Pritikin diet reverses diabetes?

[Marillia]

So sayeth this article. (http://www.prevention.com/cda/article/heal-yourself-with-food/c9c5087566f18110VgnVCM10000013281eac____/monthly.issue)

They're also pushing a vegan diet for cholesterol problems and heart disease.

It's such an amazing claim that it's hard to believe: You can beat some of the most dangerous medical conditions around simply by eating right and exercising. But this promise isn't snake oil or even an exaggeration--it's scientific fact. Studies done at leading research centers show that food can do what drugs often can't: Restore your health and vitality.

These determined women triumphed over ailments that plague millions of Americans: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Instead of giving in to a lifetime on prescription drugs, they took control of their health by adopting diets that have been proven to fight disease. The eating plans (plus moderate exercise for two of the regimens) demanded commitment. But the results were so fast and dramatic, they inspired the women to stick with the changes. Each discovered, to her astonishment, that her new routine quickly stopped feeling like work and became a way of life. Today they're all healthier, fitter, and feeling great.

[anyway...]

It's such a shame that the media will never follow two paragraphs like that with:

"And they did it with ribeye. All hail the low carb diet."

[Azlocarb]

I did the Pritikin diet for a while a long time ago and if I remember correctly I was eating a lot of beans and brown rice so it is probably better then SAD(lots of gas though..LOL). Pritikin was diagnosed with heart disease but when he died they did an autopsy and found his arteries to be free of buildup. He died at the age of 69 from malignant lymphoma. Isn’t that an auto immune disease? So you could say his diet fixed his heart but screwed his immune system. Antidotal either way you look at it.

[glennette]

yeah, but what's the long term consequences of this diet? :lol:

Actually I didn't read past page two, just couldn't take it. If this was an article on low carb the nay sayers would be all over it in a millon ways but it seems that as long as it supports the low fat cr*p it won't receive even the slightest critical eye. This whole article looks like a ad for Pritican. But what can you expect from Prevention, they've always been low fat. I noticed that they only allow their members to recommend the article, no nay sayers allowed there. :nono:

I really can't buy the reduction in bg with rice, bread, and fruits. Nor do I believe that diabeties is a calorie driven disease . My #'s improved immediately and dramaticly with an lc diet. How ever the #'s have not made big strides since, even as the weight loss continued. The drop has been from an A1c of 10 to a 3 month drop to 6.4 and remained in the low 6's for over a year. This year it dropped to 5.7 but that drop may be due to some of the supplements I was taking.

I also noticed that they didn't use A1c #, just bg fasting #'s. Was that to avoid having to confess that their bg levels are still going sky high after their meals? :rolleyes: Now they have to run out and exercize like crazy in an attempt to use up those carb, I don't have to!

Also, it only cost me the price of a book instead of the $$$$ that it cost them to go to a spa. And instead of paying weight watchers and a gym for the rest of my life, I only have to buy good food. Suckers!!! :lol:

[LessLiz]

I became diabetic eating the T-factor diet, which is danged near identical to Pritikin.

[girlgerms]

I'm pretty sure Pritikin had the condition from which he eventually died well-before his famous diet. So he actually prolonged his life. There is a much greater emphasis on exercise doing Pritikin than doing Atkins.

[64dodger]

Pritikin diet reverses diabetes

When pigs fly.

[tom sawyer]

The headline might more accurately read "Pritikin Diet better than SAD".

Glennette, sorry to hear your A1c hasn't improved more. I was just reading an article by Bernstein and he says 6 is still too high since it equates to a bg of around 130. Are you considering any meds at this point? Are you on the induction level of carbs or have you felt the need to move to a maintenance level? I'm glad you shared your story, certainly we want to hear the instances where LC hasn't completely reversed illness/health problems. While there might be some hidden carbs or such accounting for your results, its also possible that this way of eating can't always completely reverse a lifetime of poor eating. I think you can rest assured that you are doing the right thing in terms of diet though, so if/when you resrt to other means of control you can feel like you've done your absolute best.

[tom sawyer]

My dad (may he rest in peace) tried to stay on Pritikin, basically impossible for him though. So whether it works, is somewhat of a moot issue. Its like starving, sure it is good for health but it isn't something for the long haul. Not for the majority of people at least.

[amandawood]

Any diet which gets people's weight off will "cure" diabetes. My first book about dieting was "Eat to Live" by Joel Fuhrman - he raves about how the ultra-low-fat diet he proposes got a lot of his patients off diabetes meds plus other meds for high blood pressure and the like.

I got a lot of weight off following the "Eat to Live" principles loosely, but I lost muscle, too, and got ill with colds a lot more often in the winter after I started. And the diagram he shows about how your stomach will be more full after eating 500g of salad greens than after eating a steak is just laughable. I didn't have a clue about low-carb back then but I wrote in the margin "and what about satiety?"

I now eat low-carb and am not constantly starving - but losing weight nice and easily - and feel better, too!

Those low-fat diets may get results, too, but they don't do a lot for improving your quality of life in my opinion.

amanda

[renegadiab]

I got a lot of weight off following the "Eat to Live" principles loosely, but I lost muscle, too, and got ill with colds a lot more often in the winter after I started.

Interesting. Fuhrman's web site is called "disease proof" which implies you won't get sick if you follow "Eat to Live."

This reminds me of the hype about a vegan diet reversing diabetes. Regina Wilshire pointed out that the vegan diet beat the ADA diet (not surprising), but both diets failed to acheive the ADA's standard of A1C below 7%. That didn't stop the PCRM crowd from milking it for all it's worth. There is now a book about reversing diabetes through a vegan diet.

As far as I'm concerned, trying to follow a low fat diet gave me diabetes.

[Marillia]

Any diet which gets people's weight off will "cure" diabetes. My first book about dieting was "Eat to Live" by Joel Fuhrman - he raves about how the ultra-low-fat diet he proposes got a lot of his patients off diabetes meds plus other meds for high blood pressure and the like.
I keep hearing this. How does this work, exactly?

[glennette]

The headline might more accurately read "Pritikin Diet better than SAD".

Glennette, sorry to hear your A1c hasn't improved more. I was just reading an article by Bernstein and he says 6 is still too high since it equates to a bg of around 130. Are you considering any meds at this point? Are you on the induction level of carbs or have you felt the need to move to a maintenance level? I'm glad you shared your story, certainly we want to hear the instances where LC hasn't completely reversed illness/health problems. While there might be some hidden carbs or such accounting for your results, its also possible that this way of eating can't always completely reverse a lifetime of poor eating. I think you can rest assured that you are doing the right thing in terms of diet though, so if/when you resrt to other means of control you can feel like you've done your absolute best.

Hi Tom, :wave: thanks for your concern. While my #'s aren't down to Bernstein's (who I believe to be correct) levels , at an A1c of 5.7 (my last reading) which equates to an average of bg of 126 I'm no longer concidered a diabetic by the standards that are being used at this time. And I'm a bit concered that my insurance will soon stop covering my A1c's and test strips.

As for meds, unfortunetly I'm allergic to the sulfas and very sensitive to most drugs. Now the weight loss has made me even more sensitive to them. Have had to stop 2 of my heart meds. and we're still looking for one that I can take for the afibs that won't produce intolerable side effects. When dx'ed I was taking 3 drugs that can raise your bg, I stopped one immediatly but the other 2, I can't ever stop, that's for my thyroid and diuretic for the chf. I did talk doc into letting me try Metformin a few months ago with a promiss that I'd stop the moment I experienced any reaction, especially water retention since this drug is not recommended for people with heart failure which I've had for much longer than diabeties. I only lasted 4 days on it. :( Doc said I'd have to see an Endo if I want to try anything else.

She isn't being mean or non caring, she just knows how sensitive I am and that my options would be limited. When she had to call to tell me about the diabeties you would have thought she was delivering a death sentence she even called back in a week to check up on me even though she would see me in 2 week, as I saw her every month then. My heart is in pretty bad condition and I had been told to have a heart transplant 4 years ago, which I refused. So I think we both thought that this would be the last straw.

Luckily I'd seen Dr. Bernstein on Charlie Rose a few year before that. And I did Atkins for a few months before that (until I had a stroke and dvt) which prevented me from preparing decent meals for quite a while. But I knew about the Berstein folder here so I went right to it and started back low carbing the very evening doc called to tell me about the diabeties. Both my Doc and I believe that low carbing has saved my life at least for a few years more than I would have had if I'd had to continue my low fat diet and added more drugs.

She was not a low carb advocate before she wittnessed my results from it. Now she tells other patients about me, she told me that she doesn't tell my name but I told her it was perfectly ok to do so. And she has had the Nurse stop me at the reception door (leaving it wide open)to loudly complement my weight loss and ask (athough she already knew) how & why I did it(low carb & to control my diabeties I reply as loudly as I can), so that the entire waiting room could hear. Nurse also told me that the head Doc has even gone on a low carb diet. :D

I'm still primarily doing induction levels (usually lower) and rarely eat out so there is rarely even a chance for incountering hidden carbs. I do knowingly cheat about once a month but rarely even then, reaching a 2 hr. pp of 150 this tells me that meter bg #'s do not correspond to a 3 month A1c average.

I feel like you might have misinterpeted what I was saying (I can't always express myself adequately) , I was not saying that low carb doesn't work, I was trying to say that "weight reduction" doesn't correspond to blood glucose readings. Which is what the article was saying.

When dx'ed my A1c was 10 and my apx. 2 hr. pp was 193, didn't do a fasting at that time so I can't compare those #'s. One month later on my first fasting level after dx was 109 (remember the Pritican's patient's fasting was 112 after a trip to the spa proably starving to death and lots of exercise to boot). A few hours later the Nurse got a 115 reading for an apx. 2 hr. pp. At that point I had only lost 5 lbs.! So I acheived a 78 2 hr. pp drop for just 5 lbs of weight loss and no exercise! The next A1c, which was 3 months after the dx, had dropped from a 10 to a 6.4, that's a not a bad drop all things concidered. I continued on to loose 55 more lbs but the #'s did not make another big improvement so.. if it was weight that makes the improvement then the #'s should be comming down slowly as the weight comes off, right? Not a hugh drop over a mere 5 lb. weight loss and then not much change as next 55 lbs. come off.

So what I'm trying to say is.. Low carb works immediatly and dramaticly and weight loss doesn't have nearly the impact that "they" believe it should. Will my #'s keep comming down? Hope so but I've recently noticed that pain, exertion or even a bout of a-fibs will elevate my reading by anywhere from 20 to 40 points, this may account for my difference in meter vs. A1c readings. But I've heard a lot of people express the same problem of A1c's not matching meter reading yet don't seem to have the problem of these things rasing their readings. So who knows why there is a difference but please note that in the Pritican article they do not use A1c #'s or Post Prandial #'s
only fasting #'s so I don't think they are giving us the complete picture. And I have to wonder if this isn't on purpose b/c the complete picture may not look as good.

I don't belive this was caused from a "lifetime of poor eating" it only took about 15 years of a low fat diet I started in order to lose 10 lbs of Doctor ordered weight gained for reconstuctive surgery after a mastectomy. My weight when I started the low fat diet was 120 lb.and it's hysterical to think that I concidered 120 Ibs as a problem then, but at that point I'd never weighed more than 136 which only took 21 hr. of labor and 2 week later when I returned to work I was down to 100 lbs without even giving it a second thought. It was only when someone at work said it was a shame that I couldn't have kept some of the weight, that I got on the shipping scale to prove that I hadn't lost that much weight.

I was brought up in a house that treats were really rare, basicly holidays and the once or twice a year when it was my parents time to host the monthly get to gether for thier group of friends. The next morning us kids would rush out to finsh all the leftover sodas, potato chips, dips & prezel's as this was the only time that these items were availible and there was never much left over. We rarley even had fruits l as mother got them only in season, heck they may have only been availble in season then. I raised my child the same way. So basicly I had almost 45 years of probably a medium/low carb diet as we did have bread, potatoes, and occasional an occasional pasta dish. I'm the only one in my family to ever gain weight or to go on a low fat diet. I do believe there is a connection, just wish I would have made it sooner instead of blaming myself for it not working I think another problem was that I wanted to believe the self proclaimed "experts" rather than my parents upbring. That stupid desire seems to last a lifetime instead of just in your youth.

Sorry for going on so long, I usually try to keep things short as I know I have a tendency to try to regurgitate my life story. :blush:

[LessLiz]

I keep hearing this. How does this work, exactly?It doesn't. There are Type II diabetics that started out 20 pounds overweight, lost down to ideal weight, and still have diabetes. There are Type II diabetics who have maintained normal blood glucose for years at ideal weight who still react strongly, and abnormally, to glucose tolerance tests.

I say this after having become diabetic on a low fat diet, and reversed type II diabetes on Atkins, and having 3 glucose tolerance tests taken over a 5 year period that are completely normal.

The only group I know of that has been studied for reversal of Type II is gastric bypass patients. Was a small study. Some of them also had normal glucose tolerance tests. Their diets were low carb. I might be able to find it again if I hunted for it. The conclusion, of course, is that gastric bypass surgery can cure Type II diabetes. I suspect it was not the surgery but the diet.

[Marillia]

Fair enough, Liz.

So, then, what did happen to these ladies if their diabetes was improved?

[LessLiz]

I don't know why weight loss allows for improved blood sugar control. I can only speculate. Simply losing 10% of one's body weight by diet seems to make a big difference for a lot of diabetics, but I have not read the studies so I do not know enough to comment.

What I can say is that having well controlled blood sugar levels is not the same as "cure." That is somewhat akin to having herpes without having an outbreak. The test, in the case of diabetes, is what happens to the system when it is stressed by a load of sugar. A diabetic with good control will ordinarily not willing test that by diet, because they do not want to mess up the balance they have obtained. They only reason I say that mine is "reversed" is that GTT yield a "normal" profile.

I have no doubt that if I returned to former eating patterns for an extended period of time that I would first become strongly insulin resistant followed by full blown Type II diabetes. However, I'll just accept that on faith rather than test out the hypothesis I so strongly believe. :)