Diabetes & Our Plates
2010 is the 20th anniversary of Dr. Dean Ornish’s landmark study that proved, for the first time, that a plant-based diet could not just slow down the progression of heart disease, not just stop it from getting worse, but actually reverse heart disease and open up clogged arteries. The list of chronic killer diseases that vegan diets can literally reverse continues to grow.
Today, the average American is overweight, and 1 in 3 are medically obese. That’s what’s fueling our epidemic of type 2 diabetes in this country. It used to be called “adult-onset” diabetes, but now so many children are getting it, now we just call it “type 2.” Over the last decade diabetes rates have skyrocketed 90% in the United States, a disease that can set people down the road to dialysis, blindness, gangrene, and multiple amputations. For those of us who think it’s hard to get enough exercise now, let us imagine trying doing it with one foot.
In 2009 the first study in human history of thousands of U.S. vegans was published in the journal of the American Diabetes Association. Vegans were found to be the only dietary group averaging an ideal body weight, 40 pounds slimmer than the average meat-eater in the country. This is consistent with what a recent interventional study found.
Overweight meat-eaters averaging 221 pounds were essentially put on a vegan diet and lost about 25 pounds a year ending up an average weight of 168 lbs at the end of the two-year study. Switching to a plant-based diet resulted in an average of 53 pounds of sustained weight loss.
The American Diabetes Association journal study concluded: “vegetarian diets may in part counteract the environmental forces leading to obesity and increased rates of type 2 diabetes, though only the vegan diets were associated with a BMI [body mass index] in the optimal range. Inclusion of meat, meat products and fish in the diet, even on a less than weekly basis, seems to limit some of the protection associated with a vegan…diet. These findings may be explained by adverse effects of meat and fish…” Even those eating just a few servings of meat a month significantly raised their risk of disease.
So we now know how to prevent diabetes, but how do we treat it? There are certainly lots of different drugs for diabetics that lower blood sugar levels, but sometimes at the expense of increasing one’s risk of heart failure and bone fractures. There has to be a better way.
Just like with heart disease, the same diet that prevents diabetes in the first place can reverse the disease once you have it. One study found that half of diabetics placed on even a near-vegetarian diet didn’t need to take insulin anymore after just 16 days, and those still on insulin were able to cut their dose in half—and that’s after only about 2 weeks!
In 2009 the gauntlet was laid down. The official American Diabetes Association diabetic diet was placed in a head-to-head challenge against a vegan diet. The ADA diet did slow the progression of disease, such that the diabetes of those on the officially recommended diet was just a little bit worse at the end of the study period. On the vegan diet, however, their diabetes actually got better. Significantly better! Just think how many lives eating vegan could save. How many lives, eyes, kidneys, feet, and families.
- Posted by Dr. Michael Greger on January 15, 2010 at 4:00 am
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Tagged as: diabetes, healing, medication, obesity, vegan, vegetarian
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Great article! It is awesome that there are now studies that prove the benefits of a vegan diet. I think the next step is to fund programs providing motivational counseling and guidance to help Type 2 diabetics make these changes (to help overcome the emotional ties to the SAD diet). The payoff in terms of reduced health care costs would put that money back in the government’s pocket.
Also, as a Type 1 diabetic, I thank you for clearly explaining these studies pertain to Type 2 diabetes…. it is a little frustrating when I am told by well-intentioned people that diet can cure my diabetes! My vegan diet hasn’t cured me, but I certainly feel great on it!
Here we are again. Back to the fact that Americans are killing themselves with there forks. This article is one I have been waiting on for a long time. My mother who has eaten fairly well on the SAD for years recently developed type one diabetis. She has loved what this diet has done for my life and my husbands but has been very reluctant to give it a try. She is on an insulin pump and diabetis rules her life. She swings from incredible highs to incredible lows all day. My dad and husband also have type two but my husbands is taken care of by diet. I sent her this article and she is our at Fresh Market stocking up I know the change may happen and it may not but I am so glad this is posted here and she has other studies to read to back it up. She has had it with her life being such a slave to her disease. I pray it can change she is strong enough to do it once she sets her mind to it. Thank you. Callie
One bit I forgot.. it may not be a cure but it is bound to help. The protien and cheese and yogurt she has been instructed to eat are all making in worse. Like all diseases it may be a healing of a type but not a cure. Hugs. Callie
Thank you for linking to the new 7-day Adventist Study. I read it from the beginning to the end.
I really hope that more information about the way vegan diet can change the treatment of diabetes gets out there. Information of cured Type II Diabetes cases is readily available, so I sincerely help that more practicing doctors learn about it and start helping their patients apply it in their lives. There are a lot of those that need their help…
Great article, Dr. Greger. HSUS is lucky to have you.
Very informative article! I know so many people these days who are getting diabetes — the message that we need to eat healthier needs to be said as often as possible.
love this article! especially the part about a little bit of meat. people think that it’s ok but it is great to see a study that proves it wrong.