Can Diabetes Be Cured?

The cure could be on your dinner plate. (Lousie McCoy/The Epoch Times)

A recent edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association contains a commentary entitled “Can Diabetes Be Cured?” [1]. It caught my eye, partly because I not only have some interest in diabetes as a condition but also because the word “cure” is not usually applied to a condition like diabetes.

The conventional wisdom is once a diabetic, always a diabetic. The commentary challenges this wisdom and talks about the possibilities of curing type 1 diabetes with pancreatic transplantation or transplantation of the cells that make insulin (the beta cells). Other, more experimental approaches, such as stem cell therapy are also discussed.

The commentary also discusses potential for the cure of type 2 diabetes, which is far more common than type 1. This author makes the claim that surgery like gastric banding, for example, offers most potential here.

The author also discusses the idea of a mechanical solution to diabetes, in the form of a device that senses sugar levels and gives an appropriate dose of insulin. Such devices are not yet available, and even if these were, I’m not sure they would constitute a cure. They will be, if they ever come into being, another—albeit more sophisticated—way to administer insulin. That doesn’t constitute a cure in my book.

This article also left me wondering if there might be lower-tech solutions to diabetes. In my view, there are. Imagine that a 50-year-old man is diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as a result of blood testing. Repeat testing confirms the diagnosis. Let’s imagine that this individual has no signs of complications from diabetes, such as eye, nerve, kidney, or blood vessel damage.

Remember, the primary problem with diabetes is that the body is not handling sugar well, so blood sugar levels tend to be raised. The primary underlying factors here will be some resistance to the hormone insulin (insulin not working as it should) or inadequate insulin secretion as a result of an exhausted pancreas.

Imagine this individual decides to adopt a low-carbohydrate diet. And imagine that repeat testing in, say, two months time reveals no evidence of diabetes. He continues with the low-carb diet, and a year later, repeat testing still does not reveal evidence of diabetes or evidence of complications of diabetes either. This may be a hypothetical situation, but it mirrors actual experiences had in the real world by those who advocate low-carb diets for those with diabetes.

Now, here’s the question: Does this man have diabetes? The obvious (and correct) answer, I think, is no. Let’s say he’d never been tested for diabetes but took it upon himself to adopt a low-carb diet, and some time later had normal lab results. No one would be diagnosing diabetes, right? He may have had diabetes, he might even have a tendency to develop diabetes, but he hasn’t got it now.

However, you’d be surprised at just how much resistance some health care practitioners have to the notion that a person can cure himself of type 2 diabetes with something as simple and low-tech as a change in diet. Why is this?

Some of this may have something to do with the fact that many health care practitioners have been persuaded that the right diet for diabetics is one with a lot of carbohydrates in it. No wonder these individuals may not have much faith in the ability of diet to cure diabetes.

But another potential explanation for the skepticism regarding the potential for diet to cure diabetes might have something to do with the fact that there’s not really much money in it. No drugs, surgery, or high-tech gadgets are required. With no industry making particularly good money out of low-carbs, who is going to push this as a viable cure for diabetes?

The fact that this approach is not especially lucrative may help to explain how it can be that commentaries can be written about potential cures for diabetes that don’t include any meaningful discussion of the role diet might have. I suppose it’s worth pointing out that the author of the commentary is an advisor and consultant for two companies that make glucose monitors (supposedly a potential part of the high-tech solution that might cure diabetes).

The author actually starts his commentary with the following words: “For individuals with diabetes, the ultimate hope is cure. But how will this cure ever be realized?” He goes on to write: “If the answer was obvious, all effort would be directed to it. …” If only this were true.

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Dr. John Briffa is a London-based physician and health writer with an interest in nutrition and natural medicine. His Web site is drbriffa.com