Is Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Possible?
Dr. Jason Fung proves that reversing type 2 diabetes is possible. But even better, reversing diabetes does not require expensive drugs or surgery. In fact, type 2 diabetes, being largely a dietary disease, can be reversed by changing the diet. That puts it within reach of everybody.
Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally (The Basics)
Type 2 diabetes can be reversed naturally, but only if you understand the basics of how type 2 diabetes became an epidemic and what were the causal factors. Dr. Jason Fung explains why the diet is the most important factor in type 2 diabetes and how we can use dietary methods to reverse type 2...
Low Fat Diets and Exercise for Type2 Diabetes – T2D 41
The Low Fat Era Several years back, the monumental task of recommending an optimal diet for type 2 diabetics was assigned to Dr. Richard Kahn, then the chief medical and scientific officer of the American Diabetes Association (ADA). Like any good scientist, he began by reviewing the available published data. “When you look at the...
Medications that actually work for type 2 diabetes – T2D 40
As we saw in our previous post, standard medications such as insulin, sulphonylureas, metformin and DPP4’s can reduce blood glucose but do not reduce cardiovascular disease or death. Yes, your sugars will be lower, but no, you will not be healthier. Whether you take the medications or not, you will suffer the same risk of...
ACCORD / ADVANCE / VADT / ORIGIN / TECOS – T2D 39
Tired of all the controversy, and still confident of the benefits of blood glucose lowering, the National Institutes for Health in the United States funded a huge, ambitious randomized controlled trial involving over 10,000 patients called the Action to Control Cardiac Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) study to assess the benefits of intensive glucose control. After...
How NOT to treat diabetes – T2D 38
By the mid 1990s, the landmark DCCT trial has established the paradigm of glucotoxicity, in type 1 but not in type 2 diabetes. Still euphoric from the trial’s success, it seemed only a matter of time before tight blood glucose control was proven beneficial in type 2 diabetes as well. Nobody stopped to consider exactly...
Glucotoxicity and Double Diabetes- T2D 36
The glucotoxicity paradigm For as long as I have practiced medicine, the mantra of excellent diabetic care was tight blood glucose control. All the diabetes associations, the university professors, the endocrinologists, and diabetic educators agreed. The prime directive was "Get those blood sugars down into the normal range at all costs, soldier!" The only acceptable...
Jason – Patient Profile
Dr. Jason Fung: A follower on Facebook recently posted some before/after pictures with the following caption: Today was a big...no scratch that a huge mile stone for me.. the scale says 284! This means I am officially down 150 lbs!! I went from a size 50, to a 36 (34 in some brands) a size...
Fatty Pancreas – T2D34
Fatty Pancreas The English friar and philosopher William of Ockham (1287-1347) is credited with developing the fundamental problem solving principle known as lex parsimoniae or Occam’s Razor. This principle holds that the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is most often right. The simplest explanation is usually the most correct. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying,...
Natural History Phase 2 – T2D 33
Type 2 diabetes actually happens in two phases. The first phase, which lasts approximately 10-15 years shows a slow increase in insulin resistance. However, the body compensates by increasing insulin levels. This keeps blood glucose relatively normal. But something suddenly changes after approximately a decade of rising insulin resistance. Hyperinsulinemia can no longer keep up...
Sarah – Patient Profile ‘Thin diabetic’
Dr. Jason Fung: I received a letter from reader Sarah, who has successfully used a Low Carbohydrate High Fat (LCHF) diet and Intermittent Fasting (IF) to reverse her type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, she is not particularly overweight as measured by Body Mass Index, yet still suffered from T2D. At her heaviest, she only had a BMI of...
‘Medical’ Bariatrics – T2D 32
What happens when a severely obese, diabetic patient undergoes weight loss (bariatric) surgery? If type 2 diabetes is truly a chronic, incurable progressive disease, then surgery will not alter the natural history. According to conventional medical wisdom, long standing type 2 diabetics have very high insulin resistance provoking increased insulin secretion from the pancreas. Over...
