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This fatty liver plays a crucial role in the development of insulin resistance. Fructose’s propensity to cause fatty liver is unique among carbohydrates.
Since fatty liver and the resultant insulin resistance is a key contributor to hyperinsulinemia and obesity, this means that fructose is far more dangerous than glucose.
Low high-density
But having one of these factors increases the likelihood of having the others because they all share the same root cause.
If we fail to remove the problems of too much sugar, too much insulin, and ectopic fat, then the problem is chronic and progressive. When we treat the root cause, then type 2 diabetes, and indeed the entire metabolic syndrome, is a completely reversible disease.
THE EXERCISE APPROACH
In the end, the main problem is that type 2 diabetes is not caused by lack of exercise.
Reversing type 2 diabetes depends upon treating the root cause of the disease, which is dietary.
The obvious solution is to turn off the faucet.
The problem was not that the disease was chronic and progressive. The problem was that our treatment didn’t really work.
All bariatric surgeries are effective because they create a sudden, severe caloric reduction. The simplest explanation is often the correct one.
The problem is not the disease but our treatment and understanding of it.
What is the solution they’re talking about? Simple. A low-carbohydrate diet.
The Mediterranean diet reduced heart disease and death by a jaw-dropping 75 percent.
In fact, consuming lots of eggs reduces the risk of diabetes by 42 percent.
Sugar and refined carbohydrates have a high glycemic load, which raises blood glucose and the risk of type 2 diabetes. This, in turn, significantly increases the risk of heart disease.
Specifically, four were found beneficial: the low-carbohydrate diet, low glycemic-index diet, Mediterranean diet, and high-protein diet. All four diets share a common trait: they reduce dietary carbohydrates to varying degrees.
However, avoiding sugar and refined carbohydrates remains the cornerstone of success.
GET RID OF SUGAR—GET RID OF DIABETES
Carbohydrates are the big insulin hogs. They break down into glucose, which requires insulin to get into the cells. Fructose, found in sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, directly causes insulin resistance, which leads back to hyperinsulinemia. Due to its unique metabolic pathway, fructose is many times more likely to cause insulin resistance than glucose.
Rule#1: Avoid fructose
artificial sweeteners are no better than sugar. Avoid them all.
Rule#2: Reduce refined carbohydrates and enjoy natural fats
Remember that carbohydrates are not intrinsically bad foods. Many traditional societies ate diets heavy in carbohydrates and thrived. The refining process is the major problem. Removing the natural fats and protein and leaving behind a pure carbohydrate is not natural, and our bodies have not evolved to handle that change.
Rule#3: Eat real food
When traditional societies eating traditional diets begin to eat highly processed foods and sugar, however, obesity and type 2 diabetes follow closely behind.
A FOURTH RULE, IN CASE THE FIRST THREE AREN’T ENOUGH
What if these simple dietary changes are not enough? Like many solutions, the answer is not new. It’s the oldest dietary intervention known to humans, its natural cleansing power has been harnessed by virtually all religions in the world, it’s free, and it can be done anywhere. What am I talking about? The power of fasting.
Fasting produced almost twice the weight loss of bariatric surgery.
Further, exercise only benefits the skeletal muscles and not the fatty liver that is the cornerstone of this disease.
Constant caloric restriction is not the same as intermittent fasting.
So whatever else you may believe, portion control does not work.
Resistance depends not only upon high insulin levels but also upon the persistence of those elevated levels.
It was the intermittency of the diet that made it effective.
In other words, fasting is four times better at preserving lean mass. (So much for that old “fasting burns the muscle” myth.)
Chronic caloric reduction forces the body to shut down in order to match the lowered caloric intake. This compensation is sometimes called “starvation mode.”
And nothing beats fasting for bringing down insulin.
If dietary interventions reduce both blood glucose and insulin for type 2 diabetes, why do we need medications at all? We don’t. Type 2 diabetes is a dietary disease, and fixing the diet will reverse the disease.
All these successful trials shared one common factor of overriding importance. They all used lifestyle interventions, not medications. So type 2 diabetes is not only a treatable disease, but a preventable one.
It’s time to stop pretending type 2 diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease, and it’s time to stop treating it that way. Clearly type 2 diabetes is a dietary and lifestyle disease.
But here’s what is important. A dietary disease requires a dietary treatment.
The conventional treatment recommended by virtually every doctor in the world is not correct.
Breaking paradigms is hard work. We were so intent on treating the high blood glucose that we forgot to treat the diabetes.
Trial after trial showed that these low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets were safe and effective.
Since refined carbohydrates stimulate insulin the most and dietary fat the least, the obvious solution was to eat a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet.
