Why Plant-Based Works for Diabetes

Diabetes claims more lives with each passing year. How can we stop it?

| BY ANNA MARIA CLEMENT, PhD, LN |

In the year 1900, medical journals did not contain any information on the disease we now call diabetes. As expected, this lifestyle disorder has been completely created via our poor diets and lethargic living. Not only is it a formidable malady, it has now moved up to being one of the most prominent fatal diseases in our world today. There are a plethora of other illnesses that are created when enduring this blood-sug­ar condition, including but not limited to, neuropathy, renal disease, cardiovascular disease, dementia, Alzheimer's, various cancers, premature aging, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, autism, asthma, and allergies.

Recent research has clearly explained the difference between type 1, which used to be called juvenile diabetes, and type 2, formally called adult-onset diabetes. In layman's terms, type 1 means there is too little sugar/ insulin, preventing the pancreas from func­tioning well, while type 2 means there is too much sugar/insulin afflicting the pancreas. Both are insulin abnormality disorders.

Toronto General Hospital Research Institute identified a specific insulin pathway that activates the T-cells, which in turn activates the whole immune system. Insulin is a co-stimulating driver of the immune system with immune cells being regulated by metabolic signals from insulin. Of the people who suffer from this dis­ease, go percent suffer type 2 diabetes. Since 1956, our work here at Hippocrates has led us to concretely understand that this disor -der is 100 percent correctable when one is willing to permanently change their dietary and lifestyle habits. Type 1 is linked to celiac and gluten allergies, often contracted when in the mother's womb. It can be greatly improved but is far more ominous in its residual effects.

According to the World Health Organiza­tion's (WHO} Diamond Project, the countries with the highest level of type 1 are Scandina­via, Sardinia, and Kuwait It is less common in Asia and Latin America. We believe that the high consumption of meat, dairy, and gluten in these regions are the causative precursors for this rising problem.

Globally, these diseases touch 400 million people at a cost of $1.3 trillion annually. Meta-studies (a gathering of well-conducted research from around the globe) exposed that diet and exercise were three times more effective in controlling type 2 diabetes than the commonly prescribed medications. In the 10-year period from 2003-2013 the number of people contracting this disorder quadrupled. It is now common thats- and 10-year-old children are suffer­ing type 2 diabetes. Economically and social­ly, this trend is becoming unsustainable.

Advanced research exposed that our ancestral microbiota, which effects the immune system and mitochondria in the cell, have significantly eroded over the last century. This was traditionally passed from mother to child through natural vaginal birthing and breastfeeding. Sadly, these two events are less common in today's crazy high-speed world. Losing this natural way of giving birth when welcoming our newborns into the world has significantly reduced this healthy bacteria and, ultimately, a thriving immune system from being exchanged from mother to baby. The unfortunate result is malabsorption of nutrients, and an imbalanced immune system. Both of these contribute to insulin elevation.

Harvard Medical School's published re­search implicated early childhood bad-food choices as the catalyst for contracting type 2 diabetes, cancer, as well as physical and cognitive impairment later in life. Its recom­mendation is for balanced nutrition starting in an individual's infancy. The WHO is equally concerned, and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting access to affordable healthy foods, as well as training and educating people to partake in physical activity. These organizations are fighting a big battle since the food industries' budget dwarfs their gallant attempts.

Comparing the average food consump­tion from 1970 to now, nearly so years ago the average person ate three meals a day and hardly snacked in between. Today, we eat double, the equivalent of six meals a day. Food addictions, emotional stress, work pressure, disharmonious relationships, and financial worries all activate the cortisol re­leasing fight-or-flight response that wreaks havoc on our bodies. When cortisol is acti­vated, it releases stress hormones, adrena­line, epinephrine, and also sugar from the liver in the form of glucose. Glucose and fat unnaturally release from the liver and mus­cles into the blood. All of this elevates blood sugar, impacting every organ in the body.

The University of Chicago conducted a study on sleep deprivation resulting in type 2 diabetes. Perfectly healthy, young students who had normal sleep patterns were asked to sleep one hour less every two days. By the 12th day, every one of these subjects had ei­ther pre- or active diabetes. The researchers noticed that the less the students slept, the more they consumed fatty, salty, and sugary foods. This extraordinary data revealed that indirectly, lack of sleep provoked abnormal dietary patterns which rapidly created diabetes in a short time span.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine reported the Seventh Day Ad­ventists 17-year study on a vegetarian-con­suming population versus the mainstream meat eaters. Meat eaters had a 29 percent higher in also is linked to cancer, heart disease, phlebitis, and inflammatory disorders including arthritis, lupus, and others. The Nurses' Health Study found that those who consumed five or more fish servings per week had a 22 percent higher incidence of type 2 diabetes. Not surprisingly, people who consume high-fat diets, including residents on small islands in the South Pacific, endure more lifestyle-created blood sugar concerns.

Since 1980, here at Hippocrates, I have been observing that high saturated fats smother the cell not permitting sugars to enter and be burned as fuel Thus, it remains in the blood. This is where the term blood sugar comes from. More than 80 percent of people who contract type 2 diabetes are heavy eaters of meat, includ­ing fish, chicken, turkey, and the assorted dairy and egg repertoire. Science has now offered an explanation as to why this occurs. This animal fare downregulates the genes responsible for mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in muscle tissue, decreas­ing optimal healing. Meat also contains iron that encourages the production of reactive oxygen species and toxic waste, which damage body tissue, including insulin-pro­ducing pancreatic cells.

My suggestion to you, if you have diabe­tes, you should embrace the Hippocrates diet and lifestyle. If you want to prevent diabetes, you should embrace the Hippo­crates diet and lifestyle. If you don't want dementia/Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer, neuropathy, eye disorders, renal failure, arthritis, lupus, inflammatory conditions, and all the rest of the ailments associated with blood sugar disorders, I strongly sug­gest you embrace the Hippocrates diet and lifestyle.