How To Prevent And Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

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Turn back the clock on insulin resistance

This is Dr. Jason Fung. He’s a world-leading expert on intermittent fasting and low carbohydrate approaches to diet. He also co-founded the Intensive Dietary Management Program, later rebranded to the snappier title: The Fasting Method, a program to help people lose weight and reverse type 2 diabetes. Dr. Fung is certified with the Institute for Functional Medicine, for providing functional medicine certification along with educational programs directly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).

Why Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting is a well-established, well-evidenced, healthful practice for most people. In the case of diabetes, it becomes complicated, because if one’s blood sugars are too low during a fasting period, it will need correcting, thus breaking the fast.

Note: this is about preventing and reversing type 2 diabetes. Type 1 is very different, and sadly cannot be prevented or reversed in this fashion.

However, these ideas may still be useful if you have T1D, as you have an even greater need to avoid developing insulin resistance; you obviously don’t want your exogenous insulin to stop working.

Nevertheless, please do confer with your endocrinologist before changing your dietary habits, as they will know your personal physiology and circumstances in ways that we (and Dr. Fung) don’t.

In the case of having type 2 diabetes, again, please still check with your doctor, but the stakes are a lot lower for you, and you will probably be able to fast without incident, depending on your diet itself (more on this later).

Intermittent Fasting can be extra helpful for the body in the case of type 2 diabetes, as it helps give the body a rest from high insulin levels, thus allowing the body to become gradually re-sensitised to insulin.

Why low carbohydrate?

Carbohydrates, especially sugars, especially fructose*, cause excess sugar to be quickly processed by the liver and stored there. When the body’s ability to store glycogen is exceeded, the liver stores energy as fat instead. The resultant fatty liver is a major contributor to insulin resistance, when the liver can’t keep up with the demand; the blood becomes spiked full of unprocessed sugars, and the pancreas must work overtime to produce more and more insulin to deal with that—until the body starts becoming desensitized to insulin. In other words, type 2 diabetes.

There are other factors that affect whether we get type 2 diabetes, for example a genetic predisposition. But, our carb intake is something we can control, so it’s something that Dr. Fung focuses on.

*A word on fructose: actual fruits are usually diabetes-neutral or a net positive due to their fiber and polyphenols.

Fructose as an added ingredient, however, not so much. That stuff zips straight into your veins with nothing to slow it down and nothing to mitigate it.

The advice from Dr. Fung is simple here: cut the carbs. If you are already diabetic and do this with no preparation, you will probably simply suffer hypoglycemia, so instead:

  1. Enjoy a fibrous starter (a salad, some fruit, or perhaps some nuts)
  2. Load up with protein first, during your main meal—this will start to trigger your feelings of satedness
  3. Eat carbs last (preferably whole, unprocessed carbohydrates), and stop eating when 80% full.

Adapting Intermittent Fasting to diabetes

Dr. Fung advocates for starting small, and gradually increasing your fasting period, until, ideally, fasting 16 hours per day. You probably won’t be able to do this immediately, and that’s fine.

You also probably won’t be able to do this, if you don’t also make the dietary adjustments that help to give your liver a break, and thus by knock-on-effect, give your pancreas a break too.

With the dietary adjustments too, however, your insulin production-and-response will start to return to its pre-diabetic state, and finally its healthy state, after which, it’s just a matter of maintenance.

Want to hear more from Dr. Fung?

You may enjoy his blog, and for those who like videos, here is his YouTube channel:

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    Facing the dual-edged sword of oversharing: balancing social bonding with personal vulnerability.

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  • Stop Using The Wrong Hairbrush For Your Hair Type

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    When you brush your hair, you’re either making it healthier or damaging it, depending on what you’re using and how. To avoid pulling your hair out, and to enjoy healthy hair of whatever kind you have and whatever length suits you, it pays to know a little about different brushes, and the different techniques involved.

    Head-to-head

    Brush shapes and sizes are designed to achieve different effects in hair, not just for decoration. For example:

    • Rat tail combs are excellent for parting and sectioning hair with clean lines. The rat tail part is actually more important than the comb part.
    • Regular combs are multipurpose but best for use with flat irons, ensuring straighter hair for a longer time.
    • Wide-tooth combs should not be used for detangling as they can cause breakage; instead, use a proper detangling brush. Speaking of detangling…
    • Detangling brushes are essential for daily use. Whichever you use, start brushing from the bottom to prevent tangles from stacking and worsening. As for kinds of detangling brush:
      • The “Tangle Teaser” is a good beginner option, but it may not detangle well for thicker hair.
      • Wet Brush (this is a brand name, and is not about any inherent wetness) is the recommended detangling brush for most people. It can be used on wet or dry hair.
      • Mason Pearson brush is a luxury detangling brush (see it here on Amazon) that works slightly more quickly and efficiently, but is expensive and not necessary for most people.
    • Teasing brushes are for adding volume by backcombing—but require skill to prevent visible tangles. Best avoided for most people.
    • Ceramic round brushes are the best for blow-drying, because they hold tension and help hair dry smoother and shinier.
    • Blow-dryer brushes are great for easy blow-drying but should not be used on dry hair, to avoid damage.
    • Denman brushes are for people with natural curls, enhancing curls without straightening them like a Wet brush would.

    For more on all of these brushes, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Gentler Hair Health Options

    Take care!

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  • 7 Ways To Boost Mitochondrial Health To Fight Disease

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    Fatigue and a general lack of energy can be symptoms of many things, and for most of them, looking after our mitochondrial health can at least help, if not outright fix the issue.

    The Seven Ways

    Dr. Jonas Kuene suggests that we…

    • Enjoy a good diet: especially, limiting simple sugars, reducing overall carbohydrate intake, and swapping seed oils for healthier oils like avocado oil and olive oil.
    • Take supplements: including coenzyme Q10, alpha-lipoic acid, and vitamins
    • Decrease exposure to toxins: limit alcohol consumption (10almonds tip: limit it to zero if you can), avoid foods that are likely high in heavy metals or pesticides, and check you’re not being overmedicated (there can be a bit of a “meds creep” over time if left unchecked, so it’s good to periodically do a meds review in case something is no longer needed)
    • Practice intermittent fasting: Dr. Kuene suggests a modest 16–18 hours fast per week; doing so daily is generally considered good advice, for those for whom this is a reasonable option
    • Build muscle: exercise in general is good for mitochondria, but body composition itself counts for a lot too
    • Sleep: aiming for 7–9 hours, and if that’s not possible at night, add a nap during the day to make up the lost time
    • Get near-infrared radiation: from the sun, and/or made-for-purpose IR health devices.

    For more info on these (including the referenced science), enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Take care!

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  • With Only Gloves To Protect Them, Farmworkers Say They Tend Sick Cows Amid Bird Flu

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    GREELEY, Colo. — In early August, farmworkers gathered under a pavilion at a park here for a picnic to celebrate Farmworker Appreciation Day. One sign that this year was different from the others was the menu: Beef fajitas, tortillas, pico de gallo, chips, beans — but no chicken.

    Farms in Colorado had culled millions of chickens in recent months to stem the transmission of bird flu. Organizers filled out the spread with hot dogs.

    No matter the menu, some dairy workers at the event said they don’t exactly feel appreciated. They said they haven’t received any personal protective equipment beyond gloves to guard against the virus, even as they or colleagues have come down with conjunctivitis and flu-like symptoms that they fear to be bird flu.

    “They should give us something more,” one dairy worker from Larimer County said in Spanish. He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear he’d lose his job for speaking out. “What if something happens to us? They act as if nothing is wrong.”

    Agricultural health and safety experts have been trying to get the word out about how to protect against bird flu, including through bilingual videos on TikTok showing the proper way to gear up with respirators, eye protection, gloves, and coveralls. And Colorado’s health and agriculture departments have offered a free month’s supply of protective equipment to any producer who requests it.

    But so far, many farms aren’t taking them up on it: According to numbers provided by the state health department in late August, fewer than 13% of the state’s dairies had requested and received such PPE.

    The virus is known to infect mammals — from skunks, bears, and cows to people and house pets. It began showing up in dairy cattle in recent months, and Colorado has been in the thick of it. Ten of the 13 confirmed human cases in the U.S. this year have occurred in Colorado, where it continues to circulate among dairy cows. It isn’t a risk in cooked meat or pasteurized milk but is risky for those who come into contact with infected animals or raw milk.

    Weld County, where the farmworker event was held, is one of the nation’s top milk producers, supplying enough milk each month this year to fill about 45 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Neighboring counties are notable producers, too.

    Concerns are growing about undiagnosed illness among farmworkers because of a lack of testing and safety precautions. One reason for concern: Bird flu and seasonal flu are capable of gene trading, so if they ended up in the same body at the same time, bird flu might end up with genes that boost its contagiousness. The virus doesn’t appear to be spreading easily between people yet. That could change, and if people aren’t being tested then health officials may be slow to notice.

    Strains of seasonal flu already kill some 47,000 people in the U.S. a year. Public health officials fear the havoc a new form of the flu could wreak if it spreads among people.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that dairy workers don a respirator and goggles or a face shield, among other protections, whether they are working with sick animals or not.

    A recent study found that not all infected cows show symptoms, so workers could be interacting with contagious animals without realizing it. Even when it is known that animals are infected, farmworkers often still have to get in close contact with them, sometimes under grueling conditions, such as during a recent heat wave when Colorado poultry workers collected hundreds of chickens by hand for culling because of the outbreak. At least six of the workers became infected with bird flu.

    One dairy worker in Weld County, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said his employer has not offered any protective equipment beyond gloves, even though he works with sick cows and raw milk.

    His bosses asked the workers to separate sick cows from the others after some cows produced less milk, lost weight, and showed signs of weakness, he said. But the employer didn’t say anything about the bird flu, he said, or suggest they take any precautions for their own safety.

    He said he bought protective goggles for himself at Walmart when his eyes became itchy and red earlier this summer. He recalled experiencing dizziness, headaches, and low appetite around the same time. But he self-medicated and pushed through, without missing work or going to a doctor.

    “We need to protect ourselves because you never know,” he said in Spanish. “I tell my wife and son that the cows are sick, and she tells me to leave, but it will be the same wherever I go.”

    He said he’d heard that his employers were unsympathetic when a colleague approached them about feeling ill. He’d even seen someone affiliated with management remove a flyer about how people can protect themselves from the bird flu and throw it in a bin.

    The dairy worker in neighboring Larimer County said he, too, has had just gloves as protection, even when he has worked with sick animals — close enough for saliva to wipe off on him. He started working with them when a colleague missed work because of his flu-like symptoms: fever, headache, and red eyes.

    “I only wear latex gloves,” he said. “And I see that those who work with the cows that are sick also only wear gloves.”

    He said he doesn’t have time to wash his hands at work but puts on hand sanitizer before going home and takes a shower once he arrives. He has not had symptoms of infection.

    Such accounts from dairy workers echo those from farmworkers in Texas, as reported by KFF Health News in July.

    “Employers who are being proactive and providing PPE seem to be in the minority in most states,” said Bethany Boggess Alcauter with the National Center for Farmworker Health, a not-for-profit organization based in Texas that advocates for improving the health of farmworkers and their families. “Farmworkers are getting very little information.”

    But Zach Riley, CEO of the Colorado Livestock Association, said he thinks such scenarios are the exception, not the rule.

    “You would be hard-pressed to find a dairy operation that isn’t providing that PPE,” he said. Riley said dairies typically have a stockpile of PPE ready to go for situations like this and that, if they don’t, it’s easily accessed through the state. “All you have to do is ask.”

    Producers are highly motivated to keep infections down, he said, because “milk is their life source.” He said he has heard from some producers that “their family members who work on the farm are doing 18-to 20-hour days just to try to stay ahead of it, so that they’re the first line between everything, to protect their employees.”

    Colorado’s health department is advertising a hotline that ill dairy workers can call for help getting a flu test and medicine.

    Project Protect Food Systems Workers, an organization that emerged early in the covid-19 pandemic to promote farmworker health across Colorado, is distributing PPE it received from the state so promotoras — health workers who are part of the community they serve — can distribute masks and other protections directly to workers if employers aren’t giving them out.

    Promotora Tomasa Rodriguez said workers “see it as another virus, another covid, but it is because they don’t have enough information.”

    She has been passing out flyers about symptoms and protective measures, but she can’t access many dairies. “And in some instances,” she said, “a lot of these workers don’t know how to read, so the flyers are not reaching them, and then the employers are not doing any kind of talks or trainings.”

    The CDC’s Nirav Shah said during an Aug. 13 call with journalists that awareness about bird flu among dairy workers isn’t as high as officials would like it to be, despite months of campaigns on social media and the radio.

    “There’s a road ahead of us that we still need to go down to get awareness on par with, say, what it might be in the poultry world,” he said. “We’re using every single messenger that we can.”

    KFF Health News correspondents Vanessa G. Sánchez and Amy Maxmen contributed to this report.

    Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. Sign up for its newsletters here.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars
  • Pasteurization: What It Does And Doesn’t Do

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    Pasteurization’s Effect On Risks & Nutrients

    In Wednesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your health-related opinions of raw (cow’s) milk, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

    • About 47% said “raw milk is dangerous to consume, whereas pasteurization makes it safer”
    • About 31% said “raw milk is a good source of vital nutrients which pasteurization would destroy”
    • About 14% said “both raw milk and pasteurized milk are equally unhealthy”
    • About 9% said “both raw milk and pasteurized milk are equally healthy”

    Quite polarizing! So, what does the science say?

    “Raw milk is dangerous to consume, whereas pasteurization makes it safer: True or False?”

    True! Coincidentally, the 47% who voted for this are mirrored by the 47% of the general US population in a similar poll, deciding between the options of whether raw milk is less safe to drink (47%), just as safe to drink (15%), safer to drink (9%), or not sure (30%):

    Public Fails to Appreciate Risk of Consuming Raw Milk, Survey Finds

    As for what those risks are, by the way, unpasteurized dairy products are estimated to cause 840x more illness and 45x more hospitalizations than pasteurized products.

    This is because unpasteurized milk can (and often does) contain E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, Cryptosporidium, and other such unpleasantries, which pasteurization kills.

    Source for both of the above claims:

    Characteristics of U.S. Consumers Reporting Past Year Intake of Raw (Unpasteurized) Milk: Results from the 2016 Food Safety Survey and 2019 Food Safety and Nutrition Survey

    (we know the title sounds vague, but all this information is easily visible in the abstract, specifically, the first two paragraphs)

    Raw milk is a good source of vital nutrients which pasteurization would destroy: True or False?

    False! Whether it’s a “good” source can be debated depending on other factors (e.g., if we considered milk’s inflammatory qualities against its positive nutritional content), but it’s undeniably a rich source. However, pasteurization doesn’t destroy or damage those nutrients.

    Incidentally, in the same survey we linked up top, 16% of the general US public believed that pasteurization destroys nutrients, while 41% were not sure (and 43% knew that it doesn’t).

    Note: for our confidence here, we are skipping over studies published by, for example, dairy farming lobbies and so forth. Those do agree, by the way, but nevertheless we like sources to be as unbiased as possible. The FDA, which is not completely unbiased, has produced a good list of references for this, about half of which we would consider biased, and half unbiased; the clue is generally in the journal names. For example, Food Chemistry and the Journal of Food Science and Journal of Nutrition are probably less biased than the International Dairy Association and the Journal of Dairy Science:

    FDA | Raw Milk Misconceptions and the Danger of Raw Milk Consumption

    this page covers a lot of other myths too, more than we have room to “bust” here, but it’s very interesting reading and we recommend to check it out!

    Notably, we also weren’t able to find any refutation by counterexample on PubMed, with the very slight exception that some studies sometimes found that in the case of milks that were of low quality, pasteurization can reduce the vitamin E content while increasing the vitamin A content. For most milks however, no significant change was found, and in all cases we looked at, B-vitamins were comparable and vitamin D, popularly touted as a benefit of cow’s milk, is actually added later in any case. And, importantly, because this is a common argument, no change in lipid profiles appears to be findable either.

    In science, when something has been well-studied and there aren’t clear refutations by counterexample, and the weight of evidence is clearly very much tipped into one camp, that usually means that camp has it right.

    Milk generally is good/bad for the health: True or False?

    True or False, depending on what we want to look at. It’s definitely not good for inflammation, but the whole it seems to be cancer-neutral and only increases heart disease risk very slightly:

    • Keep Inflammation At Bay ← short version is milk is bad, fermented milk products are fine in moderation
    • Is Dairy Scary? ← short version is that milk is neither good nor terrible; fermented dairy products however are health-positive in numerous ways when consumed in moderation

    You may be wondering…

    …how this goes for the safety of dairy products when it comes to the bird flu currently affecting dairy cows, so:

    Cows’ Milk, Bird Flu, & You

    Take care!

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  • Staring At The Sun – by Dr. Irvin Yalom

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    A quick note first: there are two editions of this book; the content is the same, but the cover is different. So if in your region it has a bright yellow cover and the subtitle is the excitable “Overcoming The Terror Of Death” rather than the more measured “Being At Peace With Your Own Mortality”, that is why; different regional publishers made different choices.

    For most of us, dying is the last thing we want to do. We may fear it; we may ignore it; we may try to beat it—but it’s a constant existential threat whether we want it or not.

    This book is about “death anxiety”, either direct (conscious fear of impending death) or sublimated (not necessarily realising what we’re avoiding thinking about it). In its broadest sense, the fear of death can be described as rational. But angst about it probably won’t help, so this book looks to help us overcome that.

    The style of the book is largely anecdotal, in which the author uses examples from his therapeutic practice to illustrate ways in which the fear of death can manifest, and ways in which it can be managed healthily.

    Subjective criticism: while this author developed existential therapy, many of the ideas in this book lean heavily on the psychodynamic approach derived from Freud, and this reviewer isn’t a fan of that. But nevertheless, many of the examples here are thought-provoking and useful, so it is not too strong a criticism.

    Bottom line: there are many ways to manage one’s mortality, and this book brings attention to a range of possibilities.

    Click here to check out Staring At The Sun, and manage your mortality!

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  • Move over, COVID and Flu! We Have “Hybrid Viruses” To Contend With Now

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    Move over, COVID and Flu! We have “hybrid viruses” to contend with now

    COVID and influenza viruses can be serious, of course, so let’s be clear up front that we’re not being dismissive of those. But, most people are hearing a lot about them, whereas respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has flown under a lot of radars.

    Simply put, until recently it hasn’t been considered much of a threat except to the young, the old, or people with other respiratory illnesses. Only these days, the prevalence of “other respiratory illnesses” is a lot higher than it used to be!

    It’s not just a comorbidity

    It’s easy to think “well of course if you have more than one illness at once, especially similar ones, that’s going to suck” but it’s a bit more than that; it produces newer, more interesting, hybrid viruses. Here’s a research paper from last year’s “flu season”:

    Coinfection by influenza A virus and respiratory syncytial virus produces hybrid virus particles

    Best to be aware of this if you’re in the “older” age-range

    It’s not just that the older we are, the more likely we are to get it. Critically, the older we are, the more likely we are to be hospitalized by it.

    And..the older we are, the less likely we are to come back from hospital if hospitalized by it.

    Some years back, the intensive care and mortality rates for people over the age of 65 were 8% and 7%, respectively:

    Respiratory syncytial virus infection in elderly and high-risk adults

    …but a new study this year has found the rates like to be 2.2x that, i.e. 15% intensive care rate and 18% mortality, respectively:

    Adjusting for Case Under-Ascertainment in Estimating RSV Hospitalisation Burden of Older Adults in High-Income Countries: a Systematic Review and Modelling Study

    Want to know more?

    Here are some hot-off-the-press news articles on the topic:

    And as for what to do…

    Same general advice as for COVID and Flu, just, ever-more important:

    • Try to keep to well-ventilated places as much as possible
    • Get any worrying symptoms checked out quickly
    • Mask up when appropriate
    • Get your shots as appropriate

    See also:

    Harvard Health Review | Fall shots: Who’s most vulnerable to RSV, COVID, and the flu, and which shots are the right choice for you to help protect against serious illness and hospitalization?

    Stay safe!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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