A New Medical Trial Has Seen Type 2 Diabetes "reversed" In 40% Of Patients For 3 Months
Type 2 diabetes is generally considered to be a chronic health condition that can't be cured once it develops, and can only be managed with a combination of medication and healthy living – assisted by gastric band (bariatric) surgery in some cases. But new research suggests that people may actually be able to beat the disease for set periods, by undertaking an intensive short-term course of medical treatment that's been shown to reverse type 2 diabetes in a significant proportion of patients. "By using a combination of oral medications, insulin, and lifestyle therapies to treat patients intensively for two to four months, we found that up to 40 percent of participants were able to stay in remission three months after stopping diabetes medications," says one of the researchers, Natalia McInnes from McMaster University in Canada. "The findings support the notion that type 2 diabetes can be reversed, at least in the short term – not only with bariatric surgery, but with medical approaches." Type 2 diabetes is caused by the body not producing enough insulin – the hormone that enables cells to absorb glucose - or becoming insulin resistant. As a consequence, blood sugars build up in the body, and can lead to serious health problems like organ damage and heart disease. Over 29 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, and estimates indicate that it could cost the US health care system as much as US$512 billion annually by 2021 – so any interventions that can effectively treat the condition are desperately needed. To investigate whether intensive health treatments could trigger remission in type 2 diabetes patients, the researchers recruited 83 participants with the condition and randomly divided them into three groups. Two of these groups received the short-term interve Continue reading >>
Type 1 Diabetes . . . Cured?
Carrie posted this wonderfully thought-provoking comment about her diabetic son: My 13 yr old son was diagnosed over a year ago with Type 1 [diabetes]. Before his diagnosis, I was very ‘green’ — bought organic foods, bought meat from free-range, grass-fed local farms, cleaned my house with products I made myself from vinegar and natural products. But we did follow the low-fat, low-calorie, high-fiber, healthy whole grain diet. We were told “eat whatever you want” — just dose for it [with insulin] and be healthy (yep: low-fat, high-fiber, etc.) I didn’t think so: If he has a carb problem, then limit carbs! We immediately went low-carb, causing us to remove a lot of wheat products, but didn’t know about the damages of gluten then. His last two A1Cs [hemoglobin A1c’s, a 60-90 day reflection of blood sugar fluctuations] have been 5.3% [normal range]. He was taken off his basal insulin and his bolus, continuing to less and less. Today, he is OFF insulin! YES, he is a Type 1 diabetic: They double-checked for the antibodies in case he was misdiagnosed–they are there. Even without insulin, his blood sugars are better than me or his dad, or even sister (we all check now). And all this while growing over 5 inches in one year, going through puberty and the stomach flu with no problems (scary for Type 1 diabetics). His doctors are amazed. We all still did not know how he was this way, until someone shared with me Wheat Belly. We are all going completely gluten-free now and staying low-carb. Maybe my asthma will be gone and my daughter’s horrible itchy rash all over her arms will finally leave! Absolutely wonderful book, thank you! Wow. We know that consumption of modern wheat is associated with causing type 1 diabetes in children, average age of onset 4 years Continue reading >>
Is Type 2 Diabetes Reversible?
Katy Wiley began her struggle with Type 2 diabetes in 1990, when she was pregnant with her second child. The disease progressed, and at eight weeks she started insulin treatment, hoping that once her son was born, the diabetes would disappear. Instead, her condition steadily declined. Vision problems and nerve damage, common complications of diabetes, began to appear. Her A1C blood glucose (sugar) levels were increasing, she was at least 50 pounds overweight and the medication metformin had been added to her daily therapy routine of insulin injection. That's when she read about a Type 2 diabetes study at Cleveland Clinic that was recruiting patients to participate in one of three arms of treatments to study the effectiveness of methods to treat and possibly reverse Type 2 diabetes. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) says that Type 2 diabetes usually begins with insulin resistance or the inability of the fat, muscle and liver cells to use the insulin produced in the pancreas to carry sugar into the body's cells to use for energy. At first, the pancreas will work harder to make extra insulin, but eventually it won't be able to keep making enough to maintain normal blood glucose levels, and glucose will build up in the blood instead of nourishing the cells. That's when diabetes Type 2 has developed and needs to be treated. In the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 29.1 million people — 9.3 percent of the population — have diabetes. About 95 percent of those people have Type 2 diabetes, a disease that can be prevented, reversed and maybe even cured. "While lifestyle factors of obesity, poor diet and exercise are risk factors for Type 2 diabetes, a genetic component frequently predisposes an individual t Continue reading >>
Scientists May Have Found A Functional Cure For Type-1 Diabetes
Type-1 diabetes is a chronic condition that affects an estimated 42 million people worldwide, and occurs when the pancreas produces little to no insulin. Those with the condition must take supplemental insulin so their bodies can process sugars. But now, researchers at ViaCyte, a regenerative medicine company, have some good news: They're working on a therapy based on stem cells that can automatically release insulin into the body when it's needed. The treatment is specifically aimed at patients with high-risk type-1 diabetes. ViaCyte estimates that around 140,000 people in the US and Canada suffer from the condition, which can cause life-threatening events. The use of stem cells to replace pancreatic insulin cells has been tried before, but without much success. ViaCyte's approach shows promise because the stem cells can mature within the body itself through an implant the company calls PEC-Direct. There has already been a round of clinical trials to test whether the stem cells could fully grow into the type of cells necessary to produce insulin -- called islet cells. That was a success. But the number of cells within the implants wasn't enough to actually treat the patients; it was solely to test whether the cells could, in fact, be grown. Now, in coordination with JDRF, an organization that funds type-1 diabetes research, ViaCyte has implanted PEC-Directs into two patients as a trial. It's important to note that this isn't a full cure. It's what ViaCyte President and CEO Paul Laikind calls "a functional cure." It doesn't address and treat the specific causes of the condition. Additionally, patients using this treatment would be required to take immunosuppressive drugs to protect the created cells from the body's immune system, according to New Scientist. Regardless, Continue reading >>
Introduction To Type I Diabetes
Three Articles On Type I Diabetes: Article #1: Introduction to Type I Diabetes (This Article) Article #2: Possible Causes of Type I Diabetes Article #3: The Treatment of Type I Diabetes Introduction to Type I Diabetes Did you know that there are two products that have cured advanced Type I diabetes cases? Both of them will be discussed in this article. But more importantly, one of these products can reverse cumulative severe side-effects of Type I or Type 2 diabetes. Type I diabetes is actually a set of symptoms, meaning it can be caused by several different things. The symptoms are that the blood lacks insulin. There are actually several things that can cause an abnormally low level of insulin in the blood. Type I diabetes is a very severe disease. The average lifespan of Type I diabetic is 5-8 years shorter than an average person. But death is not the worst thing about Type I diabetes. Here is a list of some of the health problems it can lead to: Amputation of limbs Blindness (retinopathy) – diabetes is the leading cause of new cases of blindness in America — 12,000 to 24,000 case annually Kidney failure (nephropathy) – frequently leading to dialysis or a kidney/pancreas transplant Liver disease Arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) Heart disease Stroke (e.g. paralysis) High blood pressure Nerve damage (neuropathy) Dementia Urinary tract infection (mostly in women) Depression – Note: Aspartame (e.g. Equal, NutraSweet, etc.) and sugar are the leading causes of depression in non-diabetics. However, because the average diabetic consumes more aspartame than the average person, it is highly possible that aspartame is by far the REAL cause of depression in diabetics!! A diabetic should absolutely avoid aspartame and all other artificial sweeteners! Bone quali Continue reading >>
Can You Reverse Type 2 Diabetes?
It sounds too good to be true: reversing type 2 diabetes through exercise and healthy eating. While certain lifestyle changes are key to managing diabetes, whether you can actually turn back time so that it's like you never had diabetes is a different matter. That depends on how long you've had the condition, how severe it is, and your genes. "The term 'reversal' is used when people can go off medication but still must engage in a lifestyle program in order to stay off," says Ann Albright, PhD, RD. She's the director of diabetes translation at the CDC. Shedding extra pounds and keeping them off can help you better control your blood sugar. For some people, reaching a healthier weight will mean taking fewer medications, or in rarer cases, no longer needing those medications at all. Losing 5% to 10% of your body weight and building up to 150 minutes of exercise a week may help you to slow or stop the progress of type 2 diabetes. "If you sit [inactive] most of the day, 5 or 10 minutes is going to be great," Albright says. "Walk to your mailbox. Do something that gets you moving, knowing that you're looking to move towards 30 minutes most days of the week." In one study, people with type 2 diabetes exercised for 175 minutes a week, limited their calories to 1,200 to 1,800 per day, and got weekly counseling and education on these lifestyle changes. Within a year, about 10% got off their diabetes medications or improved to the point where their blood sugar level was no longer in the diabetes range, and was instead classified as prediabetes. Results were best for those who lost the most weight or who started the program with less severe or newly diagnosed diabetes. Fifteen percent to 20% of these people were able to stop taking their diabetes medications. Continue reading >>
Doctors Now ‘80% Certain’ Brit Is The First Person Ever To Cure Himself Of Type 1 Diabetes
Tests show a man may well hold the secret to a cure for an illness that kills 1.5 million people every year. Daniel Darkes, a diabetic for the past seven years, had ceased taking his insulin injections after his blood sugar levels returned to below average/average to low levels, suggesting that his pancreas had started functioning again. Daniel has since travelled to the United States last week where doctors in St Louis, Missouri, performed numerous tests in an effort to ascertain what had happened. And a first round of tests seem to suggest that his diabetes has indeed disappeared, with scientists putting the probability of his potentially miraculous recovery being genuine at 80 per cent. Daniel, who has been branded ‘Miracle Dan’ by his friends said: “I had numerous tests, about four or five, to confirm the main reason why my pancreas had started producing insulin again. “One of the tests involved me running on a treadmill. They starved me for a good six hours before, and I spent about 30 minutes running at a constant speed to see if my brain went into a kind of shock mode, or starvation mode, to see if it would send signals down to the organs, i.e. my pancreas, which it did.” Other tests included the insertion of a microchip into Daniel’s lower back to measure his protein levels, and shining of a UV light to detect cells in his pancreas, which scientists found. The tests could hold the key to finding a cure for the disease in the future, and it is hoped Daniel’s trip to America could be looked back on in years to come as the first step. About 1.5 million people die of all types of diabetes each year and it drastically affects the lives of millions more every day. It is thought that the reason behind Daniel’s apparent recovery is a specific signal sent Continue reading >>
- New way to BEAT diabetes: Single operation could cure Type 2 disease, says UK doctors
- Could going low-carb help you fight off diabetes? The usual advice for Type 2 is to eat plenty. But now a number of patients and doctors are leading a growing rebellion
- More than 500 children with Type 2 diabetes - just 16 years after first ever case
Is Type 2 Diabetes Reversible?
I just wrote an answer to this question about 5 minutes ago and will answer it again because it is so very important for you and for millions of other people. The answer to your question is yes. From my personal experience Type 2 Diabetes can be reversed. In March of 2017 I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. It really scared me. My father was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at 60 and I watched him have to inject insulin 2 times a day. His body still deteriorated due to the diabetes. I did not want to end up like that. I was a chocoholic and ate huge portions. I was too heavy for my height and did not get enough exercise. I immediately got on the internet and started researching for cures for Type II Diabetes. I read all the information at the American Diabetes Association website and was thoroughly depressed. I was being told that I had a progressive disease with no cure that would last the rest of my life and finally cause my death. I learned that I would have to take progressively stronger medications to control my diabetes and BG, (Blood glucose levels). I decided that this path was not for me. I knew there had to be a cure for this terrible disease even if all these doctors and pharmaceutical companies were saying that there is no cure. I read everything I could find on T2 Diabetes. Causes, treatments, reversal and cure. I decided that changing my diet drastically to a low carb high fat diet, LCHF, was the way to go. I found a great deal of good information at Diet Doctor - Making low carb simple. So I did it. I absolutely changed my diet completely from that day. It was very difficult. My body was craving carbohydrates, especially sweets. I had physical flu symptoms from the body adjusting to this new diet. I used meditation and mindful eating to get through those Continue reading >>
Caroline’s Story: Overcoming Type 1 Diabetes With Real Food
Today, Caroline Potter from Colorful Eats, has an amazing story of recovery for you. She’s worked with the same nutritionist that I have these last few years, and has been able to treat Type 1 diabetes with a nutrient-dense diet and natural supplements. It’s another encouraging story of how food can play a significant role in our fight against disease! Treating Diabetes with Real Food Life in your 20s seems pretty grand. You feel powerful, youthful and energized. Dreams seem within your reach and challenges seem conquerable. Then out of the blue, college bliss turns into doctors offices and waiting rooms. Countless tests of all forms, vague results and no answers as to what was wrong with me. As I came home from college that winter for Christmas break, I laid on the couch for most of my vacation. I was constantly starving, eating everything in sight but quickly loosing weight. Finally, one day while out to dinner with my family, I broke down in tears because my mouth was so dry, I could barely talk. I was experiencing dry mouth, one of the major symptoms of diabetes. Diabetes? I was 20, a seemingly healthy young girl, who grew up in a home where my mother fed us all organic food. I was the one in school with her carrot sticks and tuna salad sandwiches. I never drank soda or ate Oreos, so the thought of diabetes was never even on my radar. Barely able to walk up a flight of stairs, I checked myself into the ER to discover my blood sugar levels were in a diabetic coma range. Later the next morning, the doctor diagnosed me with type 1 diabetes. I was scared, hopeless and confused. The days that followed were difficult to say the least. I still felt sick all the time, gained over 20 pounds in 2 weeks and felt terribly alone. My legs turned black and blue from giving mys Continue reading >>
Am I Cured Of Diabetes?
When it comes to type 2 diabetes, these three words are everywhere: reversal, remission and cure. There are so many people who claim to have the answer to type 2 diabetes either through a diet plan or supplement. They claim to have a cure or that they can reverse your type 2. The argument that ensues takes offense at the idea that type 2 can be cured or reversed or even put into remission. I think that the evolution around these arguments stems from the irritation we feel when people tell us, “All you have to do is this…and you’re cured.” Sometimes, we get hypersensitive, and I’m as much to blame as anyone else. So let’s take a look at these three words. Here are the definitions taken from a medical dictionary: Reversal: a change to an opposite condition, direction, or position.Remission: a temporary or permanent decrease or subsidence of manifestations of a disease. Cure: a restoration of health; recovery from disease. Let’s say I’m someone who has type 2 diabetes (Hey! I DO have type 2 diabetes! Not much of a stretch, eh?) and I find a food plan that I think will work for me and I try it. I work hard at lowering my bg numbers. I exercise. I kick diabete’s butt. So now I have an A1c of 6.0 percent, which is pretty darn good for someone with diabetes. Based on the definitions above, have I reversed my diabetes or put it into remission? Am I cured? Well, I could say that it’s reversed because I have changed the direction of my disease. My blood glucose was going up and now it’s going down: reversal. I could also say that my diabetes is in remission because I have a decrease in the manifestations of the disease. As for cured, I may have restored my health but I have not recovered from the disease. In all three cases, diabetes is still there lurking, Continue reading >>
New Drug Appears To Eliminate Type 2 Diabetes For First Time
Type 2 diabetes, although influenced by a person’s genes, is largely thought to be brought about by a poor diet and being overweight for prolonged periods of time, particularly at an old age. The pancreas is either unable to produce enough insulin, or the body’s cells simply don’t react to insulin, which leads to dangerously high blood sugar levels. This is known as insulin resistance, and at present, there is no medical way to treat this. A new drug forged by a team at the University of California, however, might prove to be a veritable game-changer. As reported by New Scientist, a daily dose of the drug, given to mice with insulin resistance, canceled out the harmful condition. This is the first time that any treatment has effectively “cured” type 2 diabetes. The team of researchers had an inkling that a particular enzyme was responsible for bringing about insulin resistance. The enzyme – cacophonously known as low molecular weight protein tyrosine phosphate, or LMPTP – can be found in the liver, and it appears to interact with cells in such a way that they become resistance to the presence of insulin. Conjuring up a brand new drug that was specifically designed to hinder the progress of LMPTP, the team thought that it would allow the cells’ insulin receptors to once again be able to react to insulin as they normally would. Much to their delight, they found that they were correct. “Our findings suggest that LMPTP is a key promoter of insulin resistance and that LMPTP inhibitors would be beneficial for treating type 2 diabetes,” the team noted in their Nature study. For this study, their drug was orally administered to a few unfortunate laboratory mice. These mice had been fed an extremely high-fat diet, and they had developed obesity and type 2 dia Continue reading >>
Fasting Cures Type 2 Diabetes – T2d 4
While many consider Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) irreversible, fasting has also been long known to cure diabetes. In our previous post, we considered bariatric surgery. While extreme, these surgeries have proven the point that the metabolic abnormalities that underlie T2D (hyper insulinemia, insulin resistance) can often be fully reversed after a short (weeks) period of intensive treatment with bariatrics. Many early studies were done with the heavy-duty Roux-en-Y surgery, which is the heavyweight champions of surgeries. The best weight loss. The most complications. This is the surgery that has ‘Go Big or Go Home’ tattooed on its massive bicep. But even milder forms of bariatric surgery show the same reversibility of T2D. A gastric band is essentially a belt implanted around your stomach. They keep tightening the belt so that you can’t eat. If you try to eat too much, you’ll puke it all back up. Loverly. It ain’t pretty, but it sure do work. Again, long term results are kind of iffy, but short term results are pretty good. You can see the results of gastric banding versus medical treatment from the graph above. Patients randomized to the gastric band showed a significant and pretty damn good drop in their fasting blood sugars. In other words, T2D was reversing in a b-i-g way. Those given medicines alone didn’t do very well at all. Basically they stayed the same. They were no better than before. So, yes, even gastric banding these 500 pound patients with 20 years of diabesity can reverse within weeks even before the weight comes off. One of the main questions is why? There are many hypotheses – which we will consider in a later post, but it is the sudden severe restriction of all calories that causes this beneficial effect. This is the same thing as the time teste Continue reading >>
Is There A Cure For Cancer That The Government And Companies Are Hiding From The Public?
"Anyone heard that..." Don't believe everything you hear. People hear many things which are completely ridiculous and then believe them. Conspiracy theories sound believable because people present only the evidence for them, don't mention how these things are easily explained, and don't mention the evidence against them. "... there is a cure for serious cancer ..." Cancer isn't one disease. It's a cluster of diseases. It's highly unlikely that there would be a cure for "cancer." Can there ever be a "one size fits all" cure for all cancer types? If yes, how might it hypothetically work? "... and the government is keeping it from the public ..." The government is made up of people. In this case, a huge number of people would have to be aware of this cure. How do you keep all these people silent? How do you think you get hundreds -- or even a dozen -- of people to not admit that they have something that would save the lives of millions of men, women, and children? "... due to population control ..." Since when is the US government concerned with population control? The US doesn't have a problem with overpopulation. And, if they were so concerned with population control, don't you think that they'd be pushing free condoms and birth control a little more? "... and the loss of charity funds?" Why would the government be concerned with the loss of charity funds? If anything, it should want charities to close their doors. Fewer charities -> less charitable giving -> more tax dollars. Also, charities wouldn't be able to repress a cure. They're not the ones doing direct research. They fund research. Moreover, their wanting to suppress a cure would be a bit strange. They're a charity for X because they actually want X to happen. This theory doesn't make any sense. Always go to the Continue reading >>
Targeting A Cure For Type 1 Diabetes
How Long Will We Have To Wait? about the book Every person touched by diabetes wants to know when there will be a cure. A lot of work is going on, but what are the chances of a breakthrough? Targeting a Cure for Type 1 Diabetes is diaTribe's comprehensive overview of where we are and where we're headed in that search. Rich in detail and written for patients and their families, the report features the latest information on the most promising approaches for curing diabetes. These include immune therapeutics, islet and pancreas transplantation, beta cell regeneration and survival agents, and the artificial pancreas. With an introduction by Dr. Aaron Kowalski of the JDRF, and with concluding remarks by our Editor in Chief, Kelly Close, Targeting a Cure for Type 1 Diabetes is essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about what a cure might look like or when it will be available. Although a cure may not be right around the corner, this book lays bare the possibilities of all the exciting research now underway. To buy a copy of Targeting a Cure, visit the ADA's store. critical acclaim "Targeting a Cure for Type 1 Diabetes will give you hope that someday struggling with the management of type 1 diabetes will only be a memory."- Richard M. Bergenstal, MD (Executive Director, International Diabetes Center, Minneapolis, MN) “After reading about Kelly Close and her teams’ incredible journey of discovery, we cannot only continue to dream, but we can open our eyes each morning to a reality that brings us closer, inch by inch, discovery by discovery, to a day when glucose control will be automatic and people with type 1 diabetes will be ‘cured.’”- Francine R. Kaufman, MD (Chief Medical Officer and Vice President, Global Medical, Clinical & Health Affairs, Medtroni Continue reading >>
- Get off your backside! It's madness for the NHS to spend millions fighting type 2 diabetes when the simple cure is exercise, says DR MICHAEL MOSLEY, who reversed HIS own diabetes
- New way to BEAT diabetes: Single operation could cure Type 2 disease, says UK doctors
- The cure for type 2 diabetes is known, but few are aware
Letter Of The Week: Experimental Drug Has Cured My Son Of Type 1, Says Rn
Editor: My son was diagnosed in August 2007 with juvenile diabetes. I am a registered nurse and was devastated by the diagnosis because I was just completely paralyzed by the fear of potential complications. It was also a tremendous shock to be on the other side of health care – receiving information from hurried staff, including doctors, glancing at their watches while I asked one too many questions. I, like the author of one of your articles this month, did a lot of research online and everything else I could read on the subject. Eventually, I found out about a clinical trial by a company called Macrogenics, backed by the JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) of an experimental drug for new onset diabetics that blocks the autoimmune attack. After a tremendous amount of prayer and research, we decided to go ahead: My son took the drug, Teplizumab (MGA031). The drug was given via IV, and he was supposed to take it over 14 days. He only made it to eight before his liver enzymes tripled and he was pulled from the study. His enzymes returned to normal shortly thereafter. I am writing to tell you that my son has not had to use insulin since November 27. Almost four full months insulin-free. No regular, no long-acting – nothing. (He was taking 17 units of Levemir at night and about 10 units of regular a day). We still take his blood sugar at least four times a day and we are careful about carbs (sugar, white flour especially). His last A1c was over two months ago and it was 5.6%. He is still being monitored by Dr. Chayim Newmark (sub-investigator) and goes in for the required study follow-ups. His average blood sugar now is 100. His pediatric endocrinologist is, for some unknown reason, completely uninterested in the results of this study. As I understand it, this Continue reading >>
