nutrients and other vital substances, and replace them with inflammation-promoting, nutrient-depleting components. In other words, it gets down to what I call the health equation that well be discussing next. The above listed foods particularly the refined carbohydrates and vegetable oils which comprise 50% or more of the typical modern diet, decrease nutrient delivery while increasing nutrient excretion. By the same token, they increase pollutant delivery while decreasing pollutant excretion. That is the big picture answer for why they cause disease, particularly diabetes.

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Nutritional History

So is this where I lay out a chapter on the discovery of Vitamin C, or report back on how Vitamin A was the first nutrient ever discovered? No actually. This is a chapter about YOUR nutritional history the history of your lineages dietary history, which translates into your current nutritional status. I believe that type 2 diabetes is absolutely a heredity disease. But true hereditary diseases that are purely genetic do not change over time, unlike diabetes which popped out of nowhere and has been getting progressively worse over the last century. We arent talking about blue eyes and brown eyes. Blue and brown eyes have been around for millennia. So has the whole two arms, two legs, ten fingers, and ten toes thing. THAT is a genetic thing. Heredity is different. You can inherit money. You can inherit old clothes, jewelry, or a house. Your inheritance or heredity can be a lot more than the basic blueprint that we call genes. For example, lets say the mineral chromium is known to regulate glucose metabolism, and without it cells are unresponsive to insulin (insulin resistance). With a shortage of chromium, the likelihood of having impaired glucose metabolism is quite high. The greater the shortage, the higher the chances of having a poor glucose response. Although your genes could be the same as your mother and fathers, your nutritional status may vary tremendously from the levels that they began at. Exploring this, lets assign the number 10 to the level of chromium that your mothers mother had when she gave birth to your mother. Your mom started out at 10. But by the time she reached the age of 35 when you popped out, her level of chromium, because she used more of it than she consumed, dropped to 6. You were then born with a level of 6. You followed the same diet as your mom did, and by the time you reached adulthood it had dropped to 4. Now your kids will start at 4, and if they eat like you did, then their kids will have a level of 2-3, and so on. You see where that chromium level is headed? Here is an assortment of discussion on chromium in the 1983 book, Victory Over Diabetes, by William H. Philpott: When pure sugar is fed in large amounts to a fasting person, three things happen to that individual. First, his blood sugar is elevated; second, insulin in the blood rises dramatically; and third, chromium in the blood increases, since it is mobilized from storage levels in the body tissues. The chromium in the blood, elevated in response to the sugar intake and the co-presence of insulin, then travels to the kidneys, where between 20

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and 30 percent of the blood chromium is excreted in the urine. The result is a net loss of chromium in the body. Most carbohydrates have traces of chromium, as it is necessary for the proper metabolizing of sugar in the body. Nature has a funny way of making sure things are paired up in this manner. The refining of carbohydrates in which, in the case of refined sugar, 100% of the chromium is removed, is a hugely significant event that cant be underestimated. The proof of all this comes from the documented evidence that diabetic individuals excrete chromium more rapidly in their urine than do people not having diabetes It is, therefore, safe to assume that the primary biochemical lesion in chromium deficiency is manifested by the decreased sensitivity to the peripheral tissue to insulin This statement is of massive significance. Chromium does not have a role in glucose metabolism directly because of the glucose per se, but because the functionality of the hormone insulin depends upon chromium to properly execute its function. In other words, the bodys insulin system does not wear out from repeated use via mechanical failure as many low-carb diet enthusiasts claim. It starts to fail because it runs out of the gas that makes it run properly. This could be one of the primary culprits causing insulin resistance. all of this leads to a biochemically vicious circle in which the intake of either large amounts of sugar or the intake of insulin automatically causes a depletion of chromium; on the other hand, a deficiency of chromium causes an increased intolerance to glucose and therefore necessitates the injection of more and more insulin. This speaks to the increasingly-worsening situation of insulin resistance. Philpott continues to reveal important clues as to the fundamental importance of avoiding refined carbohydrates: Carbohydrates other than white sugar may also be responsible for chromium deficiencies in the human body. All starches are digested into sugars in the intestines and then used for energy sources. In the United States, the major source of carbohydrate calories other than white sugars is refined white flour. Fortunately, whole wheat flour contains 175 [mcg] of chromium per 100 grams of wheat; unfortunately, however, refined white flour the staple of the American diet contains only 23 [mcg] of chromium per 100 grams of refined white flour. This same process by which white sugar causes chromium depletion in the body can occur withwhite bread. Next, Philpott quotes Henry Schroeder, who sums up the situation quite effectively: Therefore, the typical American diet, with about 60 percent of its calories taken from refined sugar and refined flour, was apparently designed not only to provide as little chromium as feasible, but to cause depletion of body stores of chromium by not replacing urinary loss. Again, the article of faith based on reason stated previously, that whole

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foods contain the micronutrients (chromium and others) necessary for their proper metabolism, has been shown to hold true, and the refining of these foods based on custom, habit, preference, and industrial practices, has been shown to provide foods lacking in a significant amount of micronutrients necessary for their metabolism. Getting back to the idea of nutritional history, several generations of this kind of diet really adds up, or subtracts down rather. This is one of many links between the original development of type 2 diabetes and its rapid increase over the last century. In fact, its development is accelerating, as the whole phenomenon appears to have a substantial downward spiral, or vicious circle sort of effect. Mainstream diabetes author Virginia Valentine points this out in her pointless book: We know that diabetes is much more likely to occur in American Indians, AfricanAmericans, Hispanics, and Asians, and now we see that it is occurring at younger and younger ages. It is not unusual now to see children as young as ten with prediabetes and even the real thing diabetes. Interestingly and distressingly we now see diabetes occurring ten to fifteen years earlier with each generation. Modern diabetologists would have us believe that this is caused by some kind of timerelease gene that triggers diabetes later in life. No, I dont think thats how the gene works. It is a hereditary thing, in which chromium certainly could be a factor, as our levels, as a society, are getting progressively lower. Unless a generation takes in more chromium than they excrete, which is easier said than done when youre likely to be excreting higher than normal amounts from your naturally high insulin levels (a result of having low chromium stores as we discussed), this process will not be overturned. In other words, if we keep doing what were doing, the problem is going to perpetually worsen. As a side note, this is why an older generations dietary and lifestyle practices can never be used as evidence that those practices were healthier. I hear all the time that Im overweight and pre-diabetic, but I never saw my mom ingest anything other than chocolate, alcohol, and cigarette smoke and she was skinnier than a rope and lived to 93. No, in fact, her offspring becoming pre-diabetic and dying younger is strong evidence of two things: 1) Her diet was extremely unhealthy and passed heredity inefficiencies on to the next generation. 2) Her offsprings diet continued to be poor and added to the problem. In fact, it is totally possible to have a much better diet than the prior generation but poorer health, thanks to the generation that came before you tying an arm behind your back as soon as you popped out.

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Getting back on track, we go to William Philpott once more to see just what the effect of this diet is on cumulative chromium levels: It seems, therefore, that we Americans are bent on refining ourselves into a chromium deficiency, the ultimate result of which is a significant glucose intolerance in the human body. This rather unhappy distinction of the United States is not shared by other countries that do not refine their foods (emphasis mine). In a series of tests on men between the ages of twenty and fifty-nine, the amount of chromium found in the heart artery was 1.9 parts per million in American men, 5.5 ppm in African men, 11 ppm in men from the Near East, and 15ppm in men in the Far East. This evidence is one source of speculation which proves that there is indeed a definite link between the overconsumption of refined foods and a chromium deficiency. Chromium is not the be all end all of diabetes. In supplement form, it has been capable of delivering some improvements, but just like proper carbohydrate metabolism being dependent on factors in the carbohydrate foods themselves, so is the absorption of chromium dependent on other factors. Health doesnt come in pill form. Chromium is just one pertinent example of how our heredity can decline over time the obvious culprit being foods that cause a greater excretion than they deliver, and refined carbohydrates are the almighty kings of doing precisely that. I know of no other food source, other than stimulatory drugs (which can be even worse), that are capable of causing such a large disparity between nutrients in and nutrients out. Other key nutrients that can be steadily eradicated to nothingness over the ages are the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K all of which are known to be amongst the most important reproductive nutrients. D and K also play very key roles in proper mineral metabolism, and both of those are extremely lacking in the modern dietary since banning good sources (butter, eggs, whole milk, cream, liver) from the supposed healthy eating pyramid, and promoting the use of sunscreen which prohibits vitamin D synthesis from sunlight. We know that blood levels of vitamin D have declined and are continuing to do so with ominous implications. Of course, any mineral, not just chromium, can become increasingly scarce from generation to generation if humans continue to excrete them at a faster rate than they are supplied. All of them play vital roles of course, in our overall experience of health. Levels and ratios of calcium to phosphorous, for example, is just another nutrient set which has been found to be more disturbed by refined sugar than any other food (according to the research of Melvin Page). I could go off for a couple of days on Bvitamins or vitamin C, both of which are required in large quantities to metabolize a highcarbohydrate diet, but are totally lacking in the refined varieties in which most people derive those carbohydrates. The purpose of this chapter is not to create an obsession with chromium, or even to assert that diabetes is caused by chromium and nothing else. I do not believe that is true. I do

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believe chromium is a part of the big picture, and does have its role in this massive epidemic of type 2 diabetes that were currently witnessing. Instead, I want to encourage the type 2 diabetic, or anyone with any illness for that matter, to think of heredity in a different light. Heredity has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks Ive encountered in trying to convince type 2s that there is something that they can do to improve their condition. The typical type 2 has convinced himself that because his father had it, and his fathers mother, and so on as far back as hes tracked the family tree that his diabetes is predestination. This is the typical mindset of the strict low-carb diabetic. They believe that they are insulin resistance types. They think they have found and identified their genetic blueprint, and it reads: carbohydrates may be fine for other people, but they are not okay for me because I am resistant to insulin. This is reinforced every time they consume carbohydrates, because a low-carb diet, especially one that is so low to induce ketosis (the metabolic advantage Atkins referred to), merely intensifies insulin resistance. While monitoring their blood sugars, they note that the addition of carbohydrates to a typical meal sends both postprandial and fasting blood sugars to the stratosphere. The conclusion, is simply, I cant. This fatalistic mindset is a huge hindrance in terms of adopting dietary and lifestyle strategies that do not operate under the pretenses of Im insulin resistant, therefore I cannot eat carbs. A similar mindset would be to say, Im allergic to cats, therefore I cannot be around cats. In the latter example, staying away from cats may be a reasonable alternative, but a much greater achievement and liberating cure would be to overcome allergies to cats completely, and not be affected by their presence. The same could be said of a low-carb diet. It is a reasonable alternative to continuing to eat a high-refined carbohydrate, mixed diet, which causes and therefore exacerbates the condition. Go low-carb instead, and a type 2 diabetic, or anyone with insulin resistance, will have numerous health benefits, including a big drop in fasting and postprandial blood sugars, as well as some weight loss. But it didnt fix the problem of insulin resistance, it just mitigated the amount of damage that poorly-tolerated glucose inflicted. It sidesteps the problem instead of fixing it. Instead, a type 2 diabetics focus should be on one thing and one thing only until all prospects for disease reversal have been ruled out. That focus should be on improving glucose tolerance and improving insulin sensitivity (decreasing insulin resistance). So no matter who you are a person with a slight weight problem due to insulin resistance or a full-blown diabetic, always try your very damnedest at fixing your health problems, not catering to them with a crutch. You are not predestined through your genes to be diabetic or sick. Everyone has it within them to solve and conquer their health challenges, reversing the fate of not only themselves, but of future lineages.

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Odds are, with all the right enzymes, nutrients, and cofactors available, your body will be able to do its job as it is supposed to. Its job of course, is to metabolize protein, fat, and carbohydrates properly translating that into the well-oiled machine we call life. Its the ambitious goal of orthomolecular medicine, but I think its best achieved in whole form, as real food, vs. the typical isolated and complicated collage of vitamin and mineral supplements so common with orthomolecular treatments. We will discuss the potential of nutritional supplementation later in the book. As a final note on heredity, progressive deficiencies are not the only thing that we have to deal with. Just as certain nutrients can leave a family and never come back until dietary habits are drastically reversed, so too can other things accumulate. Harmful things. Taking in too much lead, mercury, cadmium, fluoride, and so on are well-known endocrine disruptors. We tend to take in more than we excrete, and this has a multigenerational cumulative effect. Fatty acid profiles are passed along as well. It is now known that the ratio of omega 6 polyunsaturated fat to omega 3 is very high and getting steadily higher. Although the supplement industry would try to steer you towards taking in more of the underdog (omega 3), instead of using that totally unprofitable approach of telling you what to delete from your diet (omega 6), the main focus should be on eating less omega 6, not eating more omega 3. Yes, thats right, the fat in our bodies can become like that of vegetable oil over time if we eat lots and lots of vegetable oils (omega 6). This fatty acid profile is handed down for the next generation to build on, which is thought to have the potential of catapulting one into a hyperinflammatory state as inflammatory compounds in the body such as leukotreines are derived from omega 6 (while omega 3 inhibits the synthesis of leukotreines). As it pertains to diabetes, inflammation triggers cortisol, which is antagonistic to the function of insulin (it causes cells to be more resistant to insulin that is, causing higher blood sugar and insulin levels). Putting it all together, our heredity is a sum of what prior generations have done before us. Radical departures from prior dietary and lifestyle norms, such as eating a 30:1 ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 vs. the traditional 1:1, really start to add up. Ingesting, through air, water, and food, an unnaturally large amount of heavy metals or industrial pollutants continues to build on itself if we excrete less than we take in. The biggest contributor, taking in fewer nutrients than you use, perpetually subtracts from human health in ways that are very pertinent to the development of type 2 diabetes. The prime suspect there of course, is the refined carbohydrate particularly cane sugar and corn sweeteners. So lets say, for simplicity and to get something concrete going, that a persons nutritional heredity is the sum of positive nutrients minus negative nutrients. Author Joel Fuhrman has an equation that I really like. It is simple: Health = Nutrients/Calories. The idea is to eat foods with the highest nutrient to calorie ratio as possible, such as spinach or bok choy. I am not in total agreement with Fuhrman, as

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many of those foods are nutritionally incomplete and more appropriate for an herbivore, but hes got the right idea. My equation is much, much simpler on the nutrient side.

Nutritional Health = Nutrients in Nutrients out

A healthy persons nutritional health sum is 0. They are in nutritional balance, taking in and using the same amount. But many people have a lot to make up for, meaning that the nutrients in-side needs to be much higher than the nutrients out-side. So one should really strive to eat a superabundance of nutritious foods, more than his or her body could ever feasibly use, in an attempt to fill the empty tank so to speak. Unlike Fuhrmans plan, which almost completely excludes animal products and therefore vital Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, long chain omega 3s, and Vitamin B-12 nutrients that the typical modern citizen is treacherously lacking in to begin with, one should strive for a well-balanced diet with an assortment of nutritional powerhouses. These vital animalbased nutrients work synergistically with the nutrients found in the broccoli, whole grains, and bok choy touted by Fuhrman minimizing the equally-important excretion side of the equation. At the same time, its certainly not a bad idea to focus on the negative nutrients as well, such as mercury, formaldehyde, and PCBs, although I personally find overemphasizing this category to fuel a certain neurosis. It is less easy to control as well. Still, minimizing the intake of non-organic foods, replacing all the omega 6 vegetable oils in your diet with other fats, denouncing vaccines, using fluoride-free toothpaste, and drinking purified water can be a big help in reducing the pollutants on that side of the equation. That equation is simply:

Toxic Burden = Pollutants in Pollutants out

Decreasing the pollutants in is a huge help. That equation can further be improved upon by doing an occasional cleanse. It is questionable as to how effective these cleanses are, and doing fasts with only juices or fruits and vegetables can be of some detriment to the overall nutritional status (especially if you really overdo it). I suspect, from personal experience and a great deal of research, that the best way to kill two birds with one stone, that is, increase nutritional health while simultaneously decreasing toxic burden, is to do an extended fast with fresh, raw milk if available. Ill discuss this more in the Diabetes Treatments section. The overall equation, one that you can remember and keep in mind when attempting to perform any health improvement, whether working on improving insulin sensitivity or otherwise, is:

Health = Nutritional Health Toxic Burden

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Take in more nutrients than you excrete and excrete more pollutants than you take in. When either is achieved, and especially when both are achieved simultaneously, any number of health miracles can take place. Its this equation that determines our heredity, and whether or not we live on to have better health than those that came before us. Fortunately, as well discuss in the next chapter, there is a good physical indicator of how we place in the Health Equation. Its the overall metabolism as indicated by the basal body temperature.

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The Metabolism

In the last chapter, we talked about nutritional history and the health equation. Because of the work of endocrinologist Broda Barnes and the follow-up work of Mark Starr and Stephen Langer, both M.D.s who have used Barness treatment methods for a broad spectrum of illnesses, I consider the metabolism to be of utmost importance. What is the metabolism? Normally we think of the metabolism as the number of calories that we burn each day. A person that eats a lot, but is really skinny must have a really high metabolism. Fatties who eat only salad must have low metabolisms. The metabolism is NOT defined simply by these terms. The metabolism is something much, much greater. I define metabolism as the symphony of hormonal and enzymatic processes in the human body that translates energy into what we call life. It is infinitely complex far beyond what humans have thus far been able to comprehend despite valiant efforts. Broda Barnes, one of the great medical healers and communicators (he was one funny mfer) of the 20th century, was an endocrinologist that noticed some strange phenomena amongst his patients. The first, is that a ton of patients were complaining of countless unexplained symptoms. At first blush, many of the symptoms seemed unrelated, but the majority of the patients had one thing in common a low body temperature. At the time, it was more customary to use the body temperature as a means of gauging thyroid functionality. Today, blood tests are used, many of which reveal that the thyroid is fully functional, pumping out normal or near-normal amounts of thyroid hormones. Since many people suffering from a low body temperature had the same symptoms, and were thus suffering from the same disorder more or less, the blood tests became irrelevant. To Barnes, a low body temperature plus a medley of unexplained health problems meant low metabolism. By treating the low metabolism, whether a person was lacking thyroid hormones in their blood tests or not, Barnes was able to bring his patients temperatures back up to normal and rid them of their illnesses whether that low metabolism had manifested in menstrual problems, hair loss, cold feet, hypoglycemia, chronic pain, hypercholesterolemia, and on and on and on. To give you an idea of how many conditions can manifest from a low metabolism, the chapter entitled Symptoms in Mark Starrs book on the subject is 83 friggin pages long! Barnes first started this practice in the 1950s. At that time, heart disease was rapidly accelerating, going from relative obscurity at the turn of the century to becoming far and away the leading cause of death in American citizens. Barnes was reading all about how doctors were seeing more and more of it, and the medical literature published at that time seemed to completely revolve around the treatment of this condition.

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Funny thing was, Barnes had yet to have a patient develop heart disease. He had hundreds of patients, but never saw anything of the likes of heart disease around his clinic. Decades before C & C Music Factory came out with their first hit song, Barnes was already finding things that make ya go hmmm. So he looked into the possible relationship between the basal metabolism (which he had his patients record via armpit/axillary temperature first thing in the morning), heart disease, and associated conditions. Throughout his career, Barnes kept tabs on his patients. Out of a couple thousand patients, only a small handful had heart attacks. A couple of those had just become his patients, so they didnt even count. All things considered, Barness patients had 96% fewer heart attacks than the general American public at that time. Little heart disease, since it is so intimately linked with the development of type 2 diabetes, is good news for those hoping to avoid type 2 diabetes as well. But we dont have to just infer that having a healthy basal metabolism protects against the development of type 2 diabetes. We know it does. Barnes had a total of ZERO patients develop type 2 diabetes in over three decades as a practicing endocrinologist. Not too shabby eh? Modern day Broda zealots Mark Starr and Stephen Langer echo similar results among their patients. Barnes thought the optimal range for the basal temperature to run between 97.8 degrees F and 98.2. Keep in mind, this is the armpit temperature, which runs lower than the oral temperature. A healthy oral temperature, as we all know, is right around 98.6 degrees F, which can also be used as a solid gauge for metabolic health although it is more subject to artificial increase via infections according to Barnes. What the temperature of our body shows us is simply whether or not the body is running in conservation mode or firing on all cylinders. When the body voluntarily runs its thermostat at a normal 98.6 degrees F (oral), it is reasonable to assume that all systems are working synergistically, and optimally at least at the moment. Thats not to say that the current diet and lifestyle you follow isnt undermining that success and catapulting you towards long-term health consequences, but you at least know your health du jour. Not surprisingly, with general health on the decline worldwide, and rising rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease accelerating, body temperatures are in decline. Broda Barnes thought that as much as half of the American population during his era was suffering from a low body temperature. Stephen Langer, who once thought this statement to be irrational, has found, in his practice, that the number runs higher. Mark Starr has called a low metabolism/low body temperature an epidemic. As Ive found through blogosphere communication, the prevalence of a low body temperature amongst those with substantial health problems cant be too far below 100%. Broda Barnes found that nearly every single case of type 2 diabetes that he came across (none developed the condition under his care, but he examined many with the preexisting condition) had a corresponding low body temperature. He stated:

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98 percent of diabetics are lacking in thyroid and bringing their metabolism up to the normal range not only improves the symptoms but also inhibits hardening of the arteries which is the diabetics worst problem. I am stubborn about believing that there is truly a lack in thyroid, or a problem with the gland itself in most of these cases. Just as with type 2 diabetics, who have excessive blood sugar which was once concluded to be a deficiency of the pancreas (which secretes insulin to store excess sugar out of the blood and into muscle and fat cells), it was later discovered that the pancreas typically works like a champ. Most type 2 diabetics secrete far MORE insulin with their superhuman pancreases than the average person. No, I believe that most cases in which symptoms of low thyroid can be observed and consequently cured by bringing the metabolism up to snuff, can be likened to type 2 diabetes. Mark Starr goes so far as to call the condition type 2 hypothyroidism. Still, this puts far too much emphasis on the thyroid gland itself. Diabetes shouldnt be called type 2 hypopancreatism, because there is plenty of insulin (pancreas juice), and the condition itself has little to do with the pancreas. Nope, I think the body is thyroid hormone resistant in much the same way as the type 2 diabetic is insulin resistant. Yes, there are certainly two types of diabetes. You definitely wouldnt want to tell a type 1 that there is nothing wrong with his pancreas. That pancreas if fine man! Must be something else! No, there is something wrong with the type 1s pancreas. It doesnt work! But a type 2 has pancreatic sufficiency in most cases, just as most cases of low metabolism occur in circumstances in which the thyroid is in tip-top shape. Why supplement thyroid hormone if the lack of thyroid hormone is really just a response to whats going on elsewhere in the body? Like our buddy cortisol for example. Send that through the roof and body temperature drops while insulin resistance sets in. Doesnt sound like much of a thyroid problem to me, which is why the vast majority of people, even with a low metabolism, can pass thyroid blood tests. In actuality, I believe that there is a much safer, quicker, and more enjoyable way to bring the metabolism back up to normal. Thats to eat a diet that contains virtually zero refined sugars and a great abundance of calories. This, by default, is a very nutritious diet which can also eliminate hypometabolic states linked to nutritional deficiency of some kind. I prefer the diet to contain a robust quantity of saturated fats as well, particularly medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), found in highest abundance in coconut. MCTs could possibly be the most metabolically-stimulating fat on earth. The only other source of such fats comes from dairy fat. Mmmm, Matty likey! Another key to my most highly-recommended programs in the Treatment section is limiting the amount of physical activity and maximizing the amount of sleep you get. Limiting all stimulants and drugs is a must too, for the very same reasons it is important to rest. You dont want to be stimulated. You want your adrenals, which are often the

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culprit behind the low metabolism (cortisol is an adrenal hormone), to be quiet, relaxed, and get a chance to rejuvenate during this phase as well. Time and time again, the reports come in. People try this and their basal temperatures rise quickly and dramatically. Of course, it wont work for everyone, and many people will need to supplement with desiccated thyroid glandulars to achieve the same results, but like I said, most cases of a low metabolism are caused by diet and lifestyle and can be eliminated by fixing the diet and lifestyle. This may come as a bit of a shocker. Whaddya expect from 180DegreeHealth? A sermon about 100 calorie snack bars, watching your portions, and using an eye-dropper to butter your baked tater? Yes, Im saying, enthusiastically and assertively, that the greatest means of reducing heart disease and type 2 diabetes is keeping the metabolism running as high, and as long into old age as we possibly can. The greatest way to destroy the metabolism is trying to get healthy, as health pursuits typically involve the greatest foes of metabolic health: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) Low-calorie diets Exercise regimens, particularly distance running Low-fat diets Very low-carb diets Cutting saturated fats in favor of vegetable oils and margarine Diets that exclude animal products (and essential nutrients) Lack of sleep Stess, even just being too busy or focused Refined sugar (note, cravings for refined sugar intensify if you follow the above 8 steps to failure) 10) Drugs, including prescription meds, alcohol, caffeine, chocolate, and many other common sources of these substances (which also induce cravings for more sugar and vice versa)

What a top 10 list that is! Yes, Im dead serious. If you want to boost your basal metabolism up to normal, improving your digestion, mood, and eliminating nagging health problems along the way eat more, and exercise less. There is even some suggestion according to studies brought forward by researchers Russ Farris and Per Marin in The Potbelly Syndrome (pages 94-95), that overfeeding can lower insulin resistance, the metabolic state associated with glucose dysregulation and the ominous approach of our buddy, type 2 diabetes. Imagine what studies using nutritious food exclusively with a complete absence of drugs, stimulants, vegetable oil, refined fructose, and stupid exercise could have shown! Speaking of which, thats why overfeeding studies have mixed results. Sure, overfeed someone on a high-calorie, high-protein, high-carbohydrate, high-fat diet that features primarily fructose, other refined carbohydrates, and trans fat-laden vegetable oil and

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youll likely have the results that Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) had after 30 days of McDonalds fare a fatty liver, triglycerides through the roof, emotional problems, an extra 25 pounds of belly fat, and sexual dysfunction. Plus, your vegan girlfriend, if you had one, would be totally freaking out. I was an emotional basket case when I ate vegan too! In fact, experiences like Spurlocks have unfortunately instilled even more fear about eating a diet thats high in saturated fat, carbohydrates, and protein all mixed together on a high-calorie diet. If combining all those together was bad, every species of mammal on earth would be diabetic before they finished weaning. The substance I just described is mammalian milk! And to think that barbarians like me are running around saying that mammals thrive best on a diet with all three macronutrients in large, easily-digestible quantities! I must be out of my mind, agreeing with God/Nature instead of some humans in lab coats with bald heads, fat bellies, and cupboards full of prescription meds and fortified breakfast cereals. So to review: In terms of monitoring health and not letting diabetes jump up out of nowhere and bite your ass, there is simply no better or accessible home monitoring assessment than the basal body temp. Know it. Check it. If there is a problem take action to fix it. Fix the metabolism by eliminating the foods that are most suspect for lowering it. This would be trans fats, refined sugars, white flour, and drugs including alcohol, caffeine, and chocolate. This basically means making your own, nourishing food yourself as every product on earth and restaurant meal almost assuredly contains one, if not all, of those ingredients (its good business). To increase your success rate with dropping the aforementioned highly addictive substances, it is imperative that you nourish yourself with aggressive amounts of nutrientdense foods. This includes ample amounts from every macronutrient class fats, proteins, and unrefined carbohydrates. Quality counts, but so does quantity. Eat a crapload! Whether you split it into many small meals or feast three times per day is up to you. I find 4,000 calories per day for adult men and 3,000 calories per day for adult women to be great MINIMUMS during the metabolic recovery phase. Pair this with lots of naps, sunbathing escapades, long nights of sleep, meditation, or whatever else you find to be soothing and relaxing. I believe exercise should be limited to walking and stretching for best results. None of this is permanent mind you. I dont truly believe that health = the amount of food you eat or health = lack of physical and mental exertion. No one really needs 4,000 calories every single day while sitting around doin squat. But doing so short-term, I genuinely believe is therapeutic and healing even as it pertains to a type 2 diabetic and perhaps even more so.

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Endocrinologist Diana Schwarzbein, who has achieved what to me is the greatest goal in the healing of type 2 diabetics, is one of the only health practitioners on earth that has truly reversed type 2 diabetes in patients. Sure, lots of folks have gotten blood sugars down. That can be done in a matter of days on highly restricted diets. Schwarzbein, however, has led diabetics through the healing process to arrive at true metabolic health, in which an unrestricted diet can be enjoyed and metabolized correctly. This is a real feat. And she believes that a diabetic needs to eat more food, more often than a non-diabetic. Thats because good food is the healer, and a diabetic has more healing to do than the average punk. She even goes so far as to say, food is your friend, so gag it down. Makes my heart flutter. I think with higher allowances for carbohydrates (she only allows 75g per day for diabetics) and even more aggressive recommendations on limiting exertion and creating caloric surplus, overturning insulin resistance could be achieved much faster. My own fasting blood sugar, which has fallen 25%+ in the last 30 days, is a great testament to the effectiveness of this approach. Although many diabetics feel like they cant follow this same path because they are diabetic, this could potentially be a tragic mistake. I believe a diabetics results would likely be even more dramatic than mine. A diabetic has much more room for improvement than I do. To reiterate the objective of such a bizarre-sounding regimen (which well cover in the Treatment section in thorough detail dont worry) To prevent blood glucose dysregulation, heal from low-level insulin resistance or even full-blown type 2 diabetes, one must bring the metabolism back into the optimal range. This is most efficiently achieved by taking in more nutrients and total energy than you expend metabolically (this doesnt mean that fat stores are destined to increase in fact, a person with tremendous excess fat stores can lose significant amounts of body fat following such a program). As a final note: Exercise is thought to raise the metabolism. This is a huge flaw in conventional wisdom on the subject. Exercise, especially high-intensity long-duration exercise (cardio), is tremendous stress and is anti-metabolic. Although, long-term, the human body depends on some level of physical activity and exertion for overall health and well-being, that is not the prescription for someone in need of metabolic healing. Exercise does burn more calories, but at the expense of the basal metabolism, which decreases when there is caloric deficit induced by exercise or in response to stress. Its like driving a car. If you go somewhere, you need more fuel. The body does not increase its basal metabolism the number of calories you burn at rest, in response to exercise. If you cannot replace calories burned during exercise with food, the body has only one choice to compensate for it burn fewer calories while at rest. After exercising intensely over a 20 week period as a U.S. Forest Service Wilderness Ranger, my basal body temperature dropped from 97.8 (in the ideal range) to 96.2

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degrees F severely hypometabolic. After stopping the exercise, I gained fat rapidly, was tired and sluggish, had skin breakouts, and had higher blood sugars in response to my normal diet than I do now after a prolonged period of rest. Thats not what were trying to achieve. We want better tolerance to our normal diet, lower blood sugars, and spontaneous fat loss, not fat gain. With certainty, this objective is ascertained more effectively by nutritional abundance paired with deep rest and relaxation. Good health is not earned through exercise the ability to exercise without negative recourse is earned through good health. More specific details on this old (but forgotten) paradigm of healing later.

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Cortisol is All

Cortisol is an adrenal hormone. Its a damn important one too. Cortisol, just like the drug version cortisone, is a very powerful substance. It mitigates inflammation with miracle-like capability. Theres just a couple of problems with cortisol though it triggers insulin resistance, lowers body temperature, and suppresses the immune system when you secrete too much of it. Of course, these were all the problems with cortisone. It plays healer for a while before it turns on ya, causing, among other listed side effects, rapid weight gain. Although there are plenty of people out there that think cortisol is the big bad wolf even the irrefutable cause of insulin resistance, I have some doubts or at least some different perspectives. I think cortisol is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Its quite likely that its just trying to do its job mitigate inflammation. If too much cortisol is a massive trigger of insulin resistance, and cortisol is triggered in response to things like allergy, infection, and other causes of inflammation, who are you gonna blame type 2 diabetes on? Cortisol or inflammation? Im going with inflammation. Inflammation has a close link with type 2 diabetes and now all degenerative diseases of aging. Russell Farris and Per Marin, authors of The Potbelly Syndrome and incredibly thorough researchers, are all over this inflammation-insulin resistance link. Russell Farris has noted that chronic low-grade infection is one key source of inflammation. This chronic, low-grade infection leads to chronic, low-grade inflammation. The chronic lowgrade infection leads to chronic subtle hypercortisolism as he likes to call it. This, in turn, triggers insulin resistance and the accumulation of excess visceral/belly fat and high blood sugars. This problem really spirals out of control after high blood sugar sets in, as cells become more glycosylated or glycated, while another substance called sorbitol inflicts more inflammatory damage to more cells on the side. Then comes more cortisol, then more insulin resistance, then more body fat thought to have an inflammatory nature in and of itself, and so on. Just when you think things couldnt possibly be worse, your lack of sleep, high stress levels, exercise program, and restricted diet all add to the cortisol load. All the while cortisol increasingly diminishes the fighting power of the immune system, which can have two effects it can send the immune system into hyperdrive to compensate, potentially leading to rampant allergies and even autoimmune disease, and/or it can allow an increasing number of pathological invaders to penetrate and flourish. Barry Sears sums it up well when he says: cortisol, if elevated, shuts down the immune system after initial symptom improvement (due to shutting down an overabundance of inflammatory eicosanoids). Thus, cortisol,

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induced by stress including hypoglycemia, dieting, overexercising, etc. will bring all eicosanoid sythesis (good and bad) to a grinding halt. This can cause your immune system to begin to shut down. Can you say, What a friggin mess? (WAFM) Farris and Marins work focuses heavily on one type of foreign invader in particular that leads to chronic inflammation a non-STD form of Chlamydia (Chlamydia pneumoniae) that invades and eats away at arterial lining. This leads to inflammation, lesions or plaques in the arteries in response to the damage (made, in large part, by cholesterol which is a repair substance, not an enemy, and it has another reason to be there other than you ate too many Quarter Pounders as bumbling low-fat morons assert), and more cortisol. Cortisol then triggers insulin resistance which triggers fat storage and raises blood sugars. Thus, one of the most amazing and revolutionary conclusions of their pioneering work is that heart disease causes obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes not the other way around. Could be fellas. Could be. You got my attention at least, and autopsy records of young people show quite clearly that before higher blood sugars, before obesity, and before type 2 diabetes there is heart disease. Even toddlers that have been autopsied are already showing signs of heart disease at that age (no stupid, this is not a reason to give kids Lipitor, which hasnt been shown to reduce all cause mortality or increase the lifespan). Further down the inflammation train Richard Bernstein, type 2 diabetes maverick, has also commented on the fun loving circle of inflammation and type 2 diabetes: So, to simplify somewhat, inheritance plus inflammation plus fat in the blood feeding the liver causes insulin resistance, which causes elevated serum insulin levels, which cause the fat cells to build even more abdominal fat, which raises triglycerides in the livers blood supply and enhances inflammation, which causes insulin levels to increase because of increased resistance to insulin. If that sounds circular, it is. But note that the fat that is the culprit here is not dietary fat. Doesnt sound so good does it? No, inflammation is not the road we want to turn down. In Bernsteins example, he points out the role of blood fats in the onset of insulin resistance. Blood fats, or triglycerides, can get in the way of insulins function. Using fats as a fuel source, also called burning fat or lipolysis is controlled by the overall metabolism governed by the effectiveness and supply of thyroid hormones. This points the finger away from cortisol and the adrenals and points squarely at the thyroid instead. Or does it? Farris and I, although we just recently began communicating directly, are fighting tooth and nail over this issue. He believes that cortisol lowers the body temperature. This may be the case, especially when you consider that most people with low body temperatures

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have normal thyroid hormone levels. It is intriguing, that administering thyroid hormones to raise the body temperature as Broda Barnes did, is able to stave off diabetes and heart disease. But it could just be that cortisol, and not the thyroid, regardless of what impact thyroid hormone supplementation has on upping body temperature, is the chicken that came before the egg. Or the egg that came before the chicken. Wait, which one is it now? Yes, cortisol vs. thyroid is a big chicken or egg question. Then youve got the whole camp out there that think that insulin is the chicken, or is it the egg, as insulin leads to high blood sugars, inflammation and therefore high cortisol, and because insulin sequesters nutrients and energy into fat cells and away from lean tissues, it starves the body lowering the body temperature. To be honest, I can see just about any of those scenarios playing out in such fashion. All things considered however, it really doesnt matter what causes what. The three hormonal musketeers kick it together. They are like the Backstreet Boys. Actually, they are more like The Fat Boys my favorite in 4th grade hands down. High cortisol, low thyroid (or more appropriately, a low basal metabolism) and high insulin due to insulin resistance are part of a metabolic pattern. It is a metabolic disturbance. A syndrome of the metabolism. Hey, lets call it, Metabolic Syndrome!

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Metabolic Syndrome

In the last chapter we touched on some of the basic metabolic factors that contribute to metabolic syndrome: patterns such as a low metabolism, high insulin levels due to insulin resistance, and high cortisol levels which potentially precede and cause the former two conditions. Excuse me for whatever redundancy I might be spewing, as many 180DegreeHealth followers have already had quite an earful about Metabolic Syndrome, but Metabolic Syndrome is worth repeating. Its worth repeating because a disturbed metabolism, like that you learned about in the chapter on the Metabolism, is the epidemic of our time. It also just happens to be a condition that almost no one amongst the general public has heard of. If they have heard of it, they couldnt even begin to tell you anything about it. The metabolism, as I mentioned, is the sum total of the hormonal, biochemical, and enzymatic processes that translate raw materials into what we call life. To have a syndrome of the metabolism is a pretty big blanket statement. Metabolic Syndrome basically hints at the fact that you just aint working right. Telltale symptoms of Metabolic Syndrome, originally coined in an official manner (but known about for decades prior) by Gerald Reaven of Stanford University, are high blood triglycerides, high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol, abdominal obesity, and high blood sugars and insulin levels. Not everyone exemplifies each and every single symptom, but one is generally regarded to have Metabolic Syndrome if he or she has at least a couple, and certainly several or all, of the above characteristics. This says nothing of what your basal body temperature is, something that mainstream medicine still has no concept of. This is further confused by the fact that a whole other sect of health dogma glorifies the low-calorie diet for health and longevity which results in a hypometabolic state that prolongs life in a laboratory setting. Uh yeah, take a look around at the real world amigos. Food scarcity does not equal spectacular health, longevity, or advantage in any species ours especially (see Africa). Anyway, feel free to include a low body temperature as yet another prominent factor in the Metabolic Syndrome big picture. Anyway, metabolic syndrome is basically thought to be a manifestation of being resistant to the effects of the hormone insulin. Insulin, when it is not able to communicate with cells, must override the barrier by secreting larger quantities. All the while, sugar levels in the blood become elevated over time. If youre looking for a name for it, try compensatory hyperinsulinemia. Insulin is a great and wonderful hormone. Every hormone and chemical we possess has great virtue. Never declare war, as low-carb loonies have done, with the hormone insulin. Life cannot exist without it. Excessive insulin is very problematic. It also

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parallels dramatic swings in blood sugar levels and high fasting and postprandial (postmeal) glucose levels, which are plenty harmful as well. If you only remember one message from this entire book, remember that having too much or too little of any essential biochemical, including insulin, is harmful to the body and upsets all systems within us. Only by having balanced levels that allow the synergistic function of all body systems in a state of homeostasis to occur can we achieve maximal health. Homeostasis is health. To be healthy, you have to get there. To stay healthy you must hover there to the best of your ability. The homeostasis tangent aside, lets focus in very carefully on Metabolic Syndrome. The most interesting connection that Ive come across in all of my research on this mysterious and rapidly-proliferating malady known as insulin resistance, is the link between the symptoms of Metabolic Syndrome and the sugar molecule fructose. Since always, fructose has received a get out of jail free card because it is the predominant form of sugar found in fruit. There is almost a complete consensus that fruit is a healthy food. Its nutritious. Its natural. Its the goods. Even I cannot find a way to convince myself that fruit is naturally deleterious to the human organism. Its just not a digestible hypothesis. Humans have consumed fruit since trees first came up with idea to produce it, and only recently has Metabolic Syndrome become a prevalent state of imbalance. Fructose, nonetheless, in an isolated, purified, druglike state not unlike cocaine has been shown rather convincingly to be capable of inducing metabolic syndrome like no other substance. Fructose is synthesized by the liver, a unique quality shared by fructose and fructose alone. In the liver, fructose is packaged into triglycerides and released into the bloodstream. Triglycerides are a type of fat in the blood. Because fructose, more than any other type of carbohydrate, gets converted to fat, it is considered the most lipogenic carbohydrate in the words of journalist Gary Taubes. A little fat cruising around in the bloodstream is no big deal. But having excessively high levels of triglycerides, like that associated with metabolic syndrome, is a whole other story. Lets once again take a look at Dr. Richard Bernsteins theory on how metabolic syndrome develops and leads to type 2 diabetes. As mentioned in the last chapter, Bernstein states: So, to simplify somewhat, inheritance plus inflammation plus fat in the blood feeding the liver causes insulin resistance, which causes elevated serum insulin levels, which cause the fat cells to build even more abdominal fat, which raises triglycerides in the livers blood supply and enhances inflammation, which causes insulin levels to increase because of increased resistance to insulin.

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It is actually triglycerides in the blood combined with inflammation (probably due to the increase in cortisol levels in response) that is one of, if not THE primary trigger of the cells becoming resistant to insulin. Fructose is suspect #1 for good reason. The first is fructoses basic properties. It is metabolized by the liver into triglycerides. Therefore, it is not a giant leap to say that high triglycerides are caused by the ingestion of large quantities of fructose. The second, and even more damning evidence against fructose is its increase in the diet. Fructose, as much as or more than any substance, has risen steadily in the diets of people worldwide with the increase of industrialization and food-refining. Once an extreme rarity in the diet found almost exclusively in seasonal fruits, fructose first began infiltrating the human diet in the form of refined sucrose white table sugar. Sucrose, not exactly the purified crystalline fructose used today to study the effects of fructose in a laboratory setting, is still 50% fructose. It is still metabolized by the liver and converted into triglycerides. Centuries ago, sucrose, and therefore fructose, formed an extremely small part of the diet in the United States and elsewhere. Now, according to Nora Gedgaudas, the single largest contributor to overall calories in the American diet is high-fructose corn syrup. Sucrose was bad enough, and ingestion in the United States rose steadily from next to nothing to, by some estimates, 150 pounds per person per year by 1980. High-fructose corn syrup, which is comprised of 55% fructose or higher and chemically contrived fructose at that (unlike the naturally-occurring sucrose form in sugar cane), is even more sinister. It is sweeter. It is more addictive. It has higher levels of fructose, leads to higher levels of triglycerides or blood fats, and has a potentially greater ability to create a disturbance in insulin function. As I highlighted in the chapter on T.L. Cleaves Saccharine Disease, the introduction of refined carbohydrates, particularly white sugar, paralleled the onset of type 2 diabetes in modern man. Or at least, type 2 diabetes only became prevalent once white sugar and other refined carbohydrates were adopted. The 2nd big wave of type 2 diabetes, where the incidence of the disease skyrocketed in extremely short periods of time, makes a perfect parallel with the displacement of white sugar with two new forms of sugar injected into the modern dietary in the late 70s high-fructose corn syrup and crystalline fructose. Diabetes saw such explosive growth during this time that many areas witnessed a full-on doubling of the disease in a matter of a single decade, especially in children. Speaking of children, type 2 diabetes became so widespread during this time, striking at such younger ages, that the name adult onset diabetes had to be revised. Its now called, type 2 diabetes, effecting both young and the elderly. The third piece of condemning evidence against fructose other than its obvious implications in raising triglyceride levels, and the tight correlation between fructose consumption and diabetes incidence, is the simple fact of what fructose does to laboratory animals.

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This is crazy. Its Tom Cruise Crazy. Fructose is actually the substance in which rats are fed to induce metabolic syndrome. To study things such as medications to lower high blood pressure or triglycerides, they induce states of hypertriglyceridemia and hypertension (high blood pressure) in lab rats. How do they do it? They feed them a ton of fructose baby! Works as well as spraying those little rat bastards with pepper spray when trying to study anger. Thats right. The recipe for creating high blood pressure or high triglycerides or high insulin levels in rats is simply to feed them a high-fructose diet. Now we get into a realm of common sense. I know rats and humans arent identical, but the odds are stacked up against fructose pretty heavily at this point. Enter Richard Johnson, fructose researcher and author of the anti-fructose Bible, The Sugar Fix: The High-Fructose Fallout That is Making You Fat and Sick. If youre looking for more than a common-sense reason to prosecute fructose, Richards your man. Fructose is his research specialty, and he doesnt have a whole lot of kind things to say about it. Plus, he even goes so far as to say that removing fructose from the diet yields instant and substantial health benefits for nearly everyone. I agree. Anyway, Ill let him tell you all about it, as taken from The Sugar Fix (2008): we have powerful direct evidence to show that consuming too much fructose-rich sugar and HFCS causes the toxic brew of conditions known as metabolic syndrome. Moreover, this same body of research suggests that starchy foods do not induce metabolic syndrome. This much is not open to debate: Consuming sugar can trigger all of the conditions that make up metabolic syndrome. And the element in sugar that contributes to weight gain, raises blood pressure, elevates blood fats, and causes other dangerous symptoms appears to be fructose Studies directly comparing fructose and glucose show that fructose produces symptoms of metabolic syndrome, while glucose generally does not. A number of other studies have shown that eating a high-fructose diet makes cells resist insulin. For example, Dr. Yudkin found that about one-third of his study subjects who consumed high-sugar diets became insulin resistant. In another especially interesting study, Danish researchers asked seven men to eat their normal diets for 1 week, with an additional 1,000 calories of pure glucose each day. The result? Nothing. Their insulin worked fine. A high intake of glucose had no effect on cells and their ability to use insulin. When the men switched from glucose to 1,000 calories of extra fructose every day, however, the results were much different: Special blood tests showed that the participants insulin became 25 percent less effective over the course of 1 week. Its worth noting here that the glucose in starchy foods may cause blood glucose levels to rise, which stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. But this is normal and healthy. Dietary glucose does not cause insulin resistance; fructose does.

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And so begins a vicious cycle caused by eating high-GI foods, which overstimulate the pancreas. Its an interesting theory, but it is not well supported by the metabolic facts. Stimulating the pancreas to produce insulin is not the problem. Your body is supposed to produce insulin when blood glucose levels rise, so thats normal and healthy. It is insulin resistance that is closely linked to metabolic syndrome and weight gain. Glucose does not cause insulin resistance. Fructose does. Glucose does not trick your body into persistent hunger. Fructose does. Okay okay. Christ man we get it! Take it easy Dick. You made your point. Get yourself under control bro. Just when you think fructose couldnt be labeled as more demonic, it has also been stated that fructose, even though it does not initially cause as large of a rise in blood sugar and insulin levels as many other carbohydrates (thats what the glycemic index told me), it is significantly more glycating than any other carbohydrate. Glycation is that neat thing that happens when sugar molecules bond with cellular proteins, do irreparable harm, and lead to excess inflammation and oxidative damage you know, those things that cause like every degenerative disease in the universe. In fact, the buzz phrase is that fructose is 20-30 times more glycating than other carbohydrates. Yeah, that Gedgaudas chick said that: fructose is an extremely glycating or, more properly in this instance, fructosilating substance that can do immeasurable damage to your arteries and tissues. In fact, fructose is twenty to thirty times more glycating than glucose. Anyway, I think you get where were headed with this fructose thing. Insulin resistance is caused, in large part, by fructose. Insulin resistance leads to metabolic syndrome, and metabolic syndrome leads to type 2 diabetes. Remove fructose from the diet completely, even for just a few weeks, and any problems you may have with high triglycerides, low HDL, high blood pressure, belly fat, and high blood sugars are all bound to dramatically improve. Thats not a life sentence, and no one should argue that fruit, in season, in reasonable quantities is a harmful food or should be compared to refined fructose in any way, but fructose should at least be front and center on the radar screen of anyone seeking to avoid or overturn type 2 diabetes. Cut it out for a while, even in natural fructose-laden foods like fruit, juice, and honey and certainly in packaged foods, soft drinks, desserts, and candies, and health improvements will typically fall into line. People in my own inner circle have had profound, instantaneous, and lasting responses to such a regimen.

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My own father, for example, eradicated lifelong sinus problems in two months of fructose-free fare (including fruit avoidance). His sinus problems were so severe that he took allergy shots, frequent rounds of antibiotics, and even had sinus surgery all to no avail. A sugar-free diet performed some serious healing, tantamount to even the most well-dressed television Christian evangelist. A sugar free diet eradicated my seasonal allergies and lessened back pain that had plagued me since age 16 although in fairness, a simple diet with lots of natural sweets but ZERO refined sugars took me halfway there. My mother loses weight like she is a statue of butter baking out in the hot sun when following a zero-sugar diet even if shes pigging out with me at Cracker Barrel on biscuits and other fattening fare. My girlfriend was ridden with a vast assortment of health problems. Infections, illness, weight problems, PCOS and other womanly issues, giardia She had em all. Notice had is a past tense verb. She has none of those issues anymore, a result of being more anti-fructose than Richard Johnson or I could ever dream of being. My brother-in-law reluctantly tried a zero sugar diet as well, after years of hearing my thoughts on it. He is a bigger ice cream junkie than I ever was. He called me on the phone after only a couple weeks to share with me the amazement. Improvements in complexion and the loosening of his pants topped the list. Ive also witnessed my youngest niece miraculously change her notoriously aggressive, tantrum-prone, and otherwise problematic behavior on a no-fructose diet emphasizing whole, raw, full-fat Jersey cow milk, pastured meats, starches, and other nourishing foods in a matter of days. It was so dramatic we were all a little creeped out by it. Even I, the almighty evangelist of a low-sugar diet was stunned. One of my best friends had miraculous health benefits from switching to a no-sugar diet, including ameliorating all kinds of emotional and digestive problems. She gave her boyfriend a hard time about his sugar intake as well, until he finally tried it. His belly flattened and his depression lifted along with his penis. Hed had erectile issues for two decades prior. I also consulted with another friend of mines parents. Her mom was eating as little as one small Dove chocolate per day. It took me a while to convince her that the Dove chocolate (along with caffeine and alcohol), were the only things standing in her way to success. She was worried about type 2 diabetes. Her father had the disease. She lost weight slowly and steadily after just three weeks on the diet. I saw her recently and she looked fantastic. Her husband, intrigued by her results, went on a no-sugar diet and lost 14 pounds in a month. Man was his wife jealous! She followed a diligent diet for half a year to get to that point.

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Of course, not everyone will have these results. Some 180DegreeHealth followers havent had results like this at all. But for those that I know personally and have fully committed to a low sugar diet for at least a few weeks, 100% have seen drastic improvements that they were awed by. Let us not forget that many of these results occurred precisely because blood sugar regulation improved, allowing the body to operate in homeostasis and heal from any number of indirectly-related disorders. Melvin Page, who did everything in his power as a general practitioner to help his patients return to this optimal state of well-being, used a no-sugar diet as his first and most important health improvement tactic. Even fruit consumption was kept low, something that Ive found invariably helpful in my own health pursuits. Even fruits, which are wholesome foods, should be eaten in moderation. The body can be overloaded with natural sugar. Refined sugar is such a harmful food, being a major factor in causing degenerative ills, that it may well be the one food that could lead us to be a nation of physically sick people. -Melvin Page And, finally, the list of authors, 20th century scholars, and health zealots that have advocated the avoidance of refined sugar for good health above all other provisions is a mile long. That list includes some of my favorite authors and many of the greatest health pioneers and nutritional geniuses in history (notice I said some of my favorite authors not all of these people are my favorites, but many are): Weston A. Price Robert McCarrison John Yudkin William Dufty T.L. Cleave Melvin Page Leon Abrams Rameil Nagel Sally Fallon Joel Fuhrman Nancy Appleton Denis Burkitt Hugh Trowell Francis Pottenger, Jr. Connie Bennett Adele Davis Jack Challem Joseph Mercola William Crook Kathleen DesMaisons Julia Ross

180 Degree Diabetes Martha Pekarek Barry Groves Donna Gates Michael Pollan Peter Gott Ron Schmid Robert Atkins William Banting Gary Taubes Jack Lalanne Richard J. Johnson E.M. Abrahamson and many more

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Please keep fructose, especially that which is derived from refined sugars such as sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, crystalline fructose, and other purified sweeteners in your sights. A relatively low-fructose diet continued for life will do wonders in lowering your chances of becoming insulin resistant, having metabolic syndrome, or being full-on type 2 diabetic. Some cases of metabolic syndrome and diabetes are likely reversible from fructose abstinence alone. Many others will need additional measures, but eliminating most sources of fructose in the diet, perhaps even fruits for the most sensitive, is a fabulous starting point. When you do consume fructose or other sweets, it might be best to do so in isolation. Fructose is often the trigger that causes other ingested foods to be mismanaged. Thats been my experience at least.

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The Glycemic Index Catastrophe The Glycemic Index was something generated to let diabetics know how a certain type of carbohydrate will affect his or her blood sugar. Foods rich in glucose, with highly concentrated starch, tended to rank the highest. This only makes sense. The more concentrated a food is in glucose, the faster it will raise the glucose levels in the blood. Potatoes, especially when baked and/or mashed, as well as corn starch, beer, and a kind of starch called maltodextrin ranked the highest. The greater the fiber content, the slower the blood sugar release. Also, the greater the quantity of fructose, a sugar molecule that isnt directly absorbed into the blood but is first metabolized in the liver, the lower the ranking. Thus, according to the glycemic index, a diabetic would be wisest to avoid corn, potatoes, and whole wheat and opt instead for a Snickers bar, fruit juice, and anything sweetened with white sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or crystalline fructose. On top of that, the glycemic index puts potatoes, a staple of healthy peoples all over world including the Kitavans, on the same playing field with white bread, a food that was adopted during the era in which diabetes became prevalent. The problem is that fructose plays a key role in the development of insulin resistance the very problem that leads to type 2 diabetes. Although I refuse to believe that natural fruits could do this, as they have never been shown to have negative health effects when examined on the whole, there is a very strong correlation between refined fructose and metabolic syndrome. I mean come on, refined fructose is what is given to rodents to induce metabolic syndrome for study. Youd think that alone would be enough to at least bring it to trial, if not throw it in jail and request that it grab its ankles. So the Glycemic Index disaster is really that it favors crappy, refined foods that have long been known to cause disease over wholesome staples of cultures the world over that have had complete immunity to type 2 diabetes and many other conditions. All of this in the name of seeing how much of a blood sugar rise one will get immediately after ingesting a type of carbohydrate. Big deal. But what causes blood sugar and insulin to go up in response to a meal says nothing of the causation of that blood sugar regulation mechanisms failure. So, sadly, a diabetic, and even just a plain old dieter trying to capitalize on a low-glycemic diet of some sort, could easily increase the intensity of his or her insulin resistance by trying to avoid blood sugar spikes. In addition to that, it becomes all too easy to avoid nourishing potatoes and whole corn when you might as well eat a bologna sandwich on Wonder Bread with a Pepsi if its going to have the same effect on blood sugar and insulin in the short term. Quite simply, short-term does not equal long-term. What causes blood sugar to rise after a meal, does not therefore cause susceptible people to develop type 2 diabetes and obesity

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later in life. It just doesnt work that way. Not at all. A baked potato may theoretically send blood glucose higher than a Mountain Dew (remember, 2 baked potatoes only send my blood glucose to a 1-hour peak of 75 mg/dl), but it can simultaneously work to improve glucose tolerance while the soda does the exact opposite. Dont, as a diabetic, prediabetic, or nondiabetic, submit your good sense to a chart. The Glycemic Index aint all that. If anything, its only served to convince the mainstream health authorities that refined sugar, long thought to be the culprit behind diabetes, is no longer a suspect. EVERY single mainstream type 2 diabetes book I read while doing the research for this project was sure to point out that now we know sugar doesnt cause diabetes. That was based entirely upon a number on the Glycemic Index. If that aint shallow research and jumping to conclusions way too easily, I dont know what is. Diabetes is infinitely more complicated than the absorption rate of the carbohydrates we eat. So when it comes to using the glycemic index for anything other than figuring out the right insulin dosage, I say, loud and clear, Screw it! Its a useless diversion from the real answers. For years, fructose has been considered safe for diabetics because it doesnt trigger a rapid rise in blood sugar. Now however, research reveals that overconsuming fructose and high-fructose corn syrup could actually be more harmful than sucrose for the very reason that it was originally considered safe. In fact, one review report from scientists from Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, CDC, University Hospitals of Cleveland, Brigham and Womens Hospital, and Inter-Medic Medical Group in North Port, Florida, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggested that corn syrup and refined carbohydrates may actually be at least partly to blame for the huge increase in type 2 diabetes in the United States over the past few decades. -Connie Bennett

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Diabetes Prevention More important than diabetes reversal is diabetes prevention. Lets face it, the vast majority of the worlds population is not type 2 diabetic. Your average person needs to know what to do to stave off the disease and its complications and associated ills. Information that can reliably achieve such a thing is far more valuable to mankind. Secondly, type 2 diabetes is a tricky disease. Although any steps in the right direction improve the condition, becoming fully undiabetic without major restrictions is not a sure thing and it takes incredible discipline, motivation, and dedication all things that many type 2 diabetics do not have when it comes to dietary and lifestyle habits. You guys all get this concept though. Its much easier to prevent a disease than it is to overcome one, so lets talk about specifics. The first general rule, which Im sure you have gathered from this book so far as well as 180DegreeHealth blogs, eZines, and other materials, is to eat as little refined carbohydrate foods as possible. Amongst refined carbohydrate foods, avoiding refined sugars and syrups is the number one priority (okay, lets go ahead and throw in noncaloric sweeteners as well they seem to be almost equally as menacing and make you crave more sweets). The number two priority is to avoid habitual consumption of white flour in breads, crackers, sweets, and other packaged and restaurant foods. The number three priority is to eat white rice, pearled barley, tapioca, cous cous/pasta, and other grains that are intact but lack their outer hull in moderation. There is no need to be paranoid about anything but highly-refined sweets, which should be limited to once per week for diabetes prevention, once per month for good health, and once per blue moon for excellent health. Refined starches, in other words, arent as big of a deal. Have a burger with the bun. Have a pizza once a month. Have white jasmine rice when you go out for Thai food. Have a pasta dish from time to time. As long as your everyday diet is sound, these minor refined carbohydrate splurges are unlikely to cause significant problems. Other dietary factors to consider are vegetable oils especially interesterified and trans fat-laden partially hydrogenated oils, food additives, and flavor enhancers. You will only consume such foods in restaurants or in packaged, pre-processed foods. So a simpler rule of thumb is to simply say, learn to cook from scratch and eat mostly your own homecooked foods. When it comes to cooking oils and other fats, use refined or unrefined coconut oil, macadamia nut oil, olive oil, butter/cream, animal fat preferably from beef, lamb, and other ruminants, and nothing else.

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When you do go out to restaurants, avoid desserts, sugared drinks, fried food, and salad dressings like you would a dung wad. Alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and other drugs including prescription and over-the-counter medication, although they dont always cause health problems, certainly make it harder to stay healthy. They make it almost impossible to improve health, and all of them alter your food preferences towards sweets, refined white flour products, chips, foods with flavor enhancers, and other junk. Use with caution, and steer clear of anything you are overly compelled to consume until youve fully regained your health and stability. Based on the work of Seale Harris and E.M. Abrahamson, it may be important to put a little extra emphasis on that caffeine. In fact, the caffeine/refined sugar combination found in typical soft drinks are, by far, the most villainous digestible substance in the human diet from the standpoint of someone looking to avoid insulin resistance. From Abrahamsons 1951 classic, Body, Mind, and Sugar (yes, weve known for that freakin long what causes high insulin levels): As [Dr. Seale Harris] pointed out, overindulgence in caffeine is a common cause for [hyperinsulinism]. Harris conducted his research in Birmingham, Alabama, the heart of the South, where various beverages consisting of sweetened and flavored water spiked with caffeine are water substitutes. Hyperinsulinism may be induced in persons predisposed to the condition by the very combination of caffeine and sugar found in these beverages. Actually, with quotes like this next one, I dont even know why I bothered to write this chapter. Abrahamson says it all: There is no glamorous cure for hyperinsulinism that can be bought in a package. Its diagnosis and treatment demand pains from the physician and sacrifices from the patient, who must give up candy, sugar, pies, alcohol, coffee, and sometimes smoking. From an overall standpoint, build your diet around vegetables, meats, fish, eggs, and cheese, starchy root vegetables, corn and other whole grains, nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, a little bit of fruit on occasion, and the unadulterated fats listed above. With vigilance and an eye on your overall feeling of well-being, its tough to lose on this diet. Diabetes is an extremely unlikely if not impossible occurrence on such guidelines. In terms of lifestyle, the most important tenets to follow are: 1) Get plenty of sleep every night, preferably going to bed early and waking up around sunrise. 2) Dont allow yourself to become overly busy or stressed. Stress is a part of life, and your diet and sleep habits improve your response to it more than anything, but avoid mass chaos and pandemonium whenever you can.

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3) Dont watch television. This sounds strange, but television is known to thrust the viewer into a hypometabolic state. It also causes the release of opiates, reinforces addiction to other opiate stimulators like caffeine, refined sugar, and alcohol, and causes a loss of volition, and decreases self image. Ive found almost nothing more counterproductive to pursuing health (and a quality life in general) than watching television. Watch an occasional movie or sports event and thats about it. I havent had cable or satellite tv in my home since I left the nest at age 18. I owe so much of who I am and what Ive done in my life to this absence. Besides, the more hours of tv watched, the higher the likelihood of obesity and diabetes. Reading books, using a computer in a productive manner, or other forms of inactivity do not have this association at all. 4) Dont diet or overexercise (which is really the same thing). Be reasonable in terms of your fitness and physical appearance pursuits. 5) If you are a woman, dont take oral contraceptives, and if you have children breast feed them. Hormones are everything. Do not toy with them. Excess estrogen is a womans worst nightmare. Im as proud of not allowing any of my girlfriends to take oral contraceptives as I am anything in my life. If your significant other wont agree to it and thinks its no big deal, have him take the pill too. 6) Stay physically active. Deep periods of complete and total rest can be profoundly healing, especially for those with chronic injuries from a lifetime of too much strenuous exercise. But when youre not healing, spend time doing physical activity. It doesnt have to be grueling. It should be light, enjoyable, and habitual. 7) Spend time outdoors and in the sun. I love sunbathing, and the synthesis of Vitamin D in the skin is extremely important, not to mention the fresh, circulating air and the positive psychological impact that spending time outdoors has. Never use sunscreen/sunblock. If you are not accustomed to getting lots of sun, cover up with long clothing and hats once youve reached your solar limit until you build up a tolerance for the sun. When you follow the above guidelines for a healthy diet and a sustainable, healthpromoting lifestyle, your chances of having better health than the average middle-aged adult and being free of type 2 diabetes is almost guaranteed. That doesnt mean that keeping track is unnecessary though. Five tests are a must for tracking your overall blood sugar regulation and health in general. If you are able to keep these numbers in line, and check on them from time to time, diabetes will never jump up and grab you by the short hairs. Plus, these are tests that you can be in control of, and should be in control of. You can know, without having to go to the doctor and get prescribed God knows what, what your general health status is.

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For starters, how you feel is by far the best indicator of health. If you know things are running smoothly, and that you have no minor or major health complaints of any kind no allergies, no digestive problems, no weight problems, no acne, no chronic aches or pains, and you are generally happy and positive about life and rarely get infectious illnesses your health is most likely in tip top shape. The official tests are always secondary monitors of your overall health in comparison. For some specific data, the first thing you want to monitor is your basal temperature. Broda Barnes who we discussed earlier, considered basal temperature to be the best overall indicator of total metabolic health. Armpit temperatures, according to Barnes, were ideal if they fell within the range of 97.8 to 98.2 F first thing upon waking in the morning. Oral temperature should be close to 98.6 F. It is very common to have a low temperature. Try bringing it up through diet alone at first, and give it at least a year to come all the way up. Follow the dietary recommendations above, avoid strenuous, heart-pounding and endurance exercise, rest as much as possible, and intentionally eat more calories than you normally care to. This has proven to be very effective. Others may need desiccated adrenal or thyroid glandulars, or thyroid support supplements like kelp (rich natural source of iodine) to achieve a healthy temperature. If you must resort to thyroid glandular, use www.stopthethyroidmadness.com as your source for how to properly pursue that. The second test is the fasting glucose test. For this I recommend buying a cheap glucose meter and some glucose testing strips. The price for both combined will be nearly $80, but it is worth it, and will allow you to perform this test 50 times. You wont be able to test your blood glucose once at a doctors office for that price. Plus, its very interesting, and can be used to test fasting glucose levels of friends, family members, or whoever else might be interested in knowing their readings. I love having one. You can also be more convincing with a glucose meter if you ever need to play doctor or play nurse. I wont give you instructions here on how to use it, as the instruction manuals do a fine job of it (just be prepared to make a few mistakes the first couple of times, like not getting enough blood on the test strip). What I will tell you is when to take it and what it should probably be. Take it in the morning before you ingest any food. Make sure it has been at least 12 hours since youve had anything to eat or drink (other than water). So if you had dinner at 7pm, dont take it until 7am the next day. The normal range is something like 60 to 110 mg/dl. This is absurd. Thats like saying the normal weight range is 100 to 700 pounds. 60 to 110 is a huge range. Melvin Page thought the ideal fasting glucose level was between 84 and 86 mg/dl (4.7 mmol/l). Emmanuel Cheraskin also noted great health in those between 75 and 85 mg/dl. So the safest range is between 70 and 90 mg/dl. A safer range is probably 75 to 85 mg/dl. There is also the argument that insulin is lower, aging is slowed down, and overall health

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is truly the best at the lowest glucose level possible. I must admit, my fasting glucose readings have been 70 mg/dl lately and Im feeling really good. I do trust Melvin Page above all other sources though. If he says 85 mg/dl (by todays measurement technique), then I say 85 mg/dl at least until something drastically changes my mind. But anything over 90 is a huge red flag. Anything over 100 mg/dl and you can consider yourself more or less prediabetic. Over 110 mg/dl and you need a fully concentrated effort on bringing it back down. The next test to focus on can also be done with your trusty blood glucose meter. It is called the postprandial glucose reading. Usually, one hour after finishing a full meal, your blood glucose level reaches its peak. The ideal postprandial glucose reading is probably under 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/l), although 110 and maybe even 120 mg/dl may be acceptable. I still say the lower the better on this one. Getting under the triple digit level is a great sign that your glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity is outstanding. A low postprandial reading tells you that when glucose rises, insulin is secreted, and because your cells are so responsive to the insulin (the opposite of being resistant to it), it stores the blood glucose out of the bloodstream in a very short amount of time. Your insulin is efficient. The system is working perfectly. Make sure you really eat to fullness to give it a full test. Anyone can score low with a tiny little meal. Being able to eat 1,000 calories and 100 grams of carbs in a sitting with tons of protein and fat with it and score a 90 mg/dl one hour after a meal is a real accomplishment. That is perfect glucose metabolism and ideal insulin sensitivity. The fourth test is more of a pain, and requires more blood. However, this is the most fantastic blood glucose regulation test of them all the A1C test (also known as the HbA1C test, the glycated hemoglobin test, or the glycosylated hemoglobin test). The A1C test tracks your average blood sugar level over a period of two to three months. It does so by testing how much hemoglobin has been damaged due to glycation. The approximate average glucose level to A1C equation is: (Mean Plasma Glucose in mg/dl + 77.3) / 35.6. This means that if your average blood glucose level is 85, your A1C test will come out to be between 4.5-4.6. Its hard to say what the exact optimal score on the A1C test should be. If you were to average precisely 85 mg/dl 24 hours per day, your A1C test, as mentioned above, would come to be between 4.5 and 4.6. This would be considered, by mainstream medicine, to be a fantastic score. Remember though, their standards of what is normal when it comes to blood sugar regulation is incredibly lax though. Diabetes guru Richard Bernstein considers the optimal range for the A1C test to be between 4.0 and 4.5, because, like many, he believes that the lower your average blood glucose level the better. This score represents an average glucose level of 65 to 82 mg/dl. He calls anything from 4.5 to 5.0 good. Personally, I wouldnt freak out about having a

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test anywhere under 5.0. I also wouldnt be too quick to shoot for 4.0 if your test comes back at 4.4. Lets just say, keep it below 5.0. If its above that, take immediate and aggressive action to bring it down (very low-sugar, whole food bingeing without exercise has proven to be the best strategy Ive found personally and the one Im most excited about because it couldnt be farther from the standard advice). You can go to your doctor to get this test done for big bucks, or you can buy a test kit at your local pharmacy or online, do it yourself, and send it into a lab for a $25 total cost. The fifth and final test is an old standby. Blood pressure. High blood pressure or hypertension is one of the most common ominous signs of impending health doom. It is a primary tentacle of the metabolic syndrome octopus like the one the octopus uses to feed itself or kill its prey or something. Blood pressure is of course a very simple and easily-accessible test. In the Podunk town I live in, all I have to do is walk down to the Pharmacy area at the supermarket and strap myself into the blood pressure machine. Within a minute it gives me a nice and reliable blood pressure reading. Its even got colorful little medical propaganda info-flyers on diabetes and hypertension right there next to the machine. They tell me I should eat a low-fat, low-calorie diet, exercise my brains out, and reduce my salt intake. This is about as effective, all things considered, as crumpling up a piece of paper, turning to the east and shouting, Penuckle! shaving the left side of my head, throwing a handful of beans under my bed, and snuggling with a potbellied pig. Blood pressure also should be kept within a pretty tight range. 120/80 is sort of the gold standard, although some people believe it too should be lower. I kind of disagree with this. Having a low blood pressure is a sign of a low metabolism, as is a low resting pulse rate. Ive found a tight correlation between blood pressure and basal temperature in my own body, as well as resting pulse. I think a better rule is to simply shoot for the perfect normal in this case. One thing that heavily influenced my thinking on this is the fact that those following the milk diet back in the 1920s were reported to normalize blood pressure more reliably than anything else. Those with high blood pressure had it drop. Those with blood pressure that was too low, such as 110/65, had it jump up to the 120130/80 range. That speaks volumes. Once again, since fructose and stimulants are known to be the primary elevators of blood pressure, and removing those elements from the diet brings reliable drops in blood pressure to normal or near-normal, this once again solidifies the general recommendation here. Eat a low-fructose diet, cut out stimulants and other addictive substances, and watch your health fall back into appropriate diagnostic zones for both blood glucose and blood pressure. Although you will have to do the unthinkable - visit your doctors office, to get one more potentially revealing test performed, the fasting insulin test can be an excellent biomarker. Rises in fasting insulin levels often precede rises in blood sugar levels. In other words, even though all of your blood glucose numbers are within the appropriate

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range, there could be a storm brewing underneath the surface that suggests insulin resistance. If you really have a very strong and pronounced family history of type 2 diabetes, and even heart disease or obesity, it cant hurt to get the doc to check your fasting insulin levels as well. Thats even if the other biomarkers you can keep relative track of yourself fall in the normal or even ideal range. In the words of nutrition reporter Jack Challem: If your fasting glucose is between 65 and 99 mg/dl, your doctor may say your blood sugar is normal but it may be a false normal. Some people are very good at pumping out plenty of insulin, which will keep their glucose levels in the normal range. But high insulin, also known as hyperinsulinemia, is a smoking gun: it can increase your risk of developing prediabetes and diabetes by eight times! As with fasting glucose, the normal range of fasting insulin 6 to 35 mcIU/ml is too wide to be of any practical use. The higher your insulin, the harder your body is working to keep glucose levels down. Identified early enough, elevated insulin is a red flag indicating prediabetes. Good levels of fasting insulin are less than 10mcIU/ml, and the ideal, according to Challem, is less than 7 mcIU/ml. Anything significantly over 10, and you can probably file yourself in the prediabetic category. Once again, although this test is expensive, and unless you are diabetic most insurers wont cover the cost, it could provide pivotal and early insights into your overall glucose metabolism. Insulin levels typically rise long before elevated glucose readings follow. This concludes our chapter on prevention. Be sensible and smart in your daily habits. Challenge your addictions and compulsive behaviors. Stay on top of what type of diet allows you to feel and function at your best. This diet should also allow you to maintain a healthy weight while fully obeying your appetite and energy levels to determine caloric intake and activity levels. And be vigilant with testing. This doesnt have to be a drag and a heinous chore either. Have fun with it. Let it validate your efforts at becoming a healthier you. Monitor changes like a detective. Take pride in your kick-ass numbers. With this advice, type 2 diabetes would almost completely be eradicated, so I hope you take it, particularly if you have a family history of type 2 diabetes, obesity, Alzheimers, stroke, or heart disease all easily traceable to poor insulin sensitivity.

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Exercise for Diabetes

It is true as most health-oriented diabetes advisors proclaim. Exercise can lower your insulin resistance, glucose levels, and improve overall health. Even T.L. Cleave knew this, but his thoughts on exercise might not be exactly what you were expecting to hear: the countering of excess consumption, arising from the eating of refined carbohydrates by the taking of unwanted exercise is considered a perfect example of two wrongs not making a right, even though the extra exercise is well known to reduce the consequences of such overconsumption. How many diabetics can attest to the accuracy of the word unwanted right before exercise? Im guessing several. Is exercise one of two wrongs though? Really? There is absolutely nothing wrong with exercise. It is invigorating. We were given bodies, and those bodies were designed to be used. I have exercised a great deal in my life, and it is an asset to my health for the most part, and not a liability. But exercise is dramatically overhyped. It is a band-aid for diabetics at best, and does not address the real core of the problem. It truly does mask the symptoms, and allows someone to get away with eating refined carbohydrates without getting full-blown diabetes. Many diabetics have used exercise successfully to overcome their condition assuming they kept up a rigorous heart-thumping routine for life. Many diabetics have also starved themselves with success, or lowered their fasting glucose levels with bariatric surgery. Yes, these things appear to get the job done. I would recommend exercise to someone who is completely unwilling to eat a nutritious diet devoid of refined sugar, white flour, and vegetable oil. For that reason, I wont totally bash exercise, because that may be the only strategy some diabetics find that is a workable solution. In that case, I would highly recommend hiking. Being on your feet and exercising, particularly hiking which is a fairly moderate and natural form of human exercise, can be done for hours every day. Plus, it happens to be a very fulfilling, uplifting, and inspiring thing to do. I doubt there are many type 2 diabetics that could hike the Appalachian trail and still have fasting glucose levels over 100 by the time they made it from Georgia to Mt. Katahdin. However, to achieve real metabolic healing without an exercise or starvation dependency, exercise, especially in the beginning phase, is not only unhelpful it is harmful. A diabetic is a sick person. There is a reason why most type 2s havent exercised much since they were young and thin. They havent felt like it. When they have tried it, it was too draining, and they often combined it with a healthy low-fat, low-calorie diet even more heavily-weighted towards sweets. After a month or two (or maybe an hour), they

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fell off the wagon. Thats the body shouting loud and clear that what youre doing is not suitable for good health. Real healing at the foundation is best achieved with rest, not excessive physical exertion. This is even true for an overweight type 2 diabetic that has heard repetitive prescriptions from all angles recommending exercise and lots of it. One of the main reasons rest is effective is that it diminishes the flood of cortisol, a stress hormone that triggers insulin resistance and is one of the main physiological cornerstones of metabolic syndrome. Getting lots of sleep and rest especially total bed rest, is the way to overcome chronic infections, inflammation, stress, and lack of sleep the primary triggers of cortisol. When cortisol secretion returns to normal, insulin resistance lessens, and fasting and postprandial glucose responses to food start to creep downward. I have every reason to believe that this is even the case when eating lots of food and getting bed rest leads to more fat accumulation (although significantly overweight people can mysteriously lose excess body fat and water when following this advice as will be discussed in the chapter on The Milk Diet). Of course, the advice to rest up and avoid exertion, particularly anything that really gets your heart rate up and makes you out of breath, is temporary advice. Resting allows for maximal healing. Once glucose levels start to fall back into place without any form of caloric restriction via starvation or overexercising, and excess fat stores begin to dissipate, its time to slowly begin using the body again. In other words, exercise is not something to do to get healthy. The right to exercise without causing harm is a privilege earned by improving your health. Having diabetes is no different from having the flu in that regard. Rest up and drink plenty of fluids little Mattferd, and when youre all better you can go out and play. But mom, I feel better now. I wanna go over to Brett Bradleys house and kill lightning bugs with a tennis racket, or dress up in full camo and shoot cars with my B-B gun. No young man, not until that fever comes down. Fine mom. Ill just lay here and watch Different Strokes until Punky Brewster comes on. Whatchoo talkin bout Willis? Yes, that was pretty much my childhood alternating bouts of illness with raising hell in the neighborhood and watching way, way too much tv. Actually, every time I was sick I made my mom go and rent Condorman probably the best movie of all time. Anyway, getting back on track when it comes time to exercise once again after a period of healing rest, its best to start slowly. Exercise can no longer be thought of as a grinding activity in which you are striving for maximal calorie burn. That will end with

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maximal burnout, not burned calories. Step 1 is simply to start spending more time on your feet assuming that you do not have foot problems as a result of severe diabetic neuropathy. The next step is to begin a routine of deep breathing and light stretching. You dont have to be Rodney Yee to get the benefits of respiration and stretching. Deep breathing stimulates a wonderful production of internal warmth as does focused stretching holding the positions with good form without over-straining. You dont have to make this a 90-minute yoga class by any means. Five minutes is great. 10 minutes is wonderful. When you feel up for it, and are eager to do it and naturally energized from improving your health with dietary measures, I suggest long, leisurely walks. Walking has proven to me many times to be the most natural, comfortable, relaxing, and invigorating form of exercise a human can participate in. It doesnt have to be up mountains or begin and end at a basecamp of some kind to count. Just moving the body, while in an upright position and internalizing your thoughts as you look around you is enough to get benefits. In fact, when it comes to exertion, walking downhill has shown to improve glucose tolerance more than walking uphill according to Jack Challem in Stop Prediabetes Now. So much for no pain no gain. When it comes to exercise, I strongly believe that quantity should be stressed over intensity. Moving the body around and staying on your feet while actively doing something is what the ideal exercise program is like. Although many health experts would disagree especially diabetes author Richard Bernstein, I feel very confident in my recommendations. Be active. It could be as simple as playing golf regularly or bowling, but do something. Use your body, and take it easy. Save high-intensity workouts and weight training for professional American football players (with a life expectancy of 55 or so). If you do choose to greatly enhance your physical fitness and muscle mass with high-intensity training, do it in very short bursts 10-30 minutes and not a second more. Exercise is an important fundamental of human health. I advocate it, but just remember, you must be healthy to exercise, not exercise to be healthy. To prevent diabetes, make exercise a part of your whole health program, but dont be fanatical. To overturn diabetes, hold off until youve seen improvements. Then integrate it slowly and safely.

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Supplements

No one on Gods green earth despises the supplement industry more than I. The supplement industry epitomizes the human desire for a quick fix, or a cure without having to fix the fundamental glitch in lifestyle and diet that led to the health problem in the first place. The supplement industry truly preys upon the gullible, and sells $1,000 of product for every $1 of benefit it provides the consumer. Still, I would be kidding myself if I said, outright, that supplements are a complete and total farce. Many people can improve their health with supplements, although it is a rare event and can easily be counterproductive as supplements divert attention from the root of issues. Some supplements are harmful too, and its impossible to predict how isolated nutrients are going to interact with other nutrients and hormones so supplementation is a mixed bag. Nora Gedgaudas said it best, when she wrote: all nutrients operate in a complex system of interrelationships in the body, and requirements will vary greatly from person to person. Furthermore, modern day research simply fails to take all these variables into account, instead studying nutrients in relative isolation, compartmentalizing what is never compartmentalized in nature. The role of certain nutrients in relation to others and the need for certain co-factors in order to optimize a nutrients function or prevent imbalances isnt normally discussed at all. This, of course, leads to problems. For instance and perhaps critically for each and every receptor for vitamin D, there are two receptors for vitamin A on every cell. Because of the compartmentalized approach to vitamin D research, this sort of thing does not get recognized or discussed. A relative balance of these two nutrients is vital to their healthy function in the body. An excess of one can create a relative deficiency of the other. For instance, if you take large amounts of vitamin D without vitamin A, you are potentially more likely to develop symptoms of vitamin-A deficiency. Conversely, taking certain commercial cod liver oil supplements that are rich in vitamin A but poor in vitamin D can lead to more severe vitamin D deficiencies But supplements do have a place in the big picture, especially for prediabetics and type 2 diabetics. Even Gedgaudas, author of the above quote that seems counter-supplement industry recommends many nutritional supplements in the book from which that quote was extracted. Several years ago I worked at a supplement store (I was young and needed the money!) great evidence no doubt that Im a total sellout, but hey, I did do a tremendous amount of research during that time. For the most part, customers didnt appear to be very healthy, and few reported significant health benefits from any particular supplement. Any faith I mightve had in supplementation to begin with was pretty much eliminated by that experience.

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But in one instance, I did hear a pretty amazing supplement testimonial, and it was from a former type 2 diabetic. He was very eager to tell me that by following a long supplement protocol list, he overcame his type 2 diabetes. I guessed that he had been severely diabetic prior to this, as he was in a wheelchair, but who knows his handicap may have been totally unrelated to diabetic complications. This gentleman didnt disclose his whole list to me, mostly because he couldnt remember all the crap he was taking, but it at least caught my attention. I also cant help but believe diabetes professionals like Julian Whitaker, when he talks about specific supplements being able to lower blood sugar levels especially when Ive heard the same supplements advocated elsewhere. Between meeting a man in person who had managed to overcome diabetes through supplementation alone and being flooded with an avalanche of kudos about certain diabetes-specific supplements, I cant, in good conscience, not bring it up. No matter how much I want to steer you squarely towards diet and lifestyle modification, I have to admit supplementation may help you. To begin, lets talk about how to use supplements. Supplements should not be your one and only weapon. I think of supplements as being a potential kickstart to a dramatic personal health revolution. In other words, supplements are not something I would want, or expect for you to take in large quantities for the rest of your life. I cant even imagine there being a need for them for as a long as a year. In fact, if you are going to try supplementation, the best strategy seems to be a sort of shock and awe approach for a short period of time like one to two months. What Im saying, is that if you are going to give supplements a fair shot, go big or dont bother. Buy most, if not all of the following supplements, take megadoses as you commence your radical new approach of maximal nourishment via diet, and then leave most supplements in the dust as your diet and lifestyle comes to embody true excellence. Supplements known to either improve insulin sensitivity, lower fasting glucose levels, lessen the damage of high blood sugars, improve overall health, or a combination of important factors fill a lengthy list. In terms of importance and effectiveness based on my research, I would probably rank potential diabetic nutritional supplements in the following order: 1) Chromium as chromium picolinate or polynicotinate (500 mcg or higher) 2) Alpha-Lipoic or R-Lipoic acid with biotin added (several hundred mg at least) 3) Vanadium as Vanadyl Sulfate (100-150 mg) 4) Magnesium (500-1000mg) 5) High potency B-complex (several times the RDA of each) 6) Vitamin C (1,000 mg several times daily) 7) Fish oil concentrate (total of 5 grams omega 3 as liquid or in capsule form) 8) Natural Vitamin E (400 IU) 9) Cinnamon (several capsules daily with food) 10) Cayenne pepper (several capsules daily with food)

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Other supplements to consider are Gymnema Sylvestre and Bitter Melon, both of which are thought to be particularly helpful for type 2 diabetics. Taking an iodine supplement from a natural source such as kelp or from Lugols solution or high-potency Iodoral is also a good idea, particularly if body temperature is low. I will be reviewing the work of Dr. David Brownstein on this topic in 2010, which sounds very promising. Once again, go big or dont bother. Brownstein recommends 50 times the RDA to fill the empty iodine tank. Taking an ounce of apple cider vinegar with meals is also thought be very helpful for lowering postprandial glucose response, but I have not monitored this myself, so it is purely a folk remedy but one that has really been far-reaching. This list was compiled based primarily on Julian Whitakers Reversing Diabetes supplement protocol, but very similar recommendations are made by Jack Challem on the subject of prediabetes as well as some of my favorite health authors, including Diana Schwarzbein, Joan Mathews Larson, and Julia Ross. It may provide substantial benefit, particularly to someone that has severe diabetes and needs assistance beyond what can reasonably be done with diet and lifestyle modification alone. I would venture to guess that supplementation is scarcely needed for a recentlydiagnosed diabetic with fasting glucose near the cutoff at 126 mg/dl, and is certainly not needed to overturn a mild prediabetic condition. But like I said, if you need a jumpstart, this could be a good way to do it, especially as you work to complete a dietary and lifestyle transition that you know isnt going to happen overnight. Just dont become obsessed with supplements above all else though, even if you have apparently miraculous results on this aggressive strategy. Wean yourself off of them over time, at least to smaller doses if not completely.

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Treatment Programs

The following set of chapters is dedicated to several ideologies and methodologies for improving glucose metabolism. Remember, a type 2 diabetic is only distinguished from a non-diabetic person due to a number. With fasting glucose levels of 126 mg/dl, you are considered diabetic. Someone with 109 mg/dl fasting glucose is considered by the mainstream to fall under the category of normal. Yet, there is little separating the two. One can lower blood sugar just as easily as the other. So no matter whether your fasting levels are over 200 mg/dl and postprandial over 300 mg/dl, you can still improve your condition. From what I can gather according to the reports of other authors, doctors, and researchers it is possible for nearly every type 2 diabetic on earth to reverse diabetes completely and be symptom and medication free. For those that cannot reverse their condition successfully, which I maintain are few and far between, the disease can be very well-controlled through other dietary and lifestyle measures. Basically, not only is the supposedly incurable type 2 diabetes potentially curable, it is stupendously simple and easy to completely reverse. The worst case scenario is that it is easily treatable, allowing a diabetic to enjoy a long, healthy, and prosperous life without excessive diabetic complications. Once again, that worst case scenario of a long, healthy, and prosperous life is the fate of someone who cannot seem to improve his or her condition by following one or several of the strategies Im about to cover. Either way, the long-term outcome is far better than mainstream medicine acknowledges (For example, the PreventionGuide to Outsmart Diabetes that I just picked up at the grocery store the other day has a chocolate dessert on the front and a guy leaning on baguettes made of white bread on the inside no wonder these douche bags cant figure out how to beat diabetes). The following treatment programs are radically different from one another, but do not be confused. Just as there is more than one way to cook a chicken, there is more than one way to improve type 2 diabetes. What will be most confusing is how one diet excludes something completely while the next diet endorses it like it just fell from the heavens. Diets should be looked at as a whole, not extracted for the examination of each individual part. Bacon and strawberry jelly both taste good, but mixing the two together changes things completely (sorry, that was just a metaphor, none of the diets allow the consumption of strawberry jelly. Youll have to look to the PreventionGuide for that). The first potential treatment is fasting. Fasting has long been used to treat a vast array of health problems. Many disappear indefinitely, while others are relieved until normal dietary patterns are reinstated. In either case, some healing does typically occur during periods of fasting of any kind. Water fasting is difficult and extreme, but other forms of fasting, such as subsisting off of fruits and vegetables only, or a fast of cooked starch and fresh vegetables, or a juice fast can be equally as therapeutic. Although this doesnt always prove to be the most effective strategy for long-term success, the initial results are

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often so dramatic that it would be an injustice not to at least mention and briefly discuss the possible use of fasting. The next treatment program is similar to that used by Dr. Julian Whitaker, Dr. Neal Barnard, and Dr. Joel Fuhrman all of which are specialists in the reversal of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. To describe this dietary approach, Dr. Fuhrman has coined the term nutritarian. The idea is to eat the highest ratio of nutrients to calories as possible. All of these doctors report being able to get patients off of insulin and return glucose levels to normal with great consistency. The diet revolves around the most nutrient dense of all foods whole plant foods such as leafy greens, colorful vegetables, whole grains, and unrefined root vegetables. Ironically, one of the best antidotes for healing a glucose metabolism caused by the habitual consumption of refined carbohydrates appears to be eating lots of unrefined carbohydrates. The third treatment is the one Ive used to help myself as well as many 180 followers to improve the metabolism as a whole. Originally coined as the high everything diet, this strategy stresses maximal nourishment in much the same way as the milk diet does (discussed next), only with regular food. The objective is to provide the nutritional and caloric surplus needed to achieve healing and replenish the depleted nutritional reserves of the diabetic. It is based around traditional, unadulterated fats, meats, and copious amounts of unrefined carbohydrates including all vegetables and starchy vegetables and whole grains. It requires deep rest for at least one month to achieve maximal results. Although this is a generally untested strategy, is almost purely theoretical, and never in my research have I come across similar guidelines for type 2 diabetics Im willing to go out on a limb for it. Health improvements have been fairly consistent amongst those who have tried it, and my own fasting and postprandial glucose readings fell tremendously while following this general program in just 30 days. Its greatest strength is that it does not require followers to maintain a highly restricted, unbalanced diet to maintain results an apparent weakness of fasting and nutritarianism. The fourth treatment, and the one Im personally most excited about (I hope to do a full course of this diet for my own first hand experiential knowledge by the spring of 2010), is the milk diet. The milk diet was the preferred method for overcoming diabetes by one of the founders of the Mayo Clinc J.E. Crewe. Other health professionals in the early 1900s used the milk diet extensively for a long litany of health problems. Heart disease and hypertension were reported to be healed quickly and permanently on a full course of the milk diet. Although it is the most rigorous, and requires the fullest dedication for maximal effects, it is the most sound of all treatments. Its objective is truly to nourish the human body with as much as it can metabolize by taking milk every 30 minutes during waking hours. I know of no nutrition and dietary strategy that has reported such enthusiastic and consistent claims as the milk diet. It holds great promise in helping diabetics and someday being resurrected as the primary alternative treatment for nearly all known health problems. The final treatment is purely a treatment diet, and is meant to be used as a last resort for diabetics who have ruled out other alternatives for reversing their condition. That is the

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traditional low-carbohydrate diet. Following a consistent diet of non-starchy vegetables combined with fatty proteins such as untrimmed beef and lamb, creamy cheese, and coldwater fish, is a simple and effective diet for improving glucose levels and catering to a body that has proven to be incapable of properly metabolizing carbohydrates. Yes, the worst case scenario is that you eat a diet of wholesome and hearty meat, poultry, and fish with a broad spectrum of nourishing vegetables. Although a diet like this is unlikely to make a diabetic magically able to tolerate a giant baked potato like the other strategies have the potential to, it is a reasonable solution for many type 2 diabetic cases. Although the following chapters are dedicated primarily to those that have type 2 diabetes and are looking for natural solutions, any of these diet plans can be used by a normal non-diabetic too. Even if you arent diabetic, you will still find these chapters insightful and interesting and can keep them in mind when you need solutions for any health problems that you have or that may arise in the future. Plus, diabetics are multiplying like bunnies, and insights on dealing with diabetes are close to non-existent in the medical world. They need solutions, and odds are you know or will know many diabetics in your life and whatever knowledge or ideas you can provide them is of vital importance. And if you have success with any of the following programs, in reversing diabetes, lowering blood sugars, or eradicating any health problem please notify me and the 180DegreeHealth community immediately either directly or through community areas such as the comments section of any 180 blog. 180DegreeHealth is heavily dependent upon feedback and anecdotal results in its objectives to become an ever-more refined (no pun intended) and increasingly enlightened network of health information. Feel free to visit those sources for support, to have questions answered, and to receive unlimited feedback from a vast pool of very astute and experienced health and nutrition minds (aka health geeks). A word of warning for diabetics before you attempt any of the following strategies for improving glucose metabolism: I didnt want to dedicate a full chapter on insulin injections or taking insulin through a bolus system, but the subject of supplemental insulin is certainly worthy of discussion. So lets discuss it. As you start fasting or eating some of the following diets that I highlight for the potential reversal and management of glucose dysregulation, you could be in a great deal of danger if you maintain your normal insulin dose. This is especially important when it comes to fasting. Insulin requirements often drop within the first day, and if you use the same amount of insulin, you run the risk of falling into a dangerous hypoglycemic state. Always err on the side of too little insulin to avoid the worst possible fate hypoglycemia, until you can maintain close-to-normal (below 150 mg/dl) postprandial readings. At that point, with your doctors endorsement, get the f#$% off of insulin and never go back. The same goes for all other diabetes medications including statins, bloodpressure lowering diuretics, metformin, cytomel, and so on.

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All drugs make the condition worse. The trade-off is limited to short term improvement in your numbers and symptoms. Short-term gain equals long-term pain. This book was written as a source of direction one can take in truly making legitimate progress in improving the disease. Its about divorcing pharmaceutical companies because of repeated domestic violence issues, unfaithfulness, distrust, a lack of sharing and caring, and a nasty internet porn habit. Yes, pharmaceutical companies would make for one lousy spouse. Drug dependency is a merry-go-round that spins faster and faster as the years go by. The solution? Dont get on it in the first place. -Julian Whitaker Insulin is a dangerous drug for Type II diabetics. These are people who are overweight to begin with. Insulin therapy will result in further weight gain, accelerating their diabetes. A vicious cycle begins that usually causes patients to require more and more insulin as they put on the pounds. When they come to see me for the first time, they report their sugars are impossible to control in spite of massive doses of insulin, which they are now combining with oral medication. It is like walking around with a live hand grenade in your pocket ready to explode at any minute. -Joel Fuhrman Just be very careful about making the transition, as it can be dangerous. Work with your doctor to make it happen. If your doctor wont work with you, and outright resists the idea, stab him or her in the leg with a big dose of insulin and see how he or she likes it. If you dont have any pressing health problems and your diagnostic numbers are well within the normal range, DO NOT partake of any extreme or rigorous diets.

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Conclusion

Before we get into the treatment programs, its time to do a brief conclusion. To reiterate the basic premises advanced in 180 Degree Diabetes: Type 2 diabetes is merely a health problem that begins with a very simple and common disorder called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance appears to primarily be a result of excessive inflammation and the cortisol that is released to mitigate that inflammation although there are clearly numerous other hormonal factors involved, such as the thyroid hormones. That inflammation is caused by allergy, infection, glycation, free radical damage, and numerous other forms of inflammation-triggering events all of which can be prevented by proper diet more than anything else we have at our disposal. Diabetes is primarily caused, at the core, by refined carbohydrates. This is due to their lack of essential nutrients needed for carbohydrate metabolism. The body instead draws nutrients from reserves to metabolize them, which has a cumulative net loss that has been snowballing for generations. Chromium, magnesium, zinc, iodine, and ratios of calcium to phosphorous are just a few key minerals involved in metabolic syndrome. Refined carbohydrates are also stripped of B-vitamins, which are equally important for good health. Although I failed to address it earlier, B-vitamins, which so many are lacking due to poor diet and digestive inefficiency, are required to properly metabolize homocysteine. Homocysteine is a highly-inflammatory nutrient that accumulates and triggers more flippin cortisol in an absence of key B-vitamins. Of the refined carbohydrates, fructose, particularly free, unbound fructose (unbound to other sugars that is) such as that found in high-fructose corn syrup and crystalline fructose, appear to have powerful negative consequences that trigger the metabolic changes characteristic of Metabolic Syndrome. Of all foods, it seems to be unquestionable that these two sweeteners, and to a lesser degree white sugar (sucrose half fructose and half glucose), are the primary culprits of insulin resistance a metabolic disturbance that is the foundation of countless health problems including type 2 diabetes. And to think that these sweeteners are the primary caloric contributors to the modern diet without giving a single essential nutrient for their proper metabolism in exchange. Because inflammation is such a key fundamental in the development of metabolic syndrome, solvent-extracted, hydrogenated, and/or interesterified polyunsaturated fatty acids from vegetable oils also appear to be a prominent ingredient in the recipe for type 2 diabetes. These fatty acids are the precursors of inflammatory cytokines associated with nearly every known degenerative disease, and the very fact that they cause excessive free radical damage due to their chemical structure, vegetable oils are the main competition for fructose in the Causes of Human Degeneration Olympics. Above all else, we should all be extremely vigilant about minimizing vegetable oils and refined sugars in our diets. To do so, we have to be satisfied with other fare and live in a

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way that minimizes our desire for packaged and processed foods, which can be very addictive. Im not talking about deprivation. Im talking about a decadent and indulgent diet that just so happens to not include a couple of key ingredients. It still has all the fat, meat, carbohydrates, and calories that the human body craves just in a fundamentally different form. Theres no requirement to accomplish any great feats of human strength or endurance to be healthy either. The multi-millennia-old prescription to rest and get plenty of sleep should continue to be upheld. With these simple changes, nearly all cases of type 2 diabetes can be prevented. With additional and even more aggressive and specific strategies like the ones that follow, most cases of type 2 diabetes can be reversed. Undone. Overcome. The few that arent can be greatly assisted with a typical low-carb diet based on nutritious and satisfying foods that can hardly be considered a sacrifice. Anyway, I hope 180 Degree Diabetes is helpful to the many people from all walks of life that will at some point cross paths with it. It has truly been my pleasure to research and write about this topic. Very little in life interests me more than what I do. The ability to share it gives me a feeling of gratitude that is indescribable. May the work that was presented here shed much light into the dark, murky, backwater pond that is mainstream diabetes dogma. I cant think of anything in greater need of emergency resuscitation than the diabetes information that pollutes the vast sea of health books, doctors office pamphlets, internet information, and the minds of the physicians and researchers that have been so inept in halting what is soon to become the great 21st century health crisis. Although many professionals, researchers, and laypersons will read much of this material with the highest of skepticism and even resentment and disbelief in comparison to the information currently available on the subject, one fact remains clear In the words of The Last Dragon, Bruce Leroy, I am the Master. -Matt Stone; www.180degreehealth.com

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Fasting

Fasting has a long history of use as a therapy against health problems. Like most truly successful means of treating disease, it does not have a specific disease that it conquers while being ineffective at dealing with other problems. Thats what drugs do. Dietary and lifestyle strategies can work for everything. Fasting could be the most dramatic way to get quick results and a breather from any chronic disease, type 2 diabetes included. That is why fasting programs often have very dramatic names, such as fasting guru Richard Schulzes The Cure for All Diseases. Schulze is a strong, overzealous alternative health character for a reason. He has helped thousands in improving their health through various fasting regimens, with or without his line of herbs and superfood supplements. Ive personally seen a woman have a complete health turnaround after a 35-day Dr. Schulze-patterned fast. Henry Bieler was another fasting advocate a well-respected medical authority with a great track record and a somewhat underground following that persists today. His method for all of his patients was simply to let nature heal in its most effective way by taking minimal solid food and only vitamin and mineral-rich soups and lots of fluids while resting deeply. As it pertains specifically to diabetes, Bieler had this to say: The best way to handle a diabetic case, I have found, is to take him off insulin and to put him to bed. If the patient will not accept this and the rather rigorous diet, then I am powerless to help. The diet consists of lightly cooked non-starchy vegetables, like celery, parsley, zucchini and string beans, liquefied in a blender and used as a soup. The patient remains on this until the urine becomes sugar-free by test. He stays in bed to conserve his energy in order to give the liver and the pancreas every possible chance to do their work unmolested from the acids of exertion. It may take from one day to four days or more to get the patient sugar-free. Stanley Burroughs could be the most well-recognized champion of fasting there ever was. Burroughs Master Cleanser, or lemonade diet has been quite a popular fasting fad in recent years. His fast is an extended course of a spicy lemonade concoction for a minimum of ten days. Kevin Trudeau certainly took the fasting concept seriously mainstream when he published his best-selling Natural Cures They Dont Want You to Know About, in which he claimed that various forms of fasting could be used to overcome almost any health condition. A little overblown sure, but whaddya expect from an infomercial maniac? Still, his book, although cheesier than stuffed-crust pizza, isnt completely without merit. Trudeau knows that fasting can be a healing thing from juice fasts to liver cleanses and candida cleanses, and hes not the type to keep his mouth shut about it. Neither am I. Plus, Trudeau gifted the mindset of maximal nourishment to me, for which I am eternally grateful.

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I could go on for a while, bringing up various fasting heroes and believers, but you get the idea. From Hippocrates to Paul Bragg to Robin from Howard Stern, fasting has helped and healed many. Some were given permanent relief. Others were at least given a good break from their health conditions while seeing some significant improvement overall. I personally had many health improvements attributable to fasting, and feel strongly that only those who take it too far experience anything but great benefit. While fasting may seem extreme, it is a practice with great validity, and in the case of attempting to reverse a condition as serious and incurable as type 2 diabetes, a fast may very well be warranted. Complete water fasts have traditionally been used for healing with perhaps the most dramatic results, but personally I am strongly opposed to removing all food and nutriment from a diabetics diet. This is even so for fasts that include large quantities of sweet vegetable and fruit juices something that most think diabetics cannot tolerate. The word fasting is often thought to mean no food, but I have a much looser definition. Under the term fasting I tend to include somewhat of a mono diet wing. In other words, fasting, to me, is eating an extremely easy to digest and repetitive diet that allows healing to occur from the inside out. Technically, a fast, with this definition could even include a strict diet of meat and water like that advised by strong (okay, knuckleheaded) low-carb advocate Charles Washington. From a diabetics standpoint; however, I think the best way to help improve a diabetics glucose metabolism is not to attempt strict avoidance of all sources of glucose. No, the idea is to recognize the problem and face it directly. Cant metabolize carbs? Eat nothing but carbs until you can. Although things dont always work this simply, thats one tangible frame of mind you can adopt before trying any strict fast. Of all the fasts I have tried, and the one I presume will prove to be the most effective and well-rounded strategy for type 2 diabetics, is a strict diet of raw fruits, vegetables, juices, and smoothies. I have used this fast many times personally, and know the results to be quite dramatic. From a digestive standpoint, I also really like this diets cleansing effect on the digestive organs, as liquid-only fasts tend to bring digestion to an absolute standstill without any bulk being passed. Raw fruits and vegetables, although they are difficult to digest and assimilate more completely, still have much greater nutrient density, and with their slow and methodical digestion, they put less pressure on the insulin system as the sugars are absorbed much more slowly. In other words, you get a better fasting effect in terms of resting the carbohydrate metabolism wing of the body. To follow this fast, eat unlimited amounts of non-starchy vegetables, fruits, juices, and all-fruit smoothies. Fats and proteins, other than those naturally occurring in the fruit and vegetable matter youre consuming, should be kept at near-zero. This means that nuts, seeds, avocado, coconut, and other fat-rich plant foods are to be excluded. Smoothies can consist of any fresh, raw fruit but yoghurt, coconut milk, soy, sorbet, and other common extra smoothie ingredients need to be kept strictly out. Juices can be any fresh fruit or

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vegetable juice preferably vegetable, such as carrot, celery, cabbage, leafy greens, garlic, ginger, and beets. But as long as it is raw and freshly-juiced, go for it. A typical days menu might look like this: 7am Fresh pineapple juice 8am Bowl of raw snowpeas and red bell pepper slices dressed with lime juice 9am 2 bananas 10am Shredded cabbage, mint, and chopped jalapeno dressed with rice wine vinegar 11am 3 apples 12am Large blackberry-banana smoothie 1pm Big bowl of baby carrots 2pm Carrot, beet, and cucumber juice 3pm Raw honey and ginger limeade 4pm Handful of fresh green beans or sugar snap peas 5pm Pint of strawberries 6pm Large Mexican salad with fresh tomatoes, raw corn from the cob, red bell pepper, red onion, cayenne pepper, cilantro, lime juice, and Romaine lettuce 7pm Mixed fruit salad Already you are seeing the difficulty of this type of fast. Drinking nothing but water seems to be a heck of a lot more convenient than keeping track of all that food not to mention the big budgetary difference between a water fast and a raw fruit and vegetable fast. Ironically, water fasts kill hunger much more effectively than eating fruits and vegetables all day no matter how much you take in. Still, knowing my position on bombarding the human body with nutrients in an attempt to rebuild key mineral and vitamin stores while rebuilding the digestive tract and its ability to handle large loads of fiber, you can see why such a fast strikes me as vastly superior. If this ultimate fast sounds impossible, do not give up. Many other types of fasts can be performed and are much easier to follow. Who knows, they may even be better, especially with the lower fruit intake. Even the monster menu listed above can be tremendously simplified for example a massive smoothie can be made in the morning and sipped periodically during the day between breakfast and dinner. Breakfast and dinner could simply be large vegetable salads dressed with vinegar or lime juice such as the Mexican salad listed above. Although that might not provide great variety, the simplicity of preparation may make it much more feasible to work into your life. Another fast which would be a close 2nd for diabetics would be a diet consisting of cooked starch and a mix of raw and cooked vegetables. On this diet, fruit is cast aside (which can make hunger and blood sugar swings much more manageable), and is replaced by starch, which is much more stabilizing. The rules of avoiding fatty vegetables remain the same, and meals consist of mostly cooked root vegetables or brown rice with lots of cooked leafy greens. Raw vegetable salads, carrot and celery sticks, etc. are great snacks to get you from meal to meal. Vegetable soups are also great. Physically, this is a much easier form of fasting and it can be equally rewarding. More

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on this style of eating is covered in the next section on Nutritarian eating, which is basically a way of eating almost identical to the above recommendations. Another fast which is even more convenient, along the same lines, and very easy to follow is a soup fast. This is more in line with Henry Bielers fasting concoction of pureed non-starchy vegetables in a thin, mineral-rich broth. This is incredibly simple. All it takes is the time and effort required to make a large batch of soup once per week. Whenever you have the urge to eat, have a bowl of warm, nourishing vegetable soup. You should definitely mix up your recipe from batch to batch for variety, but my typical vegetable soup recipe is: 1 Gallon water 2 quarts pure tomato juice, a little sodium added is okay 1 package frozen lima beans 1 package frozen peas 1 package frozen green beans 1 package frozen corn 1 cup hulled barley or brown rice 1 pound chopped celery 1 pound chopped carrots 1 pound chopped onions 2 pounds chopped potatoes with skin Add all of the ingredients to the pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for at least an hour, preferably two hours. Add cayenne, lime juice, and fresh-chopped herbs (thyme, parsley, marjoram, cilantro, basil, etc.) and garlic at the end to give it a zippier, more appealing flavor. Adding small pieces of seaweed also makes for a deeper and more satisfying flavor. Embellish upon this recipe in whatever way you like, just keep the fat content down and fill it full of nourishing vegetables and enough starch to keep you satisfied (which will also contain enough protein to help you get by). Salt is best kept to a minimum during fasting. If all of the above fasts sound too grueling, you can still fast on lemonade following Stanley Burroughs recommendations (a big heap of cayenne pepper plus equal parts Grade B maple syrup and organic freshly-squeezed lemon juice diluted with water). You can also do a juice fast using freshly-squeezed fruit and vegetable juices, but I find this to be incredibly hard. Following the precise recommendations of Dr. Schulze, with or without his supplements, may give you more direction if you feel like what Ive recommended is too liberal (but I always prefer to keep the decision-making power in your hands). Finally, is a water fast, which can actually be easy from a hunger standpoint as it triggers the release of appetite-suppressing ketones. This can be very therapeutic, but shouldnt be done for more than 10 days, unlike all of the above fasts which, in the case of a true full-blown case of type 2 diabetes, should be continued for an absolute minimum of two weeks and a maximum of 30 days before reintegrating small portions of animal protein and natural fats from nuts, seeds, coconut and coconut oil, and butter.

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I guarantee that you will have dramatic results, and it would be a rare tpe 2 diabetic patient indeed that wouldnt be able to come off of insulin and all other medications within 30 days. So whats the catch? If fasting works so well why is there not just one treatment program in this book instead of five very different ones? Fasting is helpful, but it also unsustainable. A diet extremely low in fat and completely devoid of animal products cannot be continued indefinitely. Although diabetes might be kept under control for the most part, other problems are highly likely to arise. No one would argue that lemonade is a sufficient diet for a human. The most sustainable is the first fasting regimen, but it too is incomplete. Even if these diets were complete, they are very difficult to follow. Most people, diabetic or not, would agree that following such a diet at the exclusion of all their favorite foods, the social crippling that comes with eating a highly restricted diet, and so forth just aint worth it. It might seem worth it for a while, but that honeymoon usually comes to an end at some point. Instead, my aspirations for those with diabetes and prediabetes is much higher. The goal at 180DegreeHealth is always to be able to achieve real health. Real, true, verifiable health is measured by being able to eat a satisfying and nourishing, well-balanced diet without ill consequence. That doesnt mean that ice cream, cupcakes, Dr. Pepper, and Frappucinos can be engulfed in large quantity without causing distress, but a healthy human that is operating healthfully, and has all the necessary vitamin, mineral, and hormonal constituents working together, can eat a diet with rich meats, silky fats, and plenty of starch and vegetable matter together. Sure, there are lots of restricted diets that a diabetic can follow and derive benefit and have a reduction in symptoms. But only someone who can sit down for a nice steak dinner with a fully loaded baked potato and have a perfect insulin reaction in response is truly healed. Thats what I want for everyone, diabetics included, and I refuse to believe it is not possible. Fasting, although helpful, wont necessarily get you any closer to that ultimate destination. But fasting has its place, and its a tool that every diabetic should know about and feel comfortable with.

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Nutritarian

Physician and author Dr. Joel Fuhrman created a type of eating called the nutritarian diet. I think Fuhrman really has a good attitude about food. The concept is simple. Eat nutrient dense foods. He comes up with a simple equation:

Health = Nutrients/Calories
So basically, the idea is to get the most nutrients for the least amount of energy taken in i.e. eat the most nutrient dense foods. Because fat generally has a far lower nutrient content per calorie than most unrefined plant foods, Fuhrmans diet is incredibly low in fat. He recommends getting a paltry 10% of calories from fat, which is even tougher to do than it sounds. He is also of a strong vegetarian bias, and feels like small portions of fish a couple times per week is about all a human needs to be healthy. Any more than that and it becomes a health liability. He feels like a vegan diet is totally acceptable and perhaps even preferable to an omnivorous diet, but doesnt require devout veganhood from his patients. I have mixed emotions about Furhman and his recommendations. For one, the logic and science behind his recommendation to avoid animal products and eat an extremely low fat diet is poor. He also does a poor job of acknowledging the fact that key nutrients found in animal fats, despite the fact that they may be, all things considered, less nutrient dense than most plant foods, are key in the proper utilization of all the other vitamins and minerals that we ingest. A vegan diet is totally devoid of long-chain omega 3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, vitamin K2, Vitamin D, and Vitamin B12, which are all extremely vital MVP nutrients on the nutrient team. Still, a predominantly vegan diet that is very low in fat has been shown to do some pretty marvelous things for type 2 diabetics. The results are so dramatic that it would be an injustice not to make his aggressive nutritional approach known to any diabetic in bad shape and in search of a way out. Both Julian Whitaker and Neal Barnard, authors that both use the word reverse in reference to type 2 diabetes in the titles of their books concur that a diet constructed around unrefined carbohydrates is brilliant for lowering blood glucose and insulin. It seems that dropping fasting insulin and blood sugar levels back within normal ranges takes from a few days to rarely longer than a month. This is obviously something that the diabetic community desperately needs to be made aware of. His whole foods approach to diet is also very sound, and his passionate belief that nutrition is the greatest healing tool and the answer to modern disease is matched in enthusiasm only by my own. The bottom line is I like the guy. I like his passion for

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health, and I know that hes seen amazing things with very sick patients, and no one can convince him that his conclusions arent accurate. Now thats my kind of guy. I was so riveted by Joel Fuhrmans Eat to Live that I gave the vegan version of his diet a 2-week trial in which I tested my blood sugar levels against my girlfriends as she followed a very low-carb, almost purely carnivorous diet. And I won. Eating over 600 grams of carbohydrates per day by best guesses, my Patchouli-stankin hippie vegan ass took the low glucose prize. Afterward, my glucose response to my normal diet was God-awful and I packed on 9 pounds of additional body fat that I didnt have going into it. I think thats probably the catch of his approach. While it works well as you are following it, the odds that you will fail while trying to eat this starvation diet and have negative rebound is pretty high. Looking at the metabolism as a whole, my metabolism did slow down somewhat, my digestion slowed, I lost muscle mass, and I had progressively more intense cravings for sweets and beer throughout the two-week period. None of these are good signs if youre attempting to evaluate the long-term effects of this diet. Many of the unnecessary restrictions are accounted for in the High Everything Diet chapter that follows. Eating a nutrient-dense diet is still the focus, but the diet is wellbalanced and has no negative metabolic recourse. It certainly does not make your response to normal food worse. It makes it much better. There are many advantages of the High Everything Diet compared to the nutritarian diet, and I feel pretty confident that it would be a much more reasonable and preferable starting point for a diabetic or prediabetic looking to achieve an insulin resistance reversal. The nutritarian diet that is modified to contain at least some animal products is all that is required to make it sustainable though, which is the focus for the rest of this chapter. This is still perfectly in line with the regimen created by Julian Whitaker that he, too, claims can reliably reverse type 2 diabetes. It can be, and is, a healthy diet that can be followed for many years. It is nutritional excellence, Fuhrmans coined phrase used to describe his dietary recommendations. It could be the answer to many a diabetics prayers. The Nutritarian food groups are: Dark Leafy Greens Colorful Vegetabes Unrefined Starches Seafood

Each meal should contain the first three nutritarian food groups, and seafood should be included in at least one meal per day.

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Dark leafy greens should be the cornerstone of the diet. Most meals should include a large salad that is lightly dressed with just a small amount of olive oil and as much vinegar or lemon juice as desired or a side of steamed greens. Steamed spinach, broccoli, kale, mustard greens, turnip greens, collard greens, baby bok choy, cabbage, and Brussels Sprouts are all excellent choices. Try to use as little oil as possible in preparing these, but just steam them lightly. Adding cooked onions, cayenne pepper, fresh garlic, and lemon juice can actually make steamed greens taste pretty good. Bok choy, spinach, and broccoli are my favorites. They are by far the least bitter and are just as nutritious. Fuhrman recommends consuming an entire pound of green vegetables daily. As a general rule, the more the better. There is no limit. Greens are not very calorie-dense though. Youd flippin starve to death eating just green vegetables if you didnt commit suicide first from their unsatisfying blandness. So with each meal, combine both other colorful vegetables and starchy vegetables for good sustenance. This includes carrots, potatoes, beans, lentils, whole grains such as brown rice, oats, or homemade breads, corn, peas, bell peppers, carrots, beets, parsnips, artichokes, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, and just about everything else under the sun. You can eat a little fruit as well, but if I were trying to aggressively overcome diabetes or prediabetes, I would keep it mainly to berries and tart, low-sugar fruits like grapefruit, cherries, and kiwi. Raw nuts can also be eaten in small quantities along with seaweeds, and mushrooms can be eaten as well. The seafood category will bind the rest of your nourishing diet together with something satisfying while still allowing you to obtain most of your calories from Dr. Fuhrmans list of more nutritious foods. Of course, there is some fallacy there, as fish is incredibly high in many of the nutrients that are missing in vegetables, grains, and starches. Seafood is an excellent source of vitamin D, Vitamin B-12, EPA, and DHA. None of these are found in plant foods whatsoever. I cant help but advocate them. Shrimp, crab, clams, oysters, mussels, and other shellfish and wild-caught salmon (fresh, smoked, or canned) are the favorites from a nutritional standpoint. 4-8 ounces of seafood per day is probably the ideal amount on this type of diet. Dont overdo the seafood, but dont try to be a goddamn vegan either though. Vegan diets are very destructive long-term. It is okay to eat some chicken, beef, pork, eggs, and cheese on occasion too, but dont tell Fuhrman I said that. A sample nutritarian menu would look something like this: Breakfast: Large bowl of oatmeal with fresh berries and a few chopped walnuts Morning Snack: Tomato and cucumber salad with a few feta cheese crumbles

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Lunch: Large bowl of vegetable soup (see recipe in Fasting chapter), large salad with 3 grilled shrimp Afternoon Snack: Carrot and celery sticks with hummus and beet/apple salad (see recipe attached) Dinner: Grilled wild Alaskan salmon (3-5 ounce portion), large bowl of broccoli with lemon, brown rice or corn on the cob For a simpler, more basic menu, have your simple oatmeal breakfast and then just graze on soup and salad whenever you get hungry. Or make a potato salad with chilled shrimp or canned salmon and grind on that with some kind of salad. Or eat a more macrobiotic diet with brown rice as your staple starch accompanied by lots of vegetables and small portions of seafood and seafood broth. It doesnt have to be complicated, it doesnt have to have a lot of variety, and it doesnt have to be expensive or take over your entire life. I leave it up to you to judge how best to construct a nutritarian diet based on these simple and flexible guidelines. Just try to eat as much nutritious food as you can with an emphasis on greens and colorful vegetables. Eating large amounts of the right food is your key to success -Joel Fuhrman More importantly, dont consume any of the dietary evils that caused your diabetes problems in the first place refined sugars, white flour, alcohol, caffeine, and processed vegetable oils. I wish you the best of luck if this is the route you need to take. After many months of being diabetes-free, be sure to start incorporating light physical activity into your life as with any of these programs. I would also strongly urge a nutritarian to slowly transition into eating a diet with more fat. Begin with including some creamy cheese, coconut oil, coconut milk, and whole coconut to your diet. Eat larger portions of nuts. Have a little butter on your baked potatoes. Eat a juicy steak here and there. Hopefully, over time, you can return to the only ideal goal of a diabetic eat normal amounts of normal foods and have a totally normal and healthful glucose and insulin response in return. Life is just better with more fat in the diet when you are healthy enough to metabolize it, and everything else you eat, correctly. Beet/Apple salad (big batch) Beets are highly underrated as a delicious food. This would make for a great and highly nutritious staple for a nutritarian diabetic, particularly one that wants some sweet-tasting foods without going off the deep end and jamming dates and bananas into his mouth until his stomach hurts (you can tell Ive done some time as a vegetarian).

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Ingredients: 3 pounds cooked beets, cut into wedges Juice of 1 lemon 2T extra virgin olive oil 1 sour apple, diced Lots of fresh-chopped herbs, particularly dill, tarragon, and/or marjoram Fresh ground black pepper 1t sea salt Directions: 1) Boil or oven roast (covered), 3 pounds of unpeeled beets. 2) When soft, peel the outer skin from the beets. Careful not to turn your favorite clothes into a tie-dyed t-shirt (actually, youre close enough to being vegetarian on this diet you might as well go with the tie-dye). 3) Cut into wedges and throw into a stainless steel bowl. 4) Add the remaining ingredients and toss well. Enjoy as an accompaniment to a meal or as a snack with a little feta or cottage cheese. If you need more on healthy cooking ideas and instruction, please read my eBook, 180 Kitchen and visit the 180 food blog: www.180kitchen.wordpress.com

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The High-Everything Diet When everyone thinks alike, everyone is likely to be wrong. -Humphrey Neill The High-Everything Diet (HED) may sound like it is really something out there and obscure. Not exactly. Its actually not much different from the diet we all start out on as infants a diet with lots of saturated fat, long-chain omega 3 fatty acids, plenty of highoctane carbohydrate, a preponderance of vitamins and minerals, and enough protein to help us develop strong muscles, organs, and bone. Oh yeah, and it is loaded with calories! The lifestyle component is in synch as well. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Rock-a-byebaby. The High-Everything Diet for type 2 diabetes is considered to be the most ridiculous and harmful approach a diabetic could take, nutritionally and lifestyle-wise (The HED requires more rest and less exercise too). That is because mainstream science does not, in the slightest, understand what type 2 diabetes is. The mainstream actually operates under the belief that eating well, and getting plenty of rest the pinnacles of health and healing since the beginning of time, cause type 2 diabetes. If diabetics didnt typically end up getting limbs amputated, going blind, and dying of heart attacks the mainstream beliefs would be really funny. But they are not. Taking in less glucose and burning more through exercise doesnt fix a diabetic. Not on this planet at least. As weve discussed throughout this book, diabetes is not a disorder caused by eating too much and exercising too little. It is a complex, dynamic, synergy-gone-wrong of the human hormonal network. The first step in the development of type 2 diabetes is most likely a deficiency, major or minor, of key vitamins, minerals, and other co-factors involved in proper glucose metabolism. This, in turn, creates an inherent weakness. As we mentioned, this weakness can already be multiple generations in the making. A type 2 diabetic starts life with one arm tied behind his back. Combine this with the threats of industrial pollutants, heavy metals, and other toxins, which further stress the system and are potent endocrine disruptors, and the fire has been fanned. Vaccinations are also a huge shock to the human immune system, which is often greatly crippled before it ever even has a chance to become adept at doing its thing. Then the human body undergoes a massive amount of oxidative damage from taking in a preponderance of vegetable oils that are fully rancid and stripped of most of their protective vitamin E. This increases inflammation and suppresses immune function even further. This whole system supports frequent infection, chronic infection, and chronic inflammation. In response to this chronic inflammation is a huge release of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol, released to put out the fires, has its own immuno-suppressive action,

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which can lead to allergies, more inflammation, and more infection. Meanwhile, the whole thing is made worse by cortisols ability to block thyroid hormone action, which lowers body temperature and makes us even more prone to infection. Plus, we feel crappy. A low metabolism causes systemic suffering and diminishes every aspect of our physical and mental performance via its suppression of cellular mitochondrial energy our life force. The freight train picks up steam and problems relating to hypercortisolism proceed. One of those problems is of course insulin resistance. Insulin resistance leads to higher insulin levels. Then, eventually, blood glucose levels start to follow suit. Once they start becoming elevated, the progression from a normal fasting glucose level of 85 mg/dl to 126 mg/dl the diabetic level, happens fairly quickly. In some it can take only a couple of years to go from normal to full-on diabetic. For others it takes decades. Some never get that far. The antidote is of course to undercut the root of the problem. The first layer of the problem is insulin resistance, but its not the root problem. The second layer is lack of thyroid hormone functionality identified in the greatest detail by Dr. Mark Starr and coined type 2 hypothyroidism. This is a big problem indeed, but it isnt the root problem either. Under this layer is hypercortisolism. Were getting warmer. From here we can see how both insulin and thyroid hormone action has been blocked (as well as the function of leptin, thought to be the puppet-master of insulin). Thats just what cortisol does when secreted in huge amounts. But even cortisol is not the root problem. Is the root problem what causes hypercortisolism allergies, infection, and inflammation? No, its not even that! The problem always gets back to the overall health of the individual. Sure, allergies, viral and microbial infection, and inflammation are bad news, and very, very close to being the root of the problem. But that leaves out the most important variable. Thats right, a persons health. As a practicing physician for over fifty years, I have reached three basic conclusions as to the cause and cure of disease The first is that the primary cause of disease is not germs. Rather, I believe that disease is caused by a toxemia which results in cellular impairment and breakdown, thus paving the way for the multiplication and onslaught of germs -Henry Bieler So if germs arent what is making us sick, at the core, what is? Over and over I explain to patients, Your pain, misery and illness result from your own dietary mistakes and drugs. You are suffering because you are filled with toxic wastes caused by your diet of poorly selected food filled with artificial flavorings, preservatives, synthetics, over-processed ingredients too much stimulating food, too few natural

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In all of my research, my general conclusion is that the real root stems back to, as we discussed in the Nutritional History chapter, a combination of ingesting too much harmful crap and not enough nourishing, vitalizing food. Lack of sleep and too much stress of course exacerbate these issues. When the body is given all the tools which it needs for its smooth and harmonious function, it works like it should and has the experience of good health. It does this because those bare substances, and the exclusion of that which does a body bad, improves the immune system, reduces allergies, diminishes chronic infections, and in turn decreases the systemic inflammation that is a result of inefficiencies in any one of those areas. These inefficiencies, and the cortisol tidal wave that they induce, is the problem. The problem is fixing these inefficiencies, and that is done with strict adherence to the ultimate strengthening formula a nutritionally abundant diet paired with deep rest and relaxation. That is what embodies the High-Everything Diet and its restful, healing lifestyle accompaniment. One of the most healing aspects of the HED is its ability to raise the body temperature to normal. It does so pretty consistently from what I can tell, and is a great tribute to how effective it really is. As doctors who have focused on maintaining a perfect body temperature can attest, from Broda Barnes and Crosby Eaton to Mark Starr and Stephen Langer today, having a healthy body temperature protects from type 2 diabetes and prevents diabetic complications such as heart disease and neuropathy. The HED confronts the real root of the problem(s) of type 2 diabetes and prediabetes. It is about replacing scant nourishment and years of trying to eat less and exercise more while living a stressful lifestyle with the antithesis of that. It is the quintessential hallmark of everything behind the name 180DegreeHealth. The mainstream assumes that eating a high-calorie diet and exercising very little causes weight gain in genetically prone individuals, which in turn triggers insulin resistance, which in turn triggers more weight gain and more insulin resistance until blood sugars get out of control. This is not the sequence of events leading to type 2 diabetes at all. This is an abomination. Type 2 diabetes has nothing to do with how many calories you eat or how many you sweat off at the gym. Eating less and exercising more merely serves up a head fake to researchers, as doing so lowers glucose levels, lowers weight, and seems to help improve the condition. What researchers dont acknowledge, is that eating less and exercising more makes one more prone to eat more and exercise less when they fall off of the diet. It also makes them more apt to develop high blood sugars and gain weight on a normo-caloric diet afterwards. In other words, although the typical eat less, exercise more recommendation appears to work in the short run, it sets up the physiological factors that lead to a worsening of the condition.

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This leads to more firm and urgent advice to eat less and exercise more, which leads to a worsening of the problem even further. With each successive attempt to lose weight, losing weight becomes increasingly difficult. The same calorie-restricted/exercise-heavy program that might have once caused a loss of 15 pounds in a month now causes only a 5 pound loss. Thats right, the more you diet, the more difficult it becomes to lose weight. There is a simultaneous adaptation that makes the storage of fat become more efficient. The more diets you go on, the easier it becomes to gain weight. This is true of any restricted diet that induces some form of starvation. Dieting induces rebound hyperphagia (overeating to compensate for caloric deficit), a hypometabolic state (lowered metabolism), increased lipogenesis (fat storage), decreased lipolysis (fat burning), and every other physiological change that can be considered an overweight, insulin resistant persons absolute worst nightmare. Yep, the standard dietary and lifestyle advice given not only to overweight people but to type 2 diabetics, doesnt do jack to fix the problem when measured over the long-term, and it actually worsens and can even CAUSE weight problems and type 2 diabetes. My feelings about the fact that nutritionists, alternative health care practitioners, doctors, exercise dorks, and health icons alike have all come to this same conclusion and stuffed it down our throats (along with metabolically-destructive diet pills), is best described by Clark W. Grizwold as he opens up his supposed Christmas bonus check in the movie Christmas Vacation only to find a 1-year subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club. For those who havent seen it, or do not recall the general feel of his verbiage, it is a rant filled with expletives that makes little sense and ends with monkey shit. My feelings are also well-represented in that movie when Griswold drop kicks and karate chops Santa and reindeer lawn dcor in response to his Christmas lights not working. HED is the perfect mirror to yo-yo dieting. HED makes it increasingly difficult to gain weight and decreasingly difficult to lose it. Instead of blood sugars dropping in the shortterm and coming back with a vengeance, blood sugars go higher in the short-term, but steadily improve effortlessly until they drop well below what they mightve been prior. This is because leptin and insulin resistance diminish in the face of lowered stress (from resting) and caloric surplus, especially when that caloric surplus is nutritionally superb and comes from low-fructose, and low-polyunsaturated fat source calories. insulin resistance leads to weight gain, but most health professionals believe that the opposite is true. If obesity does cause insulin resistance, then we would expect people who are overfed to become more insulin resistant, but that is not the case. Researchers in Indianapolis overfed six slender, active, young adults for several weeks Five of the six subjects became LESS insulin resistant! -Russ Farris Overfeeding in and of itself is enough to lower insulin resistance i.e. improve the condition underlying the high blood glucose levels used to diagnose type 2 diabetes. That is but one mechanism of the HED. The other mechanisms, such as maximal rest

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with minimal exertion lower cortisol while also helping to create even more insulinresistance-lowering caloric surplus. Meanwhile, body temperature rises, helping to fight off chronic infections, further lowering cortisol, and the domino effect is triggered in the opposite direction. Instead of inflammation and infection triggering high cortisol levels and a chain reaction hurtling towards insulin resistance and high blood sugars, the tide is reversed. What exactly is the HED? HED is the perfect embodiment of the anti-diet. Restricted dieting, in which calories, carbohydrates, meat, or fat are restricted in some way, weaken the human system. Sure, theyve all got some notches for their programs, but these notches are all short-term gratifications not long-term successes. Other bogus baloney like food combining and intermittent fasting are no different. These are diets centered around metabolic trickery that results in various forms of starvation and poorer health in response to the ultimate human diet which is a combination of all macro and micro nutrients that the human body desires in ample abundance. For a while, the acronym FAD was used in tandem with HED, which was a playful anti-diet acronym meaning (R-version) Fuck All Diets or (G-version) Forget About Diets. HED is high-everything, meaning that it is high in carbohydrates, high in fat, high in protein, high in plants, high in animals, high in vitamins, high in minerals, and high in calories. It is the optimal human diet and all else pales in comparison. The only problem is, most people, because of various health problems, do not metabolize this mix of foods like they should. But that is just in the beginning for most folks. At first, anyone who has dieted extensively, and certainly a type 2 diabetic, will not seem to fare well on such a regimen. Skin breaks out, indigestion sets in, constipation arrives, extreme drowsiness plagues people after meals, sleep is less than optimal, and body fat accumulates. This is just temporary though. Deep healing occurs, digestion strengthens, skin gets clear and ivory smooth, energy levels start to rise, bowels flow perfectly. In the case of a diabetic, blood sugar levels rise. But this effect is temporary in almost everyone who attempts it. The effect it has on digestion has simply astounded me. Ive had indigestion on all kinds of diets for four years. Now its gone, no matter what kind of impossible mix of foods I attempt to eat. Im like a digestive gymnast now. Even more amazing is what HED has done for my fasting and postprandial blood sugars, which, combined with the theoretical research that Ive done, gives me so much enthusiasm for recommending it for reversing insulin resistance. In performing personal research and experimentation for 180 Degree Diabetes, I first attempted a strict vegan diet along the lines of Joel Fuhrmans nutritarian diet discussed earlier. Immediately I began losing weight. In fact, I lost 5.5 pounds in 14 days on the diet, and my fasting glucose level dropped from 91 to the low-80s. This happened despite consuming up to 700 grams of carbohydrates per day and not

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exercising. So this diet, if continued, obviously helps keep blood sugars down. Fuhrmans claims that eating this way can lower fasting insulin and glucose levels quickly so quickly that type 2s on insulin needed to cut their dosage back by half within the first day, is warranted. But something strange happened when I went back to eating normal meals. My first meal off of the diet was comparable to how I usually dine cornbread, pork ribs, baked beans, green beans and lots of it. Instead of enjoying a nice meal and moving on with my life, I felt quite ravenous. I ate so fast I nearly choked. I was out of control. After finishing I was so tired I thought I had been tranquilized. My stomach was bloated and extended. 1 hour after my meal I was eager to take my fasting glucose level. I pricked myself at exactly 1 hour after the meal and my blood glucose reading was a near-diabetic 173 mg/dl. I was shocked and nervous. A type 2 diabetic participating on my blog thought I might want to really keep an eye on that, as that was dangerously close to flirting with type 2 diabetic levels. So, the nutritarian diet, although it would certainly give a diabetic relief from being diabetic, would in no way help a type 2 to achieve the ultimate goal, which is to eat a well-balanced, nutritious, and satisfying diet to the point of appetite appeasement without having blood glucose readings into the stratosphere. For weeks after the nutritarian diet my appetite was insatiable. I craved beer like I hadnt in years. The 5.5 pounds that I lost, although it took me 14 days to lose, came back in only 5 short days. Then it took off and increased another 9 pounds before my appetite normalized and my weight gain came to a screeching halt (coinciding with a rise in body temperature by over 1 degree F). This happened despite doing what I normally did prior to the nurtitarian diet eat when I am hungry of well-balanced nutritious food until I am satisfied. So the nutritarian diet, although it lowered blood sugars and caused weight loss, also caused triple the weight gain and blood sugar increase when eating my regular diet. What is even more shocking, is that after eating to satisfaction for nearly a month, and even going beyond satisfaction in an attempt to create a caloric surplus on a full-on HED, my fasting and postprandial blood sugars dropped precipitously. Meals similar to the first I enjoyed after my nutritarian escapade that caused blood sugar spikes to 173 mg/dl, were now only sending my blood sugar up to the 80s and low 90s. In fact, after one huge breakfast of 2 cups of brown rice, some vegetables, and a large fatty hamburger steak, my blood glucose topped at less than 80 mg/dl almost 100 points lower than my first post-vegan meal. My fasting glucose readings dropped all the way down into the high 60s before stabilizing right around 70. This was just amazing. My fasting glucose was in the mid90s for the first few days after finishing my vegan trial. So, within 30s days, less actually, my fasting levels dropped from 95 to 70 a 26% decrease. This was achieved by eating a diet high in unrefined carbohydrates, saturated fat, meat/fish/eggs/dairy including drinking whole glasses of cream and half and half, and calories (obviously).

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During this time my physical activity levels were quite low. I went on a couple of short hikes and did a couple hours of weightlifting. The rest of the time was spent working on this badboy. I went to bed at around 9pm almost every night and slept until about 6am 9 hours of the best sleep I could muster. I even consumed some alcohol, but lost the taste for it pretty quickly while eating and living this way (hint, hint). In theory, I always believed that eating and living like this would work based on my research into body temperature, cortisol, insulin resistance in response to overfeeding, the milk diet, and so on. But even I was amazed to see just how incredibly effective it was. There is not a health guru on the face of the earth that can reasonably explain how and why this blood sugar drop occurred other than me (that I know of). So try the HED first and foremost if you have diabetes. Only it can allow you to eat a satisfying diet without negative rebound. Only it reduces blood sugars without relying on some type of starvation mechanism. Do not be alarmed at initial high blood sugar readings. Give it a fair trial of 30 days. If it has not lowered blood sugars by then, it probably wont be able to do it. But commit to it. Give it a fair shot. Its only food were talking about here. Its not chemotherapy. Its not Cytomel. Enjoy your affront to everything that youve been told and led to believe that didnt do a thing but make you feel guilty for not being able to pull it off. To follow the HED exactly, which is ultimately the same thing as the milk diet that follows but with solid food instead of milk only, follow these simple, basic rules. 1) Intentionally eat as much food as you can each and every day. If you are hungry despite just eating, eat again. Do not argue with appetite. Obey it more fully than you ever have in your life. You and your body are playing on the same team now. Eat to fullness. You dont have to stuff yourself, but forget that eat 80% of whats on your plate crap. 2) At each meal or snack, try to eat a complete assortment of all the macronutrients: fat, protein, and carbohydrate. This means eating complete squares every time you eat. The Schwarzbein Square, I find to be the best approach, as each corner represents a different food group. Those 4 food groups are Protein (meat), Fat, Starch, and Vegetable. Combine these 4 elements at each feeding to the best of your ability, but dont stress too much over it.

3) Eat only starchy, unrefined carbohydrates and plenty of them. Eventually some fruit can be injected into the diet, but now I believe its best to limit fructose to the bare minimum. Potatoes, corn, beans, brown rice, oatmeal, and sweet potatoes/yams are the most common choices although any root vegetable will do. Breads are acceptable but not preferable and should be whole grain with no sweetener added (i.e. homemade, as you are unlikely to find that in stores). Refined sugars from dehydrated cane juice, white sugar, high-fructose corn syrup,

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honey, maple syrup, crystalline fructose, and all other highly-sweet foods must be strictly kept to a minimum. 4) Eat plenty of fat. Eat fatty meats untrimmed, add butter to lean meats like fish and chicken, use whole cream and half and half. Im currently undecided on milk as part of a mixed diet, so avoid regular milk as Melvin Page often needed to eliminate milk consumption to bring his patients glucose levels back to normal. The best source of fat is coconut oil. Buy expeller-pressed coconut oil and use it for all your cooking. Avoid all vegetable-based liquid oils with the exception of some olive and macadamia nut oils.

5) Consume lots of nutritious non-starchy vegetables, from salads, cooked spinach, cabbage, broccoli, and bell peppers to onions, carrots, celery, squash, and cucumber. The micronutrients in vegetables are a great asset to any health program, including this one. 6) Do not exercise! The ultimate would be bed rest during the first several weeks to 30 days. At the very least keep physical exertion to household chores, cooking, easy walks to get fresh air (sunbathing is better), and light stretching. Avoid stress as much as is feasible, including avoiding too much reading or television watching (television watching should be avoided, but many wont be able to follow this guideline). Not too much sex either Tiger. 7) Go to bed early and sleep as late as you want. Bedtime should be, at the very minimum, 8 hours before the sun rises unless you live in like Greenland or something and are trying this in June. 8) Avoid caffeine, alcohol, artificial sweeteners, and anything else impure and overly stimulating. This is a great time to stop smoking and drop medications with the green light of your doc (unlikely). 9) Enjoy it! Restoring your health can be a very nurturing and satisfying experience. This is not a no pain no gain escapade. You are deeply nourishing yourself in ways that you, and maybe even your predecessors, never allowed themselves to do. The whole experience should be as tranquil and meditative as possible. 10) Do not watch the scale. Some people lose and some people gain following this advice. Generally, the more overweight you are the more you tend to lose. The thinner you are, the more you tend to gain. Neither is a sign of anything of relevance to your healing. Like I mentioned, I gained 14.5 pounds in a few short weeks while dropping my fasting glucose by 26%. The scale is often very misleading. When we see it drop we think we are doing something good for us. When it goes up we think we are doing something bad for us. It is often the opposite, so dont pay much attention. Put all the focus on how your fasting and postprandial glucose levels are changing as you proceed with the HED program.

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If you notice a progressive downtrend developing, continue. If a downtrend hasnt developed by the 30-day mark, try another strategy.

The HED Meal Plan

To get some specifics on how to follow the HED with best results, Ive included some menu tips/meal plans/food categories. To simplify it even further, Ive cut it back to 3 primary food groups with the advice to make sure that you have plenty of fat in the meal by listing acceptable fats. Choose a good portion of one or more item from each HED food group at each sitting: Protein Beef Lamb Pork Poultry Fish Shellfish Eggs Cheese Starch Potato Brown rice Oatmeal Corn Yams Beans Vegetable Any vegetable - mushrooms and tomatoes can be filed under this category as well Sounds simple enough right? Combine the three at each sitting if possible. For snacks eat lots of nuts such as raw almonds or macadamia nuts. Nuts are more or less nutritionally complete and can be combined with meals as well. With each meal you should also include plenty of added fat, with the exception of a nice fatty piece of beef, lamb, or pork and the consumption of rich, creamy cheese. These foods have enough fat in them that no additional fat needs to be added to the meal. Otherwise, you need some added fat. The best ways to get added fat are:

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1) Cook your food in expeller-pressed coconut oil (purchase online from Tropical Traditions or similar provider). Some health food stores do carry coconut oil. Of store-bought brands I prefer Spectrums refined coconut oil. 2) Top meats, vegetables, and/or starches with a nice pat of butter. 3) Drink a small glass of heavy whipping cream, canned coconut milk, or have a tablespoon or two of melted coconut oil straight up. 4) Eat salads with very creamy dressings. Homemade Caesar dressing is the ultimate made with sour cream instead of vegetable-oil-based mayonnaise (recipe included). 5) Eat your meals with rich creamy sauces. Hollandaise/barnaise is the best if youre up for the task of making it (recipe included). Caesar Dressing (from December, 2009 issue of 180DegreeHealth Report): In 180 Kitchen I bring up Caesar salad dressing as a great, fatty dressing to top the undisputed king of salads. Caesar is traditionally a mayonnaise-based dressing, in which anchovy, lemon, garlic, and real parmigiano cheese are added. Not anymore though suckaz. In 180 Kitchen I recommend making a homemade mayo with egg yolk, a little bit of Dijon mustard, and light olive oil (under the dashingly clever chapter title, Mayo Clinic). Homemade mayo is great and all, but monounsaturated liquid oils dont always impress me from a health or a taste standpoint. Last week I tried Caesar with an old standby, and the final result was just as good and I didnt have to worry about either using store-bought mayonnaise (made primarily with soy oil, boo!), or delicately making my own mayonnaise from scratch, which requires patience and skill that not everybody is comfortable with. Whats the old standby? Its our old friend sour cream/crme fraiche. Thats right, make homemade Caesar salad dressing that is sheer perfection with something you can easily throw into your shopping cart and dump in a food processor for a total of about 12 seconds of effort. If thats not enough effort, you can make your own crme fraiche from scratch, which, all things considered, is quite nice. To make your own crme fraiche, all you need to do is heat heavy cream until it is lukewarm and no hotter, add a little splash of buttermilk, stir it, cover it, and let it sit until it sours and thickens (takes 1-2 days at most). So lets get down. Sour cream Caesar Get out your food processor and throw in: 1) 2) 3) 4) 2 cups of sour cream of crme fraiche Juice of lemon 1 chopped garlic clove 2t Dijon mustard

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2 ounces canned anchovy fillets 1 cup of fresh grated Parmigiano Reggiano Lots of fresh-ground black pepper A pinch of salt

Now, puree it for 30 seconds and youve got yourself amazing Caesar salad dressing. Dress crisp Romaine lettuce with the dressing or use it in more creative ways. It does make a great sauce for delicate, white-fleshed fish, it can be used as a dip, and it can be used plenty of other ways Im sure. Just dont be shy with it. Pile it on. Make your salads sloppy with this delicious dressing. Hollandaise/Bearnaise (from my February 2009 eBook, 180 Kitchen) Ah, nothing like taking the quintessential heart attack sauce and eating it aggressively in the name of good health. Hollandaise normally has a little bit of a bad connotation because most people suck at making it. The finished product is something that is clumpy and eggy, which no true hollandaise should be. Not only that, but hollandaise, in a restaurant, is usually made prior to service, and then it sits for hours. Foul! In fact, a good hollandaise that is made with skill (and it doesnt take that much I assure you, just a little practice), that is seasoned right and has the addition of fresh-chopped tarragon making it officially Bearnaise sauce at that point, and is served right away is to-die-for and endlessly versatile. Bearnaise is the perfect complement to a simple meal of meat, starch, and vegetables. Please have the courage to try making this timeless French classic. Ingredients: 1 egg yolk pound butter or slightly more Juice of small lemon, or large lemon Sea salt Cayenne pepper 2T fresh-chopped tarragon leaves Small cup of warm water

Directions: 1) Get a small pot of water, 1-inch deep, going on the stovetop. 2) Place a steel bowl over the pot of simmering water once it comes to a boil, a double-boiler. 3) Melt the butter gently on the stovetop. Most prefer to use clarified butter, but simply melting it is enough, and if using raw butter, keeps it from getting totally cooked, which is a nice bonus. 4) Squeeze lemon juice into the steel bowl, removing any seeds. 5) Throw the egg yolk in with lemon juice and stir madly, with a wire whisk.

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6) Continue to stir the egg yolk madly as the heat from the boiling water under the bowl begins heating it up. Go, go, go and dont let up. You dont want scrambled eggs as that heat gets high. 7) When the egg gets warm enough, it will start to thicken. Again, you dont want scrambled egg, but you do want it to thicken slightly, so pay very close attention. When the yolk starts to take on the consistency of yellow mustard, remove the bowl from the heat source immediately and continue whisking to assure that it cools a little bit right away not continuing to cook. 8) Now comes the tricky part, but you can do this! Turn the pot of water off. The steam thats rising will still provide some warmth, but dont let your egg just sit on top of it! Immediately start adding your butter heres how. 9) The smooth, thick consistency of an egg-based sauce like this stems from the emulsification of eggs and fat from the butter. But you cant emulsify it just by throwing the two together. You must work them together by adding just a splash of butter, then whisking like a crazy person until the mixture becomes one, thick, homogenized substance. 10) Then add a little more butter and do it again. 11) And again. 12) And again! 13) Keep adding the rest of the butter, a little bit at a time, until nearly all of the butter has been added and emulsified in with the egg yolk. At the very end, youll see that the only butter remaining is mostly milk dont add this or the sauce will become too thin! Just dump it. 14) One problem you will encounter as you do so is the sauce becomes excessively thick. Add a tiny splash of warm water to it as needed, but you want the sauce to be extra thick at the end as some of the milk from the butter starts to spill over into the sauce, thinning it out substantially. 15) Season with a small pinch of cayenne sauce shouldnt be noticeably spicy, lots of salt (the sauce will take quite a bit before it really perks up), and the fresh tarragon. Serve with lamb, beef, veal, fish, pork and vegetables. Goes great with grilled asparagus or wilted spinach. I hope this works out for you. The biggest mistakes are adding the butter too quickly and causing separation (the sauce breaks), and overcooking the eggs. Be very wary of making those two mistakes, taking extra precaution, and the sauce should come out great. Bonne chance! (It means good luck in Paris talk). Basic Meal Plan Because a type 2 diabetics blood sugars can spike so high after a large, mixed meal which in and of itself can cause significant cellular damage, it may be more prudent to begin HED by breaking meals into smaller, more frequent feedings. I cant say that I am 100% sure that this is more effective, as I lowered my own blood sugar with three very large meals per day, but in theory, smaller meals should still work well as an introductory phase and can relieve some of the initial stresses of having an astronomically-high blood sugar response in the early stages.

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Having said that, a diabetic, although I certainly wouldnt deter you from your own personal experimentation, will probably fare best on HED with a meal plan similar to the following: 7am 3 eggs scrambled with cheese, fresh spinach, and 1T butter with a big bowl of oatmeal with a nice splash of heavy cream and 1t cinnamon. 10 am One or two large bowls of vegetable/beef/potato soup with 2T butter melted in each. The recipe given in the Fasting chapter with 2-3 pounds of untrimmed diced beef ribeye added works great. 1 pm Large Caesar salad (Romaine lettuce plus Caesar dressing) with chicken and a baked potato with lots of butter. 4 pm 1 cup of almonds and a half pound of raw baby carrots with a small glass of heavy whipping cream. 7pm Good-sized fatty steak, wild salmon fillet, or pork chop, grilled or seared in coconut oil with a large side of cooked spinach (see wilted spinach instructions and video at www.180kitchen.wordpress.com), and a large portion of brown rice. This is just an example of what a typical day might look like. I hesitate to include rigorous meal plans that depend on your knowledge of cooking or ingredient accessibility for you to succeed. 180DegreeHealth has a broad audience as well, encompassing dozens of countries and customs, with a vast array of dietary staples. You get the idea of how to put the components together. It is up to you to decide how best to blend the three primary food groups together with the dietary preferences, food availability, and cooking knowledge that you have. For assistance, I have created both an extensive cooking eBook, 180 Kitchen, and a website, www.180kitchen.wordpress.com, to help you in that regard. The diet can be extremely simple and convenient if you need it to be as well. By making a large pot of vegetable-beef soup with lots of starchy ingredients like potatoes, beans, peas, and brown rice, you can eat that for nearly every meal. You could alternate it with large Caesar salads and baked potatoes topped with creamy cheese. You could still have a simple breakfast at home like ground beef sauted with vegetables over brown rice or a simple breakfast of oatmeal porridge, and bacon and eggs. If and when blood glucose levels begin to drop, and drop steadily, you can begin to move towards simpler plans with 3 basic meals per day and snacks of nuts, cheese, and vegetables until you wean yourself to only 3 meals per day without snacks (which I find to be ideal over the long haul). Whatever you do, try to make it as enjoyable as possible without splurging on brownies and doughnuts. Dont eat something you dont like. Eat what you love the most. If a fat,

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bacon-wrapped ribeye steak covered in Hollandaise with coconut-oil fried potatoes sounds incredible, then eat that for every meal that you can. This whole program is about re-establishing a healthy relationship with food, which is something few diabetics or prediabetics have. Food is our sustenance and our giver of life. It is not a reward for being disciplined, or starving yourself, or overexercising. It is the antidote for those harmful pursuits if anything, and real, unadulterated food in any amount sure as hell isnt the cause of diabetes. Also make a very focused effort, to the very best of your ability, to delete foods that do lead to insulin resistance and poorer health as you opt for these much cleaner options. This includes all junk foods that contain refined sugar, such as cookies, cake, doughnuts, candies, chocolate, soft drinks, and so on. Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and other drugs prescription, non-prescription, and recreational, all contribute to the problem. Find whatever courage you can muster to eliminate these. After regaining your stability through deep rest and profound nourishment, you will find the draw of those substances to be greatly lessened. Enjoy yourself on the HED. Although it wont be the ultimate solution for everyone, for those that do manage to see blood sugar levels steadily drop after HED has been implemented for a few weeks, HED will be, without question, the ultimate solution second only to perhaps the milk diet, but far less extreme and much more enjoyable. There is no fear of rebound, no battling against hunger, and no diet is more wellbalanced, satisfying, and nourishing.

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The Milk Diet HED on steroids Although some might consider it extreme, the principles of the HED and the milk diet are essentially the same. The idea is to deliver the maximal amount of nourishment paired with the maximal amount of rest. The milk diet, for whatever reason, appears to be able to achieve what the HED can but with even more dramatic results. At first blush, the milk diet sounds pretty friggin absurd. Drink milk and consume no other food or drink for at least a month longer if whatever ailment you have has not subsided in that time frame. The absurd simplicity of it has actually been its greatest hurdle one that it has never successfully overcome. J.E. Crewe, co-founder of the Mayo Clinic and one of the most mainstream medical doctors ever to use the milk diet as a primary means of treating illness, once said, The method itself is so simple that it does not greatly interest medical men The fact that many diseases are treated and successful results claimed, leads almost to disrespect. This is true. A typical doctor or even a nutritionist would be quick to think of a long list of reasons why it couldnt and wouldnt work to give it a try. It is too simple, and seems contraindicated for so many conditions if examined superficially. It contains tons of calories why should it be given to an overweight person? It is very high in saturated fat and cholesterol why should it be given to someone with heart disease? It is very high in sodium why give it to someone with hypertension? Dairy causes excessive mucous secretion why give it to an asthmatic or someone with tuberculosis or other respiratory condition? Milk is often an allergen why give it to someone with various allergies and sinus infections? Raw milk could contain all kinds of germs why give it to someone with viral or bacterial infections? It contains tons of rapidly-absorbed lactose milk sugar, why give it to a diabetic? Wouldnt a diabetic just go into sugar and insulin shock? But the milk diet, no matter who is reporting on it, appears to be highly effective and mind-boggingly consistent in the treatment of all the conditions just listed. J.E. Crewe states: While milk is widely used and recommended as an article of diet, it is seldom used by regular physicians exclusively as an agent in the treatment of disease. For 15 years I have employed the so-called milk treatment in various diseases the results obtained in various types of illnesses have been so uniformly excellent that ones conception of disease and its alleviation is necessarily modified. and

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the treatment of various diseases over a period of eighteen years with a practically exclusive milk diet has convinced me personally that the most important single factor in the cause of disease and in the resistance to disease is food. I have seen so many instances of the rapid and marked response to this form of treatment that nothing could make me believe this is not so William Campbell Douglass, author of The Milk Book and a practicing physician that has used the milk diet as a successful treatment for many illnesses, type 2 diabetes included, reports on Crewes success with diabetics on the milk diet: The milk treatment of diabetes was nothing short of phenomenal, most patients becoming sugar-free in four to ten weeks. This is astounding when you realize that five quarts of milk, the amount he used daily for diabetes, contains one-half pound of milk sugar. This is particularly amazing, as most of the diabetics treated during Crewes era- the 1920s, were type 1 diabetics a much more severe form of diabetes to reverse. In recounting a particular case of type 2 diabetes on the milk diet, Douglass states: He was put to bed and instructed to drink nothing but raw milk. That meant no water, absolutely nothing but the milk. His symptoms of diabetic acidosis thirst, frequent urination, and vague abdominal pain- quickly abated On this program he lost weight which he needed to do, and his blood sugar returned to near normal levels. This is remarkable because milk contains large amounts of lactose, a form of sugar. We dont know why it works, but it does. But J.E. Crewe and William Campbell Douglass are certainly not the only two men in history to use the milk diet to treat the vast array of human illnesses most, if not all of those illnesses stemming from some facet of metabolic syndrome (low body temp, high cortisol, hyperinsulinemia, etc.). At the beginning of the 20th century two pivotal books were published that have managed to survive the ages. One is Charles Sanford Porters Milk Diet, as a Remedy for Chronic Disease. Another is Bernarr MacFaddens The Miracle of Milk. In 1924, Bernarr MacFadden writes: It seems so strange, in a way, that anything so simple and so lacking in mystery as milk should effect cures with such uniformity, and in grave disorders that have resisted the efforts of the most skillful medical men, armed with the most heterogeneous assortment of drugs and poisons, and that it should be prescribed or even appreciated by so few physicians as it is. So convinced am I of the disease-correcting and health-maintaining power of the fast and milk diet that I urge any one who has an abnormal functional or organic condition,

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especially in the beginning or in the incipient stage, to adopt this means of reestablishing normality. 8 years prior Charles Sanford Porter writes: My experience with diabetes has not been as large as I would wish, but the few patients who carried the treatment out for four weeks have all been benefited, and, in some instances, at least, permanent cures were made. Type 2 diabetes was far less common in that era, and they had yet to distinguish between the two types. They also typically diagnosed it using the urine, which is a severe form of diabetes that many type 2s have not reached. Type 1 diabetes, a true deficiency of the pancreas, was mixed in as well when Porter refers to diabetes. I would assume the permanent cures were more common amongst type 2s that at least had ample beta cell activity and the proper ability to produce insulin. Many other type 2s still may have had other conditions that they sought successful treatments for, but were not passing sugar in the urine and still had very high blood sugar levels diagnosable as type 2 by todays standards. In other words, they could have been curing themselves of type 2 diabetes without even knowing they had type 2 diabetes. This would certainly be the case for many prediabetics, as those who sought treatment often sought treatments for many facets of metabolic syndrome such as high blood pressure or heart conditions. Anyway, this is no time to further try to convince you that it works, as anecdotal phrases taken from 90 year-old books can only get me so far. Plus, in the last chapter on the HED, we already discussed many of the same principles of why the milk diet might work and work far better than a regular, mixed, HED. The premise of the milk diet, and why I believe it could be the ultimate godsend and a permanent cure for type 2 diabetes (assuming you dont go straight back to fast food fries, Dr. Pepper, and ho-hos), is that it: 1) Allows maximal nutrient and caloric assimilation. Consuming milk in the exact manner in which these doctors and health advisors recommend, allows maximal energy and nutrient surplus, the foundation of reversing insulin resistance via the HED. 2) Commands minimal exertion, warm baths, and lots of fresh air all things that help to detoxify the human body and maximize its immune system capabilities. 3) Allows only healthful and unrefined food at the exclusion of all else. Milk, in its raw state and as fresh as possible, is the ultimate form of unprocessed and readyto-eat complete nourishment. Its the ultimate mammalian food source to which all is a distant 2nd. Although human milk would probably be preferable to cow or goats milk, itll do. Its close enough. 4) Not only are the nutrients in milk better assimilated than whole food sources, milk is more nutritious overall and contains no anti-nutrients that interfere with nutrient absorption and utilization such as phytic acid found in beans, nuts, and grains or copious amounts of fiber found in all unrefined carbohydrates.

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5) Unlike the HED, the milk diet creates a state of hyperhydration. The cells reach their optimal hydration level and function flawlessly, which also helps to improve cellular and hormonal communication and rid the body of pathogens, chronic infections, reduce inflammation, and other factors that keep cortisol elevated. 6) Another advantage of the milk diet is that the food is all completely raw and uncooked. This supplies huge quantities of anti-pathogenic microbes, enzymes, and other co-factors that make the milk diet the ultimate form of rehabilitative sustenance. 7) The milk diet, which is an all-liquid diet, also has similar properties to fasting, another potential type 2 diabetic curative. So yes, the milk diet has great potential. Although it very rigorous, I wouldnt have the slightest reservation about pursuing it if I were diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic. But Im a pretty freaky mofo all things considered. To me, the greatest and most fulfilling feeling is the conquering of a health problem, and the milk diet has as much potential for achieving that as any health regimen Ive ever encountered. The fundamentals of healing and nourishment apply to type 2 diabetes just as much, if not moreso than other illnesses. Stay tuned for further updates on using the milk diet, following it correctly, and using it as a weapon against disease in the near future at www.180degreehealth.com. The milk diet will be a primary research and experimental topic in 2010. For now, well stick to the many guidelines and rules of the milk diet according to the doctors and practitioners that used it back in the day. 1) The freshest raw milk is to be used, ideally not more than a day or two old, but older milk will certainly be able to achieve results. 2) The raw milk should not be excessively high in fat such as that from Jersey cows, which can be more difficult to digest and assimilate in such large quantities. Holstein milk or partially-skimmed higher fat milk is ideal. 3) The milk should be consumed at room temperature, and sipped slowly to mix with saliva for better assimilation. 4) 5-8 fluid ounces, depending on your size (the bigger the higher that quantity obviously), should be taken at each feeding. Be consistent. Each feeding should be almost exactly 30 minutes apart. If you doze off or miss one, dont drink double just get back on your schedule. 5) Drink the milk from when you wake up in the morning until about an hour before going to bed a total of about 14 hours, or 28 rounds of milk (7 quart maximum for very large men, and at least 1 gallon per day for more petite women). Its not a case of the more the better, but trying to take in just the right amount no more, no less. 6) Exertion should be minimal physically and even mentally for best results. This is a toughie in todays modern world, especially when our minds are so used to being babysat by television, internet, and books. Make it meditative, but not miserable. By all means do a little walking, chores, stretching, deep-breathing, and reading if you get too antsy.

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7) Milk diet proponents all seemed to share the belief that fresh air was key. They recommended open windows, or even doing the milk diet in a gazebo-like setting. I say do lots of sunbathing during the day without getting too overheated. Do some light reading outdoors in the shade if the weather is decent. Let some clean, fresh air circulate around your body by wearing loose clothing indoors and out. 8) Consume no other food or liquid other than milk except for lemon juice if you are having digestive problems with the milk (have a squirt or two while you sip your milk). A little water of course will not make or break the program, but odds are you wont desire it with all the electrolyte-rich fluid you are consuming. 9) Continue the milk-only fast for an absolute minimum of four weeks. Otherwise, continue the milk diet until all signs of diabetes are gone and blood sugars have dropped back within the normal range. Dont give up unless your blood sugar has not started dropping by the 4-week mark, in which case the milk diet may not be your type 2 diabetes answer. Be prepared to continue it for well over one month. It is entirely safe to do so but an occasional check-in with the doctor is probably a good idea to be on the smart side. 10) Do not be thrown off by some of the negative early-going symptoms such as extreme fatigue, foul breath and urine, digestive irregularity and discomfort, and other probable detoxification/adaptation side effects. You may also be really turned off by the milk at some point, but try to press through it. It supposedly does not last. I cant make any promises about the milk diet. All I can do is report what I believe honest and intelligent men have witnessed and elaborated upon over the last 100 years. By understanding certain physiological and nutritional principles and how they relate to the development and reversal of type 2 diabetes it does show much promise. For those looking for the most aggressive and potentially most reliable means of finding a permanent reversal for type 2 diabetes that does not require a life sentence of highlyrestrictive dieting and unwanted exercise, this might be your ticket. If I were you, as a type 2 diabetic, prediabetic, or anyone with any health problem, it would take a lot to deter me from giving the milk diet a chance. This could be the best place, of all the diet plans laid out for lessening insulin resistance, to get started.

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Low-Carb

Low-Carb enthusiasts will have you believe that carbohydrates are what this whole diabetes, heart disease, and obesity mess is all about. The story, as you know by now, is far more complex than that. Eating carbohydrates does not cause insulin resistance, raise fasting insulin levels, raise fasting glucose levels, or even raise postprandial glucose levels to above-normal. The low-carb diet for type 2 diabetes is the ultimate fatalistic approach. When I eat carbs, my blood sugar goes up, therefore, I know that I cannot eat carbohydrates. Thats the general mentality. But come on. Give me a break here. What if you notice that your car is making a funny noise because it is out of oil? Using the same mentality, you would say, Ive noticed my car does not tolerate driving, therefore, Im going to have to learn to ride a bike. Ever consider giving the car what it needs to run smoothly? This water-treading avoidance mindset is further fueled by the large array of circulating information that points to genetics as being the cause of type 2 diabetes. The typical type 2 on a low-carb diet is a member of the unlucky sperm club, as my father so eloquently calls it. Thats just the way I am. Gotta learn to live with it. It never occurs to them that their genetics are a result of poor lifestyle choices of present and prior generations, and that their genetics is fully in their hands to repair and refurbish. Then you have a whole assortment of health advisors that advocate some kind of metabolic typing concept everything from your blood type to you know, whatever. With the increasing popularity of low-carb nutrition and awareness of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome many good scientists (okay, poor scientists) are drifting over to the low-carb dark side. Since it is becoming more recognized that impaired carbohydrate metabolism is an increasingly common affliction, it is becoming increasingly fashionable to give the low-carb prescription for that condition. And guess what, it helps. Verifiably so. But make sure we get one thing straight. When I say it helps, I mean it helps someone with metabolic syndrome be generally healthier, with better diagnostic numbers, and a lowered risk for degenerative diseases including both type 2 diabetes and heart disease. At least versus a traditional American diet the low-carb diet, low also in refined carbohydrates in favor of real foods like meat, eggs, fish, and cheese is a clear victor. But just because the Cleveland Browns can beat Vanderbilt University in football dominate them completely doesnt mean that the Cleveland Browns are the greatest football team on earth. They are just better than a mediocre college team. A lot better. What a low-carb diet doesnt seem to help much with, is overturning the insulin resistance that causes metabolic syndrome upon the ingestion of a high glycemic load. In other words, on a low-carb diet, if you continue with it for a long period of time, will lower your blood sugars, help you to drop excess weight, and provide a generally better

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health experience. But if you are looking for a way to help you metabolize carbohydrates correctly and to overcome insulin resistance completely, low-carb diets rarely deliver. But lets assume that a person tries the other strategies laid out in this book, really commits to them, and still cant seem to make progress. Its at that point that it may be discernable that the pancreas is not producing enough insulin. Perhaps too many beta cells have been damaged over the years and that person is truly dependent upon eating as little carbohydrate as possible to minimize the workload of the organ. Perhaps at that point, deriving more energy from ketones (produced on low-carb diets as an alternate energy source) and as little from glucose as possible is the most feasible alternative. If thats the case, the low-carb diet can truly help to ameliorate insulin resistance and help improve both longevity and quality of life. What Im really getting at, is that in some circumstances, a low-carb diet really is the most prudent diet. It is also, generally, a healthy diet. Maybe its not optimal if it were human beings wouldnt have bothered developing agriculture beyond raising food to feed their animals, but it can provide a human with all the elements he or she needs to thrive. It should be pursued by full-blown type 2 diabetics only after ruling out other approaches. Anyone who has slight elevation in blood sugar levels or is prediabetic does not need to pursue a diet this low in carbohydrates. It is not necessary, nor is it an optimal approach for addressing the root of the problem. Without further ado, here are my basic guidelines for pursuing a low-carb diet from an incurable type 2 diabetics standpoint. The diet is probably not best as a semi-low carb or sorta low-carb diet. It should be very low in carbohydrates, approximating what Dr. Richard Bernstein has created as an optimal type 1 diabetic diet and I would recommend his work to any diabetic trying to follow a low-carb diet for perfect blood sugar control (although his advice to use artificial sweeteners and zap-fry American cheese in a microwave as a snack could use some, ahem, revision). The diet should consist of only two elements for simplicitys sake: 1) Meat 2) Non-starchy vegetables And thats about it. It can be very nutritious and even help to overturn some cases of type 2 diabetes because of it allowing insulin and other medications to be discontinued (the hallmark of having overcome diabetes). Because it can be so effective in stimulating weight loss, a low-carb diet can also overcome type 2 diabetes on that basis, especially when paired with large quantities of low-effort exercise such as walking. A typical breakfast might be a small hamburger patty with a side of wilted spinach cooked in the leftover grease in the pan used to cook the burger. Eggs cooked in butter with onion and red bell pepper is another great option.

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Lunch can be a few hard-boiled eggs with a rich, crouton-free Caesar salad with lots of added cheese. How about canned Alaskan pink salmon with a glass of cream and a handful of carrot sticks? Luncheon meat with a small bowl of homemade Thai coconut soup will do the trick as well (see 180 Kitchen). Dinner can be a nice piece of fatty broiled beef, lamb, salmon, chicken, or pork with green beans, or grilled asparagus, or steamed broccoli with butter. You get the idea. Cook any meat, fish, egg, or cheese dish any style with a small portion of highly-nutritious non-starchy vegetable and add as much added fat as you need to feel satisfied. Sorry no meal plans in this chapter. There are already 100 low-carb books out there that do a decent job at that. The classics by Dr. Atkins, Michael Eades, Richard Bernstein, and Wolfgang Lutz will do the trick Im sure for those that cant figure out how to put non-starchy vegetables and meat together in a meal, or who need more good ideas. Starchy vegetables, which are the forbidden foods in the vegetable category, include corn, beans, potatoes, rutabaga, celeriac, parsnips, cooked carrots (raw is okay), yams, beets, peas, lentils, and all grains including buckwheat, wheat, quinoa, spelt, rice, tapioca, barley, oats, and so on. This of course includes tortillas, bread, pasta, crackers, and other processed forms of these whole carbohydrate foods. There is no need to be concerned about vitamin C, as many low-carbers wonder. Eating a low-carb diet reduces the need for vitamin C supplied in the diet AND, even more importantly, vegetables have better vitamin C content on both a by weight and per calorie basis than fruits. Cabbage and red bell peppers for example, are powerhouses of vitamin C that put even the juiciest of Valencia oranges to shame. A diabetic low-carb diet can also include juice from lemons and limes used as a condiment for foods like fish or grilled chicken with a Mexican-style marinade or consumed in non-caloric beverages like water and herbal tea. Non-sweet fruits, like cucumber or tomatoes can be treated as non-starchy vegetables. Otherwise, if your meal contains something that is not a non-starchy vegetable or animalsource protein, you are on the wrong track. The only exception to this rule would be added fat such as heavy cream, butter, or oils, and miniscule amounts of nuts and seeds, including peanuts and peanut butter which contain plenty of carbohydrate, but are typically 80% fat, which is right in the appropriate range for a healthy low-carb insulin-impaired diabetic diet. Macadamia nuts, because the type of fat they contain (they have very little polyunsaturated fat), and their high-fat content are the best choice. As far as fats go, saturated fats are by far the healthiest form in which to derive most of your energy (up to 80% of calories). The ideal source is from coconut oil, coconut milk,

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and whole fresh coconut meat (note the milk and meat do contain a little carbohydrate). The next best source, and one that many prefer, is fat from ruminants such as beef and lamb. Beef and lamb fat, because ruminants convert the vast majority of their dietary fat to saturated and monounsaturated fat in their body (unlike pigs and chickens, which, when fed corn and soy accumulate more omega-6 polyunsaturated fat), supply better quality fats. The third best option in the saturated fat category is dairy fat. Butter, cream, cheese, and clarified butter are the most acceptable dairy foods for a low-carb diabetic. Milk, half and half, and yoghurt are far too high in carbohydrate to be consumed in any kind of quantity. Saturated fat, although it should form the bulk of fat calories, shouldnt be the only type of fat you consume though. Eating a large amount of fatty fish, particularly wild salmon, mackerel, and herring provide omega 3 fatty acids that can be very therapeutic to a type 2. Some researchers even feel that eating a diet rich in omega 6 from vegetable oils while eating virtually no omega 3 from fish and pastured meat and eggs is one of the root causes of glucose intolerance/insulin resistance in the first place. I certainly agree that it is very likely to be a factor. That doesnt mean you need to break omega 3 consumption records, but make wild-caught salmon a frequent menu item while completely excluding corn, canola, safflower, sunflower, cottonseed, and other vegetable oils. This should help. Monounsaturated fats are also okay to consume in reasonable quantity, but often contain too much polyunsaturated fat to be considered ideal. The only liquid oils I recommend consuming on any kind of regular basis are extra virgin olive oil and macadamia nut oil preferably macadamia nut oil, which has the lowest polyunsaturated fat content of any liquid oil. For those of you in need of a quick primer, there are two primary reasons for eliminating most polyunsaturated fats from the diet: because polyunsaturated fats from liquid oils other than fish, flax, and macadamia nut oils contain a lot of omega 6 a precursor to a number of inflammatory molecules thought to be directly causal of the degenerative disease process, and polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable, lending to oxidation and the creation of free radicals which are also thought to be directly causal of the degenerative disease process. Bad news on both accounts. Saturated and monounsaturated fats have no such associations and have long been the primary fat sources in the traditional human diet, which is why they are preferable, for both diabetics and non-diabetics. As a diabetic, if you must resort to a low-carb diet for your condition, and you must remain on insulin injections to keep your blood sugar within acceptable parameters, I highly recommend very closely monitoring your fasting and postprandial (after meal) blood sugars. This allows you to be regular and consistent, adjusting your insulin doses to achieve precision blood glucose monitoring. Once again, I endorse the work of Richard Bernstein, author of Dr. Bernsteins Diabetes Solution, for following this approach. Bernstein has even been known to help both type I and II diabetics achieve spectacular numbers including A1Cs in the optimal, 4.5% range. His protocol is very rigorous, and involves a half dozen blood samples per day, but I do believe that it can

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greatly enhance the quality of life for someone who has discovered that they are truly stuck with diabetes. As a final note for those who might be wondering, acceptable beverages for a type 2 on a low-carb diet are water, mineral water, herbal tea, and water or herbal tea with citrus or apple-cider vinegar added. Thats pretty much it. Artificial sweeteners and caffeine have terrible associations with metabolic syndrome, and both will make a low-carb diet more miserable perpetuating carbohydrate cravings indefinitely. Caffeine, in particular, could be one of the most underestimated evils in the modern diet. There is certainly a close link with hyperinsulinemia/insulin resistance and caffeine. Its been well-recognized for 60 years. The following quotes were taken from Body, Mind, and Sugar by E.M. Abrahamson, published in 19 frickin 51. if you have hyperinsulinism, you must avoid caffeine as you would the pest. Americans are the largest consumers of coffee in the world. Not content with that excessive use of caffeine in the fine aromatic and ancient faffa of Abyssinia, we have concocted and popularized by stupendous high pressure advertising a host of soft drinks previously unknown to the civilized world. These sugar-laden and caffeine-containing carbonated beverages are imbibed by adult, teen-ager, and even children in an everincreasing and staggering volume. In EVERY case in which the Glucose Tolerance Test has shown that hyperinsulinism was present and these were more than 90 per cent of the total number the patient lost his purely psychic symptoms within ten days of initiating the treatment. But another month or more is required to make the treatment stick. Several patients have learned by bitter experience that they must never take caffeine in any form. In fact, caffeine is so much of a causative factor in this kind of depression that the condition might be regarded as a form of caffeine poisoning. The reputed and widely accepted harmlessness of caffeine must be thoroughly reinvestigated in the light of this new knowledge.

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References

The assertions made in 180 Degree Diabetes are a comprehensive culmination of conclusions pieced together, in part, by a thorough examination of the following works: Abrahamson, E. M. and A. W. Pezet. Body, Mind, and Sugar. Avon Books: New York, NY, 1951. Appleton, Nancy. Suicide By Sugar. Square One Publishers: Garden City Park, NY, 2009. Appleton, Nancy. Rethinking Pasteurs Germ Theory. Frog Ltd.: Berkeley, CA, 2000. Atkins, Robert. Dr. Robert Atkins New Diet Revolution. Avon Books, Inc.: New York, NY, 1992. Barnard, Neal. Dr. Neal Barnards Program for Reversing Diabetes. Rodale: New York, NY, 2007. Barnes, Broda. Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspecting Illness. Harper and Row: New York, NY, 1976 Barnes, Broda. Solved: The Riddle of Heart Attacks. Robinson Press: Fort Collins, CO, 1976 Barnes, Broda. Hope for Hypoglycemia. Robinson Press: Fort Collins, CO, 1978 Bennett, Connie. Sugar Shock! Berkley Books: New York, NY, 2007. Bernstein, Richard K. Dr. Bernsteins Diabetes Solution. Little, Brown and Company: New York, NY, 1997. Bieler, Henry. Food is Your Best Medicine. Random House: New York, NY, 1965. Burkitt, Denis, Hugh Trowell, and Kenneth Heaton. Dietary Fibre, Fibre-Depleted Foods and Disease. Academic Press: London, 1985. Cleave, T. L., The Saccharine Disease. Keats Publishing: New Canaan, CT, 1974. Cleave, T.L. and G.D. Campbell. Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis, and the Saccharine Disease. John Wright & Sons LTD.: Bristol, UK, 1969. Collazo-Clavell, Maria. Mayo Clinic on Managing Diabetes. Mayo Clinic: Rochester, Minnesota, 2006. DesMaisons, Kathleen. Potatoes Not Prozac. Fireside: New York, NY, 1998.

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DesMaisons, Kathleen. The Sugar Addicts Total Recovery Program. Ballantine Books: New York, NY, 2000. Douglass, William Campbell. The Milk Book. Rhino Publishing: Panama, 1984. Dufty, William. Sugar Blues. Warner Books: New York, NY, 1975. Eades, Michael R. and Mary Dan. Protein Power. Bantam Books: New York, NY, 1996. Eisenstat, Stephanie A. and David M. Nathan. Every Womans Guide to Diabetes. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 2007. Enig, Mary. Know Your Fats. Bethesda Press: Silver Spring, MD, 2000. Fallon, Sally. Nourishing Traditions. New Trends Publishing, Inc.: Washington, DC, 1999. Farris, Russell and Per Marin. The Potbelly Syndrome. Basic Health Publications: Laguna Beach, CA, 2006. Fuhrman, Joel. Eat to Live. Little, Brown and Company: New York, NY, 2003. Gallop, Rick. The Glycemic Index Diet. Workman Publishing: New York, NY, 2002. Gedgaudas, Nora. Primal Body Primal Mind. Primal Body Primal Mind Publishing: Portland, OR, 2009. Groves, Barry. Natural Health and Weight Loss. Hammersmith Press: London, UK, 2007. Johnson, Richard J. The Sugar Fix. Pocket Books: New York, NY, 2008. Kolata, Gina. Rethinking Thin. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, NY, 2007. Langer, Stpehen E. and James F. Scheer. Solved: The Riddle of Illness. McGraw Hill: New York, NY, 2006. Lipton, Bruce. The Biology of Belief. Elite Books: Santa Rosa, CA, 2005. Macfadden, Bernarr. The Miracle of Milk. Macfadden Publications: New York, NY, 1924. McCarrison, Robert. Studies in Deficiency Disease. Henry Frowde and Hodder and Stoughton: London, England, 1921.

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Page, Melvin, and H. Leon Abrams. Health vs. Disease, The Page Foundation, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL 1960. Pekarek, Martha L. Freedom from Obesity and Sugar Addiction. Wheatmark: Tucson, AZ, 2007. Philpott, William H. Victory Over Diabetes. Keats Publishing: New Canaan, CT, 1983. Planck, Nina. Real Food: What to Eat and Why. Bloomsbury Publishing: New York, NY, 2006. Porter, Charles Sanford. Milk Diet, as a Remedy for Chronic Disease. Burnett P.O.: Long Beach, CA, 1916. Price, Weston A. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Republished by the PricePottenger Nutrition Foundation: La Mesa, CA, originally published in 1939. Schmid, Ron. Traditional Foods are Your Best Medicine. Healing Arts Press: Rochester, VT, 1987. Schwarzbein, Diana. The Schwarzbein Principle. Health Communications, Inc.: Deerfield Beach, FL, 1999. Schwarzbein, Diana. The Schwarzbein Principle II. Health Communications, Inc.: Deerfield Beach, FL, 2002. Schwarzbein, Diana. The Program. Health Communications, Inc.: Deerfield Beach, FL, 2004. Sears, Barry. Toxic Fat. Thomas Nelson Inc, 2008. Shomon, Mary J., The Thyroid Diet. Harper Resource: New York, NY, 2004. Starr, Mark. Hypothyroidism Type II. Mark Starr Trust: Columbia, MO, 2005. Valentine, Virginia, June Biermann, and Barbara Toohey. Diabetes: The New Type 2. Feremy P. Tarcher/Penguin: New York, NY, 2008. Warshaw, Hope S. and Joy Pape. Real-Life Guide to Diabetes. American Diabetes Association: United States of America, 2009. Whitaker, Julian. Reversing Diabetes. Wellness Central: New York, NY, 2001. Wiley, T.S. Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival. Pocket Books: New York, NY, 2000.

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Yudkin, John. Sweet and Dangerous. Bantam Books: New York, NY, 1972.