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Post Newcastle Diet results

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youngmanfrank

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One month after I completed my Newcastle diet last year all my results came back in the normal non-diabetic range,indicating that I had improved my insulin sensitivity.I have now completed the next 3 months off medication.During this period I deliberately chose to eat "normal" foods without concession to diabetes,but calorie controlled to around 1800 calories per day to maintain my weight loss.My latest results following extensive testing are as follows:

Hb 39 (5.7%) and GTT 6.6. During this period fasting bloods have varied from 4.9 to 5.5 with an average of 5.2.The few tests I have taken 2 hours after meals have varied from 5.8 -7.1 with an average of 6.1.All these seem to fall within a normal non-diabetic range although possibly biased towards the top end of the non-diabetic range (?)These figures are consistent with eating more and taking less care in my choice of food but are up on what I achieved one month after completing the diet.

Weight remains constant at 12 stones exactly.For the next phase of this experiment I intend to be more selective about the type of food consumed eg no more white bread and pizza ,back to low/medium GI foods.I have maintained my exercise regime,running,walking and swimming most days and this will not change as it is now part of my life style.

Other than that I feel mentally fantastic and have lost a lot of the niggly diabetes related symptoms,such as skin problems.To end controversially,it is early days but perhaps diabetes can be reversed?
 
Great news! I've got a bit of a theory on the cumulative effect of carbs. If I was in your position, I'd be doing the Newcastle diet again (maybe only for 2 or 3 weeks) to re-set your body prior to cutting out pizza & bread...
 
Your results sound great and anyone who can stick to that low cal regime deserves congratulating! I read a book that might interest you and I would recommend it for the coming phase of your experimentation - Patrick Holford Say No To Diabetes. He recommends supplements as an alternative to metformin to boost insulin receptors more effectively and without side effects and other T2 medications plus a low GI dietand of course exercise. The idea is to win the war against diabetes and not just tbe battle. My dad is T2 (I am type 1) but is stuck in the rigid beleif that diabetes medication is sufficient and that he doesn't really need to lose the weight that probably helped produce his diabetes in the first place.
Patrick Holford also speculates as to why the Newcastle study worked (he reckons it is because it was so low cal it was by extension low GI though I guess that is not the case if people were using SlimFast shakes) and suggests that people may want to try alternate day dieting as this produced the same results in lab rats as the Newcastle approach. Overall though his low GL diet and supplements advice seems more sustainable over the long term to keep diabetes at bay. Good luck!
 
Newcastle say that their diet works by de-fatting the pancreas and liver,following which your insulin is produced normally and starts to work normally,ie insulin sensitivity is restored.Combine this with life style changes,including permanent weight loss and you might have won the battle.

The problem with medication/supplements/exotic diets is that they are controlling the symptoms of the condition and not addressing the underlying cause.It amused me at the time I did my diet that people were solemly stating that Slimfast was bad because it contains too much carbohydrate.The bottles are only 230 calories so three of them amount to 690 calories,add in your salad vegetables and you have only 800-900 calories per day.On that amount of energy they could have been 100% high GI carbohydrate and your blood sugars would still have been too low.On some days I was burning that amount of calories on exercise alone.The body survives by metabolising fat into energy,starting with fat in the pancreas and liver ,moving on to visceral fat later in the diet,hence the extreme weight loss.

In the end it was only 8 weeks and I am now most certainly not on a low calorie diet,but still weigh 12 stones.I downloaded some software for graphing my fasting blood sugars and this shows (graphically!) that off medication I am naturally controlling my fasting blood sugars in a fairly narrow range,with an average reading over the month of 5.2.Other than that I don't test any more.Next Hb due March 2013.
 
This Newcastle diet always slightly irritates me when i read about it. Mainly because many people will not specify they are trying to 'reverse' type TWO diabetes, leaving too much room for people to assume i can now live without insulin. Secondly the word 'reverse' sounds to me like a choice of word born from the fear of daring to say cured. So in my opinion both mean the same.

Which leads to my opinion that Type 2 diabetes will not be cured/reversed/eradicated using the Newcastle diet until someone can prove they can lead an identical life as someone with no prior history of any diabetes. This to me means can maintain normal ranges of HBA1c/Fasting glucose/ Tolerance of Cr*p loads of carbs and little or no exercise. If you go on the Newcastle diet, afterwards get great results and maintain this then four months down the line, start eating bread, pasta and are unable to maintain 'normal' blood glucose ranges then your diabetes ain't reversed or cured. The Newcastle diet so far seems to be a hell of an effective treatment for Type 2 diabetes, but it has yet to reach 'Cure' Status.

By all means does my opinion mean to take any pride away from the results you have had so far following this diet, i welcome the day where someone can say 'In your face Ebony i am CURED' because i'd give you a big fat high five! unfortunately there is no evidence that i am aware of that concludes yet that Type 2 diabetes can be reversed or cured, if there was it would have stayed in the news for longer than 5 minutes.

You did say you wanted to end controversially
 
The simple fact is that a significant percentage of the population are going to develop T2 diabetes when eating a modern "healthy" high carb diet. The other way I think about it is "carbohydrate intolerant".

I believe that if I had not consumed as much carbohydrate in the past then I would not developed T2. If I had followed a reduced carb diet, (not a low-carb) I probably wouldn't have "knackered" my pancreas and would be able to tolerate occasional high carb meals without spiking my blood. People who have a tougher pancreas than me can carry on eating carbs as much as they like, without ill effect for their entire lives. Its just the way it is.

As it is, for whatever reason, my pancreas is damaged and I think the Newcastle diet will go some way to repairing it. With any chronic injury problem, you will probably never get back to 100% but if it gets it back to 85% then it is certainly beneficial. If this means as part of a carb controlled diet, you can eat the occasional steak and chips without a problem then this is a bonus.

The real benefit is stretching out the life of your pancreas and avoiding long term medication, stopping T2 becoming the progressive disease that a lot of HCPs consider it to be.

At the moment, I am controlling my BG with a low carb diet alone. It's not for everyone but I find it much preferable to the thought of long term meds, eventually leading to insulin dependence.

I am still losing weight through the low carb and exercise, my intention is carry on until I am not dropping weight so quickly, set a new weight target and the use the Newcastle diet to reach it.

I do not expect to be ever "cured" of my T2 but I can certainly get as much mileage as possible out of my poor old pancreas!

Besides, with what I have learnt since my , I would never want to go back to carbohydrate based diet again, even with a full cure! I don't think homo sapiens were ever supposed to consume as much carb as we currently do.
 
I think a large part of the problem is the quantity of food that people eat,which can at times totally amaze me.Now I am thinking in calorie terms I realise that the start of my problems was that filling my large plate three times a day probably resulted in a calorie consumption of 3000+ calories per day.This overloads the pancreas which will produce huge quantities of insulin to which the body eventually becomes intolerant.

Yesterday I started with a small cereal bowl of shreddies and a banana,followed by a home made yoghurt/fruit smoothy.Lunch was a home made turkey curry (small foil tray size)plus a small mini naan.Tea was two slices of granary toast with baked beans and a slice of ham.In between I meals I ate an apple (am) and 2 oz of mixed nuts and raisins (pm).I exercised after every meal,yesterday it was the usual 3 mile run for the paper,plus two hour long dog walks.This resulted in a fasting blood sugar of 5.2,my average result.I am not sure whether this is considered low/medium/high carb.

The Newcastle diet seems to improve insulin insensitivity,however if you have a (genetic?) propensity towards type 2 diabetes presumably you will regress if you do not change something post diet.It is not a licence to return to previous habits of diet and exercise.
 

Even though I am doing the Newcastle diet at the moment I do agree with you. This is not a cure, there is no cure. I see it as a real and so far a proven way to give my pancreas the very best chance I can. We will all have different amounts of pancreatic function, so some of us may get exceedingly good post diet outcomes, that means we can eat and tolerate more carbs and still keep good BG control, some of us may not get quite such results. Either way, I think there is no harm trying this as a way to give our pancreas a chance at least. I am T2 by the way :lolno:
 
ebony321 said:
The Newcastle diet so far seems to be a hell of an effective treatment for Type 2 diabetes, but it has yet to reach 'Cure' Status.
Click to expand...

I am Type 2 and am giving the "Newcastle diet" a whirl, but I do agree with you.

My main reservation about Professor Taylor's report on the study lie in the presentation of the statistics and the conclusions that most folks seem to draw from them. The report says that the fasting BG and HBA1C of the diabetic group were reduced to normal levels by week 8 and were "not significantly different" from the control group. Whilst this is true, the FBG and HBA1C for the diabetic group were still higher than those for the control group. It is entirely possible that had the sample size been higher, the (same) difference in FBG and HBA1C between the diabetic group and control at the end of the trial would have been significantly different.

The term "statistically significant" (p<0.05) means that the probability is less than 5 in 100 that the result was obtained by chance alone. The term "not statistically different" does NOT mean that the FBG and HBA1C results for the diabetic group are proven to be the same, it merely means that they are not proven to be different. This might sound like pedantry, but on a practical level it means that the diet is not proven to be a "cure" for Type 2 diabetes and will not be unless repeated with a much larger sample size and with follow-up after several months on a "normal" diet.

Having said all that, it seems to me that this "Newcastle diet" is the best bet I have at the moment for reducing the complications in my life inflicted upon me by this condition Type 2 diabetes. Even if it is not a "cure" and I have to keep the carbs down for the rest of my life using the Atkins maintenance phase (or similar), it looks to me to be the best bet around.

Andrew
 
I remember reading a book years ago called the blood group diet and it put the idea forward that people with type O blood shouldn''t really eat grains at all but type A's should. I don't think the author realy had any evidence for this and I don't know if any has appeared over the years?
 
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