Type 2 diabetes and Metabolic syndrome

The world health organisation states that the number of people with diabetes will more than double from 120 million today to 300 million in just one generation. Diabetes can trigger heart, brain, eye, and arterial problems and the life expectancy of an individual is therefore considerably below what it should be.

In our clinical experience, diabetes can be reversed and a normal HBA1C result achieved in as quick as 2 weeks.

Mediterranean type diets have consistently shown in studies to improve insulin sensitivity and to ameliorate the adverse symptoms of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.  It is a low- glycaemic-load diet, which means that its foods don’t spike the level of sugar in the blood after eating. This lessens the demand on the pancreas to secrete insulin, and it lowers the need to immediately transport glucose into the tissues.

Participants in a recent clinical trial we given no calorie restrictions; rather, they were encouraged to eat as much as they wanted of foods on the approved low-glycaemic-load list while avoiding everything that would considered high glycaemic foods such as sugary and refined foods.  In our view, the taste of sweetness, whether through sugar or through artificial sweeteners, set up an entirely different response to foods and alters the glucose response.

The control group followed the modified Mediterranean diet eating plan exclusively but a second study group added to it a particular type of natural supplement, (now known as a medical food) to improve glucose transport by stabilising insulin signalling.  Both groups also followed a daily walking program as the research is clear: daily walking can improve insulin sensitivity in sedentary people.

The most visible result of the 12 week trial was weight loss; participants on average lost about a pound of body fat per week.  Test results were equally impressive: 75% of markers for insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome simply disappeared.

The most remarkable outcome, however, was the effect of the medical food taken by the study group.  Their results trumped even the positive results of the control group.  In other words, the study demonstrated the excellent results the Mediterranean diet can achieve in terms of managing insulin resistance, can be further improved if the diet is supplemented with specific plant based phytonutrients that support the glucose transport process.