Can the Right Diet Put an End to Diabetes?

Why manage diabetes when you can simply get rid of it?

Despite what you might have heard, Type 2 diabetes is not a lifelong condition according to Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It does not have to shorten your life span or result in high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney failure, blindness or other life-threatening ailments. In fact, most type 2 diabetics can get off medication and become 100 percent healthy in just a few simple steps; using these same steps, most type 1 diabetics can cut their insulin in half and maintain excellent health and quality of life into old age. In The End of Diabetes, Dr. Fuhrman shows how you can prevent and reverse diabetes and its related symptoms and lose weight in the process.

The first step is to understand diabetes and how it is affecting Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a 2011 report stating that over 25 million Americans are currently plagued by diabetes. Many people are unaware that they are diabetic and the American diet is at the core of our health care crisis. The explosion in the occurrence of diabetes in the last twenty-five years in America parallels the skyrocketing number of overweight people. Type 2 diabetes almost never occurs in people who eat healthy, exercise regularly, and have a low body fat percent.

To achieve a healthy lifestyle that eliminates risk of diabetes and heart disease, you must dedicate yourself to following a nutrient-rich, lower calorie diet—a nutritarian diet—coupled with a good exercise program. Your health is dependent on the nutrient-per-calorie density of your diet. The quality of a diet can be judged based on three simple criteria:

1. Its level of micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals) per calorie
2. Adequate macronutrients (fat, carbohydrates, and protein) to meet individual needs but without excess calories that may lead to overweight or health compromise.
3. Avoidance of potentially toxic substances (such as trans fats) or substances harmful in excess (such as sodium)

Vegetables clearly walk away with the gold medal—no other food is even close. So, of course, green vegetables have the best association with lower rates of cancer and heart disease. Veggies are the main ingredients found in several of the recipes featured in The End of Diabetes. It is the balance of these vegetables, along with vitamins and proteins, coupled with a consistent exercise program that will help eradicate a major leading cause of death and expense in the U.S.