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While most doctors and heath care professionals suggest you
change your eating habits and add exercise to your daily regimen to
manage your diabetes, there are others who suggest eating to reverse
your diabetes. There have been studies
that suggest such a reversal is possible with a switch to a low-fat
vegetarian or vegan diet or even a high-fiber, low-fat diet such as
the Pritikin diet.
The researchers and doctors who are suggesting that diabetes can be
reversed claim that their diets and exercise programs actually alter
the cells’ ability to use insulin and instead of concentrating on
the insulin itself, concentrate on repairing the cell’s structure
and function.
The diets that this research is based on are low fat, vegetarian or
almost vegetarian diets that are rich in fiber, vegetables and fruit
that lead to lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, result in
weight loss and an increase in levels of nitric oxide in the blood.
In one study, over fifty percent of the subjects who followed the
three week
high-fiber, low-fat diet no longer were clinically defined as
diabetic. Although it did seem to reverse the diagnosis, the diet
did not reverse the damage diabetes does to arteries.
These studies will surely lead to further studies and a lot more
research. What they do show is that diet and exercise are the two
most important tools we have to reverse diabetes. Whether or not the
diabetes was actually cured in these cases may remain to be seen,
what did happen was a drastic improvement in blood sugar levels.
These patients will not have to take medication or use insulin to
manage their diabetes.
If there is a way to reverse diabetes, it will start with diet and
exercise. While every patient may not go on a diet as drastic as
this one, simply changing one’s eating habits and adding 30 minutes
of brisk exercise a day can really work to manage diabetes.
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