A Truly Bizarre Recommendation From the American Diabetes Association

Dear Natural Health Solutions Reader,

Friends, if you still doubt that money — not science, and certainly not compassion — dominates medicine in 2016, I now offer the last word:

Last June, an article¹ in the journal Diabetes Care recommended that bariatric surgery should become a standard option for treating Type 2 diabetes in a broad group of patients…

… and the American Diabetes Association (ADA) endorsed it.

The ADA says physicians should start routinely recommending stomach-stapling or partial GI-tract removal — what had until now been last-resort options — for their Type 2 diabetic patients with a body mass index of:

• At least 40, even if their blood sugar is under control
• At least 35 if their diabetes is inadequately controlled despite lifestyle changes and medication
• As low as 30 if the patient has poor control of blood sugar.

That covers a lot of ground!

Never mind that bariatric surgeries cost up to $26,000, are seldom covered by insurance and — whether done for weight loss, diabetes control or both — lead to complications in nearly 20 percent of cases.

But what makes this recommendation so outrageous is that there’s a safer, cheaper and far more effective option: a diet low in carbohydrates! 

Consider:

• A 2016 study found that within only a few months of switching to a low-carb diet, 44 percent of participants were able to stop taking one or more of their diabetes medications.² Meanwhile, for the control group that ate a moderate-carb, lower-fat, calorie-restricted diet — a diet very similar to the one recommended by the ADA — only 11 percent of participants could stop taking their diabetes medications

• A 2005 trial found that after going on a low-carb diet, it took just two weeks for obese and diabetic patients’ blood sugar to return to normal — in addition to a 75 percent improvement in their insulin sensitivity³

• A hemoglobin A1C test measures what percentage of hemoglobin — a protein in red blood cells — is coated with sugar and is used to assess diabetes risk. A large 2008 trial found that A1C levels dropped dramatically further on a low-carb diet than on a low-fat or low-calorie diet.⁴

I could cite these kinds of studies all day.

But to sum up, more than a dozen clinical trials over the past 15 years⁵ show that a diet low in carbohydrates is more effective than one low in fat, such as the ADA recommends, for reducing blood sugar, not to mention for heart health.

Now, I’ll give the last word to Drs. Sarah Hallberg and Osama Hamdy (whose insights I’ve leaned on heavily in this piece).

They are medical directors of obesity clinics at Indiana University and Harvard Medical School, respectively, so they are on the front lines of the fight against obesity and diabetes.

If you have diabetes or know someone who does and are tempted to take the ADA’s insane recommendations seriously, please consider what these two physicians reported in a Sept. 10 New York Times opinion piece:

At the annual diabetes association convention in New Orleans this summer, there wasn’t a single prominent reference to low-carb treatment among the hundreds of lectures and posters publicizing cutting-edge research. Instead, we saw scores of presentations on expensive medications for blood sugar, obesity and liver problems as well as new medical procedures, including that stomach-draining system, temptingly named AspireAssist, and another involving “mucosal resurfacing” of the digestive tract by burning the inside of the duodenum with a hot balloon….

Yet there’s another, more effective way to lower glucose levels: Eat less of it.

Glucose is the breakdown product of carbohydrates, which are found principally in wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, fruit and sugars. Restricting these foods keeps blood glucose low. Moreover, replacing those carbohydrates with healthy protein and fats, the most naturally satiating of foods, often eliminates hunger. People can lose weight without starving themselves or even counting calories…

Once a fad diet, the safety and efficacy of the low-carb diet have now been verified in more than 40 clinical trials on thousands of subjects.

I eat this way — I call it the High-Fat, Real Food Diet. It keeps blood sugar low and energy high and, once the carb addiction wanes (which takes only a week or two), is easy to follow.

In a sane world, any physician who recommends that a diabetic slash or burn his or her digestive tract rather than follow a low-carbohydrate diet would be guilty of malpractice.

Until that happens, if you or a loved one has Type 2 diabetes, ignore the ADA!

Find a sympathetic physician and pursue a low-carbohydrate diet, aiming to keep your daily carb intake under 50 grams daily.

Throw in some gentle, daily exercise and your blood sugar should stabilize in two weeks, and your insulin sensitivity should rise dramatically.

In the odd case that it does not work, medication such as Metformin should be the second resort, and GI cutting and burning the dead-last option — not among the first!

Now, a question: Have you been diagnosed with diabetes or prediabetes and gone on a low-carb diet to address it? If so, I would love to hear about your experience. To share your story, send me an email at [email protected]. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Brad Lemley
Editor, Natural Health Solutions

Citations

1. Cefalu WT, Rubino F, Cummings DE. Metabolic Surgery for Type 2 Diabetes: Changing the Landscape of Diabetes Care. Diabetes Care. 2016
2. Campbell TJ, Alberga A, Rosella LC. The Impact of Access to Health Services on Prediabetes Awareness: A Population-Based Study. Prev Med. 2016
3. Boden G, Sargrad K, Homko C, Mozzoli M, Stein TP. Effect of a low-carbohydrate diet on appetite, blood glucose levels, and insulin resistance in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Ann Intern Med. 2005
4. Westman EC, Yancy WS, Mavropoulos JC, Marquart M, Mcduffie JR. The effect of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-glycemic index diet on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2008
5. Lele RD. Psychological Insulin Resistance in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. J Assoc Physicians India. 2015