Pritikin

It's not uncommon for doctors to tell their Type 2 diabetic patients, "Watch out for carbs."

The supposed concern is that carbs may send blood sugar (glucose) levels soaring, which in turn may send insulin production into overdrive.

But a growing body of research is finding just the opposite. For people who need to watch their blood sugar, a very high-carbohydrate diet is actually good for you. What's critical is the type of carbohydrate. Certainly, if you're eating refined carbs like white bread and sugary desserts, blood sugar levels can shoot up.

The Right Carbohydrates

But if the bulk of your diet is fiber-rich, unprocessed carbohydrates like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans, you can actually normalize blood sugar levels and even reverse the diagnosis of pre-diabetes and diabetes, scientists are now discovering.

An investigation conducted by UCLA researchers followed diabetic men at the Pritikin Longevity Center for three weeks. It reported that the Pritikin high-fiber, high-carb diet and daily exercise not only helped the men lose weight and improve cholesterol levels, it also decreased blood sugar levels by 20% and insulin levels by 30%. (1)

Reversing Diabetes

What's more, by the end of their three-week program, the majority of the men had controlled their fasting blood glucose, or blood sugar, so well that "they were no longer classified as diabetic," wrote lead investigators Drs. James Barnard and Christian Roberts of UCLA. The men left Pritikin completely free of their diabetic medications, "and others had their medication dosages reduced."

In addition to normalizing blood sugar and ameliorating classic heart disease risk factors like high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the Pritikin Program also substantially improved newly discovered risk factors, such as inflammation in the arteries.

Nitric Oxide, Healing Arteries

Prevention of heart disease, the #1 killer in America, is especially important for diabetics since heart attacks occur two to four times more frequently in diabetics. Diabetes damages the endothelial (inner) lining of the arteries, choking off blood flow to the heart. The Pritikin Program, the UCLA scientists found, increases the production of endothelial-healing substances like nitric oxide.

In related research,(2) scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health followed 99 Type 2 diabetics for four months. Half followed a vegetarian diet similar to the Pritikin Eating Plan (low in fat and very high in straight-from-the-earth unrefined carbohydrates like vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole grains).

The other half followed the standard dietary advice from the American Diabetes Association (higher in fat and refined carbs).

Losing Twice As Much Weight

The diabetics in the Pritikin-style group lowered their blood sugar more and shed twice as much weight (14 pounds) compared to the ADA group (7 pounds). They also lowered their LDL "bad" cholesterol more and ended up with better kidney function than the ADA dieters.

The scientists, lead by Dr. David Jenkins of the University of Toronto and Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, also reported that the very-low-fat, high-carb, high-fiber diet had no potentially harmful changes, such as higher triglycerides or lower HDL "good" cholesterol levels. The results of this diet, in short, were all good.

Other research has found that lifestyle-change programs like Pritikin do a superb job of alleviating the metabolic syndrome, a cluster of factors, including belly fat, that is now epidemic in the U.S. and puts one at major risk for diabetes and heart disease.  In published research on people staying at the Pritikin Longevity Center for three weeks, the syndrome was not only controlled, it was reversed. (3)

The same held true for kids.  Among children with the metabolic syndrome who came to Pritikin, fully 100% no longer had the clinical diagnosis of the syndrome within two weeks. (4) 

Never before have studies on lifestyle change and blood sugar control been so critical.  Researchers at the University of Chicago recently reported that in the next 25 years, the number of Americans with diabetes will nearly double, increasing from 23.7 million to 44.1 million. (5)  Over the same period, spending on health care for diabetes will almost triple, skyrocketing from $113 billion to $336 billion, and these estimates don't even take into account the economic damage resulting from potential increases in obesity rates. 

We need solutions for the crushing burden of diabetes and other cardiovascular-related diseases.  For those of you who are alumni of the Pritikin Longevity Center, you know we have the solution.  The healing power of healthy living is profound.

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