This morning our friend, Jane, alerted me to the early lead article in today’s Guardian newspaper: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/24/low-calorie-diet-hope-cure-diabetes].
It reports on the eye-catching (though hardly mouthwatering) results of a study carried out recently at Newcastle University, England, involving type 2 diabetics.
The participants were put on “an extreme diet” for two months.
“Eleven people with diabetes took part in the study, which was funded by Diabetes UK. They had to slash their food intake to just 600 calories a day for two months. But three months later seven of the 11 were free of diabetes. People who have had obesity-related type 2 diabetes for years have been cured, at least temporarily, by keeping to an extreme, low-calorie, diet for two months, scientists report today.”
*The title of the post refers to a documentary [http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/simply-raw-reversing-diabetes-in-30-days/] which another friend, Denise in London, sent me some months ago. I was reminded of it while reading The Guardian this morning.
In this 90-minute film (free to watch online) the six participants in the program are:
“challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food, and even cooked food for 30 days. The film chronicles moments of “struggle, support and hope as what is revealed, with startling clarity, is that diet can reverse disease and change lives”.
The immediate results were stunning in some cases, like the study reported in The Guardian. The effect on participants was moving.
Nevertheless the challenge overwhelmed a couple of the participants and one dropped out. I remember being left feeling a little uneasy about the claims made in the film about the possibility of curing diabetes.
Reversing the condition was clearly achieved by following the regimes shown.
However Professor Roy Taylor, the leader of the Newcastle experiment acknowledges that, “we need to examine further why some people are more susceptible to developing diabetes than others”.
Meanwhile–in the everyday world, food philosopher Michael Pollen’s simple mantra is worth keeping in mind.
Eat food. Not too much. Mainly plants.
Robin Ellis 