Beat Diabetes

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Each day, approximately 2,700 people are diagnosed with diabetes. About 1 million people aged 20 years or older will be diagnosed this year.
—American Diabetes Association

Harry is now 73, but he was 50 when his blood sugar began creeping up. At each annual physical, it was a bit higher. His doctor would watch the sugar level and tell Harry, “By the way, it wouldn’t hurt to lose some weight.” Finally, after 13 years, Harry’s blood sugar levels exceeded the boundary for diabetes, and Harry was officially diagnosed.

Although Harry had heard the scare stories about diabetes (his uncle had gone blind and lost a foot), Harry felt just fine, so he ignored the warnings. His doctor prescribed a drug to reduce blood sugar, which Harry took haphazardly. His blood sugar continued creeping ever upward.

After a few years, Harry noticed he didn’t have the zip he once had. But then again, he was getting older. His feet tingled a bit sometimes, and cuts and sores didn’t heal very quickly. Perhaps most worrisome, he wasn’t up to the bedroom experience the way he used to be. You’d think Harry would have clued in to these problems, but it seemed easier to ignore them — for a while.

The inevitable day finally came when the doctor suggested insulin. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Harry could tolerate anything but the needle. So Harry came to me to see what we could do. After some discussion, we determined the first goal was to push the blood sugar down as fast as possible to avoid the insulin. Harry agreed to dietary revisions and herbal medicines (outlined below) to avoid insulin.

Six weeks later, we embarked on a long-term plan to reverse the disease and keep Harry off insulin. Over the course of a year, Harry lost 50 pounds, made some serious dietary changes and got accustomed to taking daily natural remedies. It’s been 10 years, his blood sugar has stabilized at a normal level and those nagging symptoms are a thing of the past.

Important note: If you have diabetes, you should never suddenly quit using diabetic drugs, especially insulin. Under a physician’s guidance, it may be possible for type 2 diabetics to gradually reduce the dose substantially and successfully, ideally to zero.

Doubling Diabetic Population

A major health epidemic, diabetes is creating a serious burden on the world’s health-care system. It is estimated that 7.2 percent of American adults (about 17 million people) are diabetic. Unfortunately, according to the American Diabetes Association, 5.9 million of those people don’t even know they have it. The prevalence of diabetes is increasing rapidly, at a rate of 7 percent per year. At the current rate, the diabetic population will just about double every decade. Thirty years from now, at least 50 percent of people 50 or older will have the disease.

Diabetes is the fifth deadliest disease in the United States. It is associated with a Western lifestyle and is rarely seen in cultures relying on more traditional diets. As people around the world gradually adjust their diets from native, local foods to commercial, processed diets, their rate of diabetes rises, over time matching the proportion in Western cultures. India, a country with historically low diabetes rates, is now experiencing the highest rate of increase.

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