This article title almost sounds too good to be true. A treatment that results in 70% of participants being able to discontinue their insulin usage is unheard of. We are told that Type 2 Diabetes is a chronic and progressive condition. You may start out taking metformin and other drugs, progress to insulin over time, and hope that you never experience any of the serious risks associated with the condition like heart attack, stroke, nerve damage, and so on. However, a study from this year done on 185 participants with Type 2 diabetes revealed that, as many have postulated, diet plays a much bigger role than we are led to believe. 

This study consisted of 185 participants, whose mean age was 56 years old. The treatment? A low carbohydrate diet that puts the body into a state of ketosis. When following a ketogenic diet, the body must switch its primary energy source from glucose obtained from carbs to ketones obtained from fats. By lowering the number of carbs you’re eating, you also lower the amount of insulin that the pancreas is pumping out. Insulin is the fat-storage hormone and isn’t effective in someone who is metabolically unhealthy or has diabetes (i.e: insulin resistance, when your cells become resistant to insulin due to chronic overconsumption of carbs which results in increased blood sugar and your pancreas pumping out even more insulin in an attempt to lower the blood glucose). Over time, while eating moderate protein and high fat, besides stabilizing your blood sugar, the problem wherein your pancreas is pumping out loads of insulin that isn’t effective becomes to resolve and your cells become more insulin sensitive. The body realizes that you are having much fewer carbs, and stops pumping out as much insulin. The insulin that is being pumped out will actually be effective now because you will have increased your insulin sensitivity and decreased your insulin resistance. 

In this study, 86% of participants who adhered to a ketogenic diet for 12 months were able to significantly reduce or discontinue insulin, with 70.6% completely discontinuing it altogether. Among all participants who completed 3, 6, or 12 months of the diet, 97.6% were able to significantly reduce or eliminate insulin use.

Interestingly, prior to the development of pharmaceutical insulin in 1922, the treatment for T2D was a low-carb diet. When pharmaceutical insulin was developed, the advice of following a low-carb diet was thrown out the window and high carb diets managed by insulin became the norm that persists today. 

As a part of true informed consent, all patients should have the access to this information. It’s vital to understand the mechanisms behind what is happening when you have diabetes, prediabetes, or insulin resistance. The value in lowering your insulin naturally via a ketogenic diet, versus using insulin to manage your T2D is quite extraordinary. In scenario 1, you can remove the need for lifelong medications that come with side effects (such as weight gain, one of the most important factors to control and reverse the condition) and do nothing to address the increased risk factors that come down the line with having diabetes. In scenario 2, you can likely wean off these medications over time and dramatically decrease your risk for conditions like heart disease, cancer, fatty liver, etc. Keep in mind that while blood sugars appear better while on these meds, unless you address the root of the issue, the disease keeps silently progressing. These medications work by taking the glucose out of the blood which is theoretically good, but it has to be put somewhere. It shovels it out of the bloodstream and packs it into other cells and over time this leads to complications depending on where it goes. Liver? Fatty liver. Kidney? Kidney disease. Heart? Heart attack and atherosclerosis. Nerves? Diabetic neuropathy. Brain? Alzheimer’s (now being called Type 3 diabetes in the literature). If high blood sugar is bad, wouldn’t it also make sense that high amounts of sugar ANYWHERE in the body would be an issue?

All in all, it’s hard to treat a dietary disease with medications, especially in absence of a change in diet. Type 2 Diabetes does NOT have to be a chronic progressive disease. To start correcting this issue, decrease the number of carbohydrates you consume and start burning off the stored sugar! 

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The above content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individuals should always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34458301/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6194375/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7342268/