Type 2 diabetes – What happened and how we can fix it

Although diabetes isn’t a brand new disease, the world wide epidemic of the disease is relatively new. How did we get here? And more importantly, can understanding how we got here help us correct the course? We think the answer is yes. And that simple answer could improve millions of lives.

This guide explains the background of how our food choices may have led us down this path and shows the beginnings of a way out. For more details about diabetes, please see out detailed guides about type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, symptoms of diabetes, the best foods to eat to reverse diabetes.

With a properly planned low-carb diet, you may be able to normalize your blood sugar naturally — with less or even no medication, and without calorie counting or hunger. Many people have already done so, and studies have confirmed it. So, keep reading to see if this could work for you!

Reversed dietary guidelines

Dietary advice in recent decades has looked similar throughout the Western world. While more people have gotten type 2 diabetes and have required higher doses of medications, they’ve been advised to eat foods that commonly raise blood sugar.

Here’s a good example, the Swedish Plate Model for people with type 2 diabetes, which is similar to the My Plate in the U.S.:

Which sections of the plate can raise blood sugar the most? Those that contain carbohydrates (sugar and starch).

Bread and potatoes consist of starch, milk contains lactose (milk sugar) and fruit contains fructose and glucose (plain sugar):

Since the food pictured above can potentially raise blood sugar, eating this may not improve the health of people with diabetes as well as diets restricting those foods.

Studies examining similar carbohydrate-rich dietary advice suggest there may be an increased risk of developing diabetes and potentially worsening blood sugar levels long term compared to a lower-carbohydrate diet.

Perhaps that’s why this advice hasn’t been shown to improve health in other important ways such as decreasing heart disease risk.

Fear of natural fat is one potential driving force behind the continued high-carb recommendations. Avoiding fat frequently means increasing carbohydrates in order to provide energy and satiety. But in recent years the theory about fat being dangerous has been scientifically questioned.

Is there an alternative that will produce better health and weight with foods that don’t raise blood sugar?

Old wisdom

Is the low-carbohydrate diet for people with type 2 diabetes a new invention? It definitely isn’t. There’s long-time experience of the positive effects, which Harvard researcher Dr. David Ludwig and colleagues reviewed in their 2021 publication.

In the past, before there was insulin or medication to lower blood sugar, diet was the only strategy for managing diabetes.

Here are pictures from a cookbook for people with diabetes from 1917. You can read the entire book for free online. Below is an image of pages 12-13, where there’s a summary of what they should and should not eat.

Let’s start with what people with type 2 diabetes were advised not to eat a hundred years ago.

Strictly forbidden foods

The title of the page is “Foods Strictly Forbidden.” It starts with sugars and “All Farinaceous Foods and Starches” — in other words, foods made of flour and other starches. Examples follow:

• Bread
• Cookies
• Rice
• Pasta
• Sweet drinks

Some of these strictly forbidden foods are now part of the recommended diabetes diet from many medical organizations. Although correlation does not prove causation, it is interesting that the progressively higher carb intake recommendations occurred at the same time as rising diagnoses of type 2 diabetes.

Especially valuable foods

Here’s the list of recommended nutrient-dense diabetes foods: Butter, olive oil, cheese, meat, fish, eggs…

This sounds familiar. If we just add generous amounts of vegetables, this will be a nearly complete list of low-carb foods. This is the advice most low-carb physicians give to their patients with type 2 diabetes. They routinely see improved blood sugar, weight loss, and reduced need for medications.

So why don’t more people get the old advice?

New science

The carbohydrate-rich dietary advice given to people with type 2 diabetes in recent years is likely based on the misguided fear of naturally fatty foods.

But, when it comes to type 2 diabetes, there are no quality studies showing that a carb-rich diet is more beneficial than a low-carb diet.

It’s actually the opposite. Many studies show that LCHF and keto diets are as good as, or in some cases even better for blood sugar and weight than today’s low-fat advice.

Even the American Diabetes Association now acknowledges that a low-carbohydrate diet is the most effective diet for normalizing blood sugar in those with diabetes.

And this makes sense. Now that we know how we got here, we can start to see how to fix it. We are pleased to see organizations such as the ADA recognizing the importance of reducing carbohydrates.

Read more in our guide that will show you the best foods to eat to reverse diabetes.

A tale of two meals

How much is your blood sugar affected by the food you eat? A lot. Here’s an example of how significant the difference can be:

The picture to the left is a typical LCHF meal: steak fried in butter, vegetables fried in butter, and a homemade béarnaise sauce (melted butter and egg yolk). Lots of fat, an ample amount of protein, but almost no carbohydrates.

In the picture to the right you can see the lunch that was served at the 11th International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm 2010. This is a major international conference for obesity doctors and scientists. The food contains almost exclusively energy from sugar and starches, things that are broken down to simple sugars in the digestive tract.

Let’s see what impacts the two meals had on blood sugar:

A blood glucose level between  70-100 mg/dl (4-6 mmol/l) is typical while fasting. It can then rise after a meal, depending how much carbohydrate you eat.

As you can see, the blood sugar did not change after the LCHF meal (green line). Not really surprising. If you don’t eat many carbohydrates, not a lot of glucose will reach the bloodstream, and consequently the blood glucose level will remain stable.

By contrast, blood sugar after the lunch at the obesity conference shot through the roof (red line), all the way up to 180 mg/dl (9.9 mmol/l), in just an hour.

Want to do a similar test yourself? Order a simple blood glucose meter and test strips here.

Become your own evidence

A growing tide of people are reacting to the latest evidence, understanding how it differs from some outdated guidelines, and taking command of their own health.

Do you want to learn the truth for yourself? Luckily, there’s a very simple way to find out what effect a low-carbohydrate diet will have on you.

Try it yourself for a few weeks and monitor the effect. Simply test your blood sugar before you eat, then eat a “regular” carb meal, and then recheck your blood 1 and 2 hours after you eat. If it is still elevated at 2 hours, keep checking until it returns to baseline. Then do the same for a low-carb meal. Even better, stick with low carb for a couple of weeks and see how it continues to improve. You can get started with our 2-week keto challenge.

Here are some success stories from people who have seen transformative health benefits, including:

• Improved blood sugar levels, starting from the first meal
• Increased satiety and weight loss, often noticeable already within a week
• Reduced sugar cravings

Take command of your own health and test it for yourself:

LCHF for beginners

Start the journey

This is a 45-minute video of Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt’s presentation from the Low Carb USA conference in 2017, explaining much of the case for low carb for people with type 2 diabetes.

How to reverse type 2 diabetes

Is it possible to reverse type 2 diabetes? Doctor Jay Wortman, M.D., knows more about this than most people. He developed type 2 diabetes himself, but after a simple dietary change, he’s reversed his diabetes with no need for medications.

Jay Wortman also did a spectacular study on native Canadians. When they went back to eating traditional foods their Western diseases went away.

Above is a 25-minute interview I did with Dr. Wortman.

Links

Dr. Wortman’s website and blog

My Big Fat Diet documentary

Books:

• The New Atkins
• The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living

 

More from the Diet Doctor

Selected blog posts on diabetes from the last few years:

• Low-carb explained
• Boom! The impossible happens again
• Starvation can cure type 2 diabetes
• Across the river for water: Surgery for diabetes
• How to cure type 2 diabetes