HORMONES CONTROL HUNGER, telling our body when to eat and when to stop. Ghrelin is a powerful hormone that causes hunger and cholecystokinin and peptide YY are hormones that tell us when we are full and should stop eating. Imagine you’re at all-you-can-eat buffet. You’ve already eaten many heaping platefuls of food and you are completely, 110 percent full.
Now, could you eat a few more pork chops? Merely the thought might make you nauseous. Yet these are the same pork chops you ate happily just a few minutes ago. The difference is that satiety hormones are exerting a powerful effect to stop you from eating. Contrary to many popular beliefs, we do not continue eating simply because food is available. Calorie consumption is under tight hormonal regulation.
Fat accumulation is truly not a problem of energy excess. It’s a problem of energy distribution. Too much energy is diverted to producing fat as opposed to, say, increasing body heat or forming new bone tissue. This energy expenditure is controlled hormonally. As long as we believed, wrongly, that excessive caloric intake led to obesity, we were doomed to failure as we uselessly tried to reduce calories.
We cannot “decide” to feel less hungry. We cannot “decide” to increase basal metabolic rate.
If we eat fewer calories, our body simply compensates by decreasing its metabolic rate. If calories are not the underlying cause of weight gain, then reducing calories cannot reliably reduce weight. The most important factor in controlling fat accumulation and weight gain is to control the hormonal signals we receive from food, not the total number of calories we eat.
Obesity is a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one. The hormonal problem in undesired weight gain is mainly excessive insulin. Thus, type 2 diabetes, too, is a disease about insulin imbalance rather than caloric imbalance.
The crucial point to understand, however, is not how insulin causes obesity, but that insulin does, in fact, cause obesity. Once we understand that obesity is a hormonal imbalance, we can begin to treat it. If we believe that excess calories cause obesity, then the treatment is to reduce calories. But this method has been a complete failure. However, if too much insulin causes obesity, then it
becomes clear we need to lower insulin levels. The question is not how to balance calories; the question is how to balance our hormones. The most crucial question in obesity is how to reduce insulin.
IF INSULIN CAUSES weight gain, can lowering its levels have the opposite effect? As insulin is reduced to very low levels, we should expect significant and severe weight loss. The SGLT -2 (sodium-glucose linked transporter) inhibitors, which lower glucose and insulin, are an example of the effect that lowering insulin may have on weight (albeit in their case, the effect is mild).
Another more dramatic example is the untreated type 1 diabetic patient. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that destroys the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas. Insulin falls to extremely low levels. Blood sugar increases, but the hallmark of this condition is severe weight loss. Type 1 diabetes has been described since ancient times. Aretaeus of Cappadocia, a renowned ancient Greek physician, wrote the classic description: “Diabetes is… a melting down of flesh and limbs into urine.” No matter how many calories the patient ingests, he or she cannot gain any weight. Until the discovery of insulin, this disease was almost universally fatal.
Insulin levels go waaayyy down. Patients lose a lot of weight. In the type 1 diabetic community, there is a disorder called “diabulimia.” Today, type 1 diabetic patients are treated by daily injections of insulin. There are some patients who wish to lose weight for cosmetic reasons. Diabulimia is the deliberate under-dosing of insulin for the purpose of immediate and substantial weight loss. It is extremely dangerous and certainly not advisable. However, the practice persists because it is an extremely effective form of weight loss. Insulin levels go down. Weight is lost.
Later in this book, you will learn how to lower your insulin levels the natural and safe way. But first let’s check the three rules for reversing type 2 diabetes.
ONCE WE UNDERSTAND how type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance develop, we can implement strategies that carry a reasonable chance of reversing it. Here are top three food “rules” for reducing blood glucose, reducing insulin and reversing type 2 diabetes.
Rule#1: Avoid fructose
The most important rule, without exception, is to eliminate all added sugars from your diet. Recall that insulin resistance is the result of fatty liver becoming overfilled and unable to accept more glucose. The most important determinant of fatty liver is not just carbohydrates, but the fructose contained in sucrose(table sugar) and high-fructose corn syrup.
Remember that every single cell in the body can help disperse glucose, but the liver is the only organ that can metabolize fructose. Thus, fructose is many times more likely to cause fatty liver than glucose. Since sucrose is composed of equal amounts of glucose and fructose, it is the primary cause of fatty liver, bar none. Pure fructose is not commonly available, but may be found in some processed foods.
Some obvious foods to eliminate are sugar-sweetened beverages, including sodas, iced tea, sports drinks, mixed alcoholic drinks, juices, smoothies, coffee drinks and “enhanced” water. These liquids are loaded with sugar. Cookies, cakes, desserts, muffins, cupcakes and ice cream are the other obvious sources.
Virtually all processed foods contain added sugars for the simple reason that they enhance flavour and texture at virtually no cost. Check the labels on meat products, where sugar is often added to the sauce or during processing. Sugar is often hidden in condiments (ketchup, relish), spaghetti/tomato sauces, flavoured yogurts, salad dressings, barbecue sauces, apple sauce and spice mixes. Cereals and granola bars are usually very high in sugar too. And ask about your restaurant meals; sugar is often included in savoury dishes because it’s a cheap way to make all foods taste better.
What about fruit? The truth is there is no chemical difference between the fructose contained naturally in fruit and the fructose contained within sucrose. As with anything, the dose makes the poison. My best advise is to avoid eating excessive amounts of fruit, especially as many modern varieties are now available year-round and have been bred to be sweeter than in the past. Dried fruits are usually high in sugar, so you’re probably best to avoid raisins, dried cranberries, fruit leathers and the like.
What about artificial sweeteners? I advise to avoid all sweeteners, whether they contain calories or not. The logic is simple. If non-caloric sweeteners could truly reduce diabetes and obesity, then we would not have an epidemic on our hands. We have used these chemicals extensively in our food supply for decades and the empirical evidence is clear: artificial sweeteners are no better than sugar. Avoid them all.
Rule#2: Reduce refined carbohydrates and enjoy natural fats
Hyperinsulimenia and fatty liver are the key problems leading to the development of the metabolic syndrome, including obesity. Since refined carbohydrates, of all the food groups, cause the highest rise in insulin levels, it makes sense to eat less of them. Most processed products made with wheat, corn, rice and potatoes belong in this group.
Reduce or avoid refined wheat products such as bread, pasta, waffles, muffins, cupcakes and doughnuts. Limit processed corn products, such as popcorn, corn chips and tortillas, and refined potato products, particularly french fries and potato chips. High-fructose corn syrup contains 55% fructose, which means it’s sugar, not a corn. It’s found in many processed food products and should be avoided.
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. Even many whole-wheat and whole-grain products are highly refined. The key is the insulin response to these foods, and whole, unrefined carbohydrates do not cause nearly the insulin response that white flour does.
Replace those refined carbohydrates with fatty fish, olive oil, avocados, and nuts. The natural saturated fats found in beef, pork, bacon, butter, cream and coconuts are also healthy fats. Eggs are excellent choice as are most seafood.
However, not all fats are benign. The industrially processed, highly refined seed oils that are high in omega-6 fats are not recommended because they can cause inflammation and adversely affect human health. These oils include sunflower, corn, canola, safflower and vegetables oils. In particular, do not use vegetable oils at high heat because they release harmful chemicals called aldehydes when heated. Stay away from deep-fried foods and all hydrogenated (trans) fats.
The diet I recommend is called a low-carbohydrate, healthy(high)-fat (LCHF) diet. It is design to keep blood glucose low, decrease insulin, and therefore burn more fat. The result? Weight loss and an improvement in diabetes.
Rule#3: Eat real food
As I’ve said, there are good fats and bad fats. There are good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates. What is the key distinguishing factor? Refining and processing.
Our bodies have had millennia to adapt to foods in their natural state. So some traditional societies, such as people living in the Far North, may eat an almost pure meat diet. And others, such as people living on the Japanese island of Okinawa, can eat a high-carbohydrate diet. Because these foods are not refined or processed, and because they contain little to no sugar, neither group has traditionally had trouble with high blood glucose, obesity or type 2 diabetes. When traditional societies eating traditional diets begin to eat highly processed foods and sugar, however, obesity and type 2 diabetes follow closely behind.
After all, you don’t pick dinner rolls from the tree. You don’t grow a bottle of vegetable oil. The most important rule of all is to just eat real food. If the food you are eating looks like it does when you see it in nature, it is probably good for you.
Three rules for reversing type 2 diabetes
CERTAINLY, AVOIDING FRUCTOSE, eating a LCHF diet, and consuming real food is a great start, but these are often not enough to stop or reverse severe type 2 diabetes. The disease can take decades to develop, and so the vicious cycle of hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance can continue despite following all of the dietary rules. 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.