vegan and raw diets

Hi,

The diet survey diabetes co uk ran on this site was interesting, although only a relatively small group of people completed it. I wondered if anyone who is or has been on a raw or vegan diet had found that their blood sugars improved? I have been vegetarian for a long time, but recently my partner became vegan and when I stay on vegan food for a few days (we take appropriate supplements), I find that my blood glucose goes down very significantly and I can even miss out all bolus insulin (staying on basal). I also find I have a lot more energy and am thinking more clearly.

Hi Saffron,

Thanks for the reply and the link. I have seen the 'raw' film and have the book. I have tried a vegan diet for a couple of weeks now and it both reduced my blood glucose substantially and held it more stable. If it continues to work I will be a very happy bunny

I wonder why, if a change to a vegan diet does work so well, so few people try it and no medic or dietitian volunteers this information?

Hi Cara & Sid,

Re recipies, I have just bought a book called 'Vegan with a Vengeance' (Isa Chandra Moskowitz) which is great - genuinely tasty recipies which are easy to prepare. I find the biggest problem is trying to find 'snacks' which are vegan and don't require much cooking time. My partner (who is a non-diabetic vegan) uses snack bars by a company called 'Nudz' which can be bought from Sainsbury's, they are quite tasty, not too carby, but still some carbs... the 'raw diet' book by Cousens 'There is a cure for diabetes' has lots of snacky and general recipies in it, many of which are really tasty, but do require quite a few herbs and spices and some forethought!

Re 'like meat too much/can't be bothered with vegan'... I take your point re us being omnivorous Sid, but if its a choice between injecting six times a day, going hypo, getting retinopathy and.... not eating meat... I'm not sure I see lack of motivation as all that clever at the end of the day.... ? To be fair, I am vegetarian anyway, so wouldn't eat meat on ethical grounds, but if a vegetarian/vegan diet can genuinely improve outcomes for diabetes, I would have thought enlightened self-interest would get at least some people moving in that direction?!

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your response. Just to clarify, I didn't post the link to the 'raw diet' video, although I have watched it and found it an interesting documentary.

Also, as it happens, I am a scientist and certainly wouldn't advocate anyone following a non-evidence based approach to their health care (unless they have a preferred option they want to adopt for themselves for a possible range of perfectly valid reasons, caveat two being that, frankly, much of the 'mainstream' care offered to diabetics is actually based on quite shoddy 'evidence' and many conventional treatments have been shown, using conventional science, to be harmful).

My post was not intended to advocate an assumed 'miracle cure' or 'nutty-vegan-medic says this is so, so it must be true ' stance. I have recently changed to a vegan diet and have found it to both lower (very significantly) and stabilise my desperately erratic blood glucose. Note here, that I keep rigorous measures and can do the stats on what is, clearly, just a personal 'single case study'. I simply wondered whether anyone else had found this and why, since as you also suggest, there is a clear logic behind why this might work, no-one ever mentions the option of changing to a diet which naturally requires less insulin to cope with. There is some limited research on diet and Type 1, but certainly rather more would be useful given the grim side effects of taking insulin long-term. If a raw or vegan diet has worked for a substantial number of people (and here would seem to be a good forum to initially explore the question), then it may deserve some further research.

Regarding the 'claims' in respect of Type 1 in the video Cara flagged , this is not matched in the book by Dr Cousens, in which he clearly states that the suggested diet is not a 'cure' for Type 1, but hypothesises that the raw/vegan diet may be a diet which some Type 1's may be able to cope with with less or even no exogenous insulin, since they have residual beta cell function and the amount of insulin still produced is enough to cope with the more limited insulin demands of the food source.

Out of interest, have you looked closely at much of the research evidence on conventional interventions for diabetes? If so, I would suggest that you may perhaps have noticed that there are rather more Elephants in the cupboard than is even possible in respect of a simple dietary change.

Thanks again for your comments, all discussion is good

Hi Pheonix,

Yes, you are absolutely right, if people are using 'raw' and/or vegan diets its important that supplements are taken if the diet isn't carefully worked out, my vegan partner has been taking a brand called 'raw meal' and 'raw protein' powder to ensure adequate vitamins and minerals, which I have started taking also. Having said which, any unbalanced diet (including heavily meat oriented) will require supplements for good health and most of us these days are probably lacking in necessary vitamins and minerals given constraints on time and poor quality food.

I realised I made a mistake in attributing the link to the 'raw' video - I think it was Saffron, not Cara who mentioned it - apologies.

Also, it was the impact of a vegan diet I was particularly interested in, experience with a raw diet would be really interesting also, but I doubt there are many people on the forum who have tried this (?)