The short answer is, “Yes, I have had great results managing type 2 diabetes with a whole-food, plant-based, low fat diet.” The compete answer is more complicated.
I will be 70 years old in a few months, and I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 40 years ago. At the time of my diagnosis, I weighed 16.78 stone, if the converter on my computer is correct. The American Diabetes Association diet was recommended to me, and I went on it. It was not a great diet (Coca Cola and Mars Candy Co. were on the advisory board of the ADA at the time), but my own diet was so poor that I lost 2.14 some and my blood sugar improved. at that point, progress stopped.
Twenty years ago, after reading Dr. Bernstein’s book, I began eating a very low-carb diet and made an effort to cut out processed food. Again, I lost weight and blood sugars improved. Again, progress stopped.
In 2017, I added fasting to my arsenal of anti-diabetes tools. More progress. I was able to get off my diabetes medicine (Metformin), but again, I hit a wall.
The wheels fell off during Covid and I had to get back on Metformin. I was searching for something to kickstart my diet and did a 5-day fasting-mimicking diet (which I had done before). The diet is plant based and I told the doctor I was working with that I thought I could actually eat a plant-based diet except for the fact that, to get the protein I would need to eat, I would have to eat foods that my my blood sugars skyrocket (beans, potatoes, rice, etc.). He said that, not only could I eat those foods, it was important that I do eat those foods. When I asked for an explanation, he said that insulin resistance is not caused by a lifetime of over-eating carbohydrates, but by dietary fat and fat stored in your muscles and organs. He recommended the book, Mastering Diabetes and sent links to some videos. I downloaded the book to my Kindle that day. I spent 3 days reading the book and watching the videos and thinking about it. If it is true, that dietary and stored fat cause insulin resistance, then that explains my stop and go success with my diet. The more serious you are about eating low carb, the more of your diet becomes fat.
Low carb diets absolutely lower your blood sugar and your A1c and do so rapidly, but if fat is the problem, they are not helping your diabetes long term. Low carb does not make one more sensitive to insulin. It avoids the problem by limiting the trigger for high glucose levels. I fact, if you eat a diet that is low enough in carbs, your body down regulates your insulin receptors. The first study done which demonstrated that fat induced insulin resistance was done in the 1920s.
Fasting does affect insulin resistance, but again, if you are being very serious about low carb, you are counter balancing that effect by having a higher fat level in your diet than you would otherwise.
So after a few days of study and thinking, I figured I had nothing to lose and dove in. Within about 4 days, I had to get off of Metformin. I would eat a meal of 220 gr. of carbohydrates which would cause a spike in my blood sugars, but my body had already improved it’s sensitivity to insulin that it would slam the level down to the low 70s or less (mg/dL) which I believe is around a 4 in mmol/L. Metformin works by turning off gluco-neogenesis, so my body was unable to generate the sugar it needed to stop my blood sugar falling.
So I am currently in the first week or so of my 5th month of eating this way. I am still not on Metformin. I am also off my statin (many people who fast experience a rapid rise in LDL cholesterol and I was one). I do a 16-hour fast most days, bu not eating breakfast. My most recent A1c was 42mmol/mol (6.0%) and I expect to reach an actual normal A1c. My current weight is 10.14 stone. With this diet, the only thing I have to be aware of is limiting my intake of fatty plants like nuts and avocados. I use no oils of any kind, but there is no other limit on quantities. If you have already cut out processed food and have been living low carb for a long time, this actually feels much easier to me because of the addition of starchy veggies and fruit to my diet.
I recommend the book mentioned above as well as the book How Not to Die. The website nutritionfacts.org has a lot of information and hundreds of videos that are between 6 and 10 minutes long with lots of research on this.
I should say that lowering your blood sugar takes longer than with low carb, because you are working at losing fat instead of avoiding foods that raise your blood sugar. My fasting blood sugar stayed at around 5.8 for a while as things began to normalize, but the level of my spikes lowered almost immediately.
I am not telling anyone how to eat or interested in defending anything I’ve said above. Read the books if you are interested and look up the studies they cite and make up your own mind. I am just answering the original post with my own experience in the use of this diet.
I will be 70 years old in a few months, and I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 40 years ago. At the time of my diagnosis, I weighed 16.78 stone, if the converter on my computer is correct. The American Diabetes Association diet was recommended to me, and I went on it. It was not a great diet (Coca Cola and Mars Candy Co. were on the advisory board of the ADA at the time), but my own diet was so poor that I lost 2.14 some and my blood sugar improved. at that point, progress stopped.
Twenty years ago, after reading Dr. Bernstein’s book, I began eating a very low-carb diet and made an effort to cut out processed food. Again, I lost weight and blood sugars improved. Again, progress stopped.
In 2017, I added fasting to my arsenal of anti-diabetes tools. More progress. I was able to get off my diabetes medicine (Metformin), but again, I hit a wall.
The wheels fell off during Covid and I had to get back on Metformin. I was searching for something to kickstart my diet and did a 5-day fasting-mimicking diet (which I had done before). The diet is plant based and I told the doctor I was working with that I thought I could actually eat a plant-based diet except for the fact that, to get the protein I would need to eat, I would have to eat foods that my my blood sugars skyrocket (beans, potatoes, rice, etc.). He said that, not only could I eat those foods, it was important that I do eat those foods. When I asked for an explanation, he said that insulin resistance is not caused by a lifetime of over-eating carbohydrates, but by dietary fat and fat stored in your muscles and organs. He recommended the book, Mastering Diabetes and sent links to some videos. I downloaded the book to my Kindle that day. I spent 3 days reading the book and watching the videos and thinking about it. If it is true, that dietary and stored fat cause insulin resistance, then that explains my stop and go success with my diet. The more serious you are about eating low carb, the more of your diet becomes fat.
Low carb diets absolutely lower your blood sugar and your A1c and do so rapidly, but if fat is the problem, they are not helping your diabetes long term. Low carb does not make one more sensitive to insulin. It avoids the problem by limiting the trigger for high glucose levels. I fact, if you eat a diet that is low enough in carbs, your body down regulates your insulin receptors. The first study done which demonstrated that fat induced insulin resistance was done in the 1920s.
Fasting does affect insulin resistance, but again, if you are being very serious about low carb, you are counter balancing that effect by having a higher fat level in your diet than you would otherwise.
So after a few days of study and thinking, I figured I had nothing to lose and dove in. Within about 4 days, I had to get off of Metformin. I would eat a meal of 220 gr. of carbohydrates which would cause a spike in my blood sugars, but my body had already improved it’s sensitivity to insulin that it would slam the level down to the low 70s or less (mg/dL) which I believe is around a 4 in mmol/L. Metformin works by turning off gluco-neogenesis, so my body was unable to generate the sugar it needed to stop my blood sugar falling.
So I am currently in the first week or so of my 5th month of eating this way. I am still not on Metformin. I am also off my statin (many people who fast experience a rapid rise in LDL cholesterol and I was one). I do a 16-hour fast most days, bu not eating breakfast. My most recent A1c was 42mmol/mol (6.0%) and I expect to reach an actual normal A1c. My current weight is 10.14 stone. With this diet, the only thing I have to be aware of is limiting my intake of fatty plants like nuts and avocados. I use no oils of any kind, but there is no other limit on quantities. If you have already cut out processed food and have been living low carb for a long time, this actually feels much easier to me because of the addition of starchy veggies and fruit to my diet.
I recommend the book mentioned above as well as the book How Not to Die. The website nutritionfacts.org has a lot of information and hundreds of videos that are between 6 and 10 minutes long with lots of research on this.
I should say that lowering your blood sugar takes longer than with low carb, because you are working at losing fat instead of avoiding foods that raise your blood sugar. My fasting blood sugar stayed at around 5.8 for a while as things began to normalize, but the level of my spikes lowered almost immediately.
I am not telling anyone how to eat or interested in defending anything I’ve said above. Read the books if you are interested and look up the studies they cite and make up your own mind. I am just answering the original post with my own experience in the use of this diet.
