This article is a translation from English of a scientific report by the Chairman of the Physicians Committee for Conscious Medicine (USA) Andrew Nicholson. The scientist convinces that diabetes is not a sentence. People with this disease can improve the course of the disease or even get rid of it completely if they switch to a vegan diet consisting of natural, unrefined foods.
Andrew Nicholson writes that he and a team of scientists compared two diets: a vegan diet high in dietary fiber and low in fat and the diet most commonly used by the American Diabetes Association (ADA).
“We invited people with non-insulin-dependent diabetes, as well as their spouses and partners, and they had to follow one of two diets for three months. The food was prepared by caterers, so the participants simply had to heat up the food at home,” notes Nicholson.
The vegan food was made from vegetables, grains, legumes and fruits and did not include refined ingredients such as sunflower oil, premium wheat flour and pasta made from premium flour. Fats accounted for only 10 percent of calories, while complex carbohydrates accounted for 80 percent of calories. They also received 60-70 grams of fiber per day. Cholesterol was completely absent.
Observed from both groups came to the university for meetings twice a week. When this study was planned, several questions arose before the scientists. Will people with diabetes and their partners decide to take part in the study? Will they be able to change their eating habits and eat the way the program tells them to eat within three months? Is it possible to find reliable caterers who will prepare attractive vegan and ADA-prescribed meals?
“The first of these doubts dissipated very quickly. Over 100 people responded to the advertisement that we submitted to the newspaper on the first day. People enthusiastically participated in the study. One participant said: “I was amazed at the effectiveness of the vegan diet from the very beginning. My weight and blood sugar immediately began to fall,” writes Nicholson.
The scientist specifically notes that some participants were pleasantly surprised by how well they adapted to the experimental diet. One of them noted the following: “If someone told me 12 weeks ago that I would be satisfied with a completely vegetarian diet, I would never have believed it.”
Another participant took longer to adapt: “At first, this diet was difficult to follow. But in the end I lost 17 pounds. I no longer take medication for diabetes or high blood pressure. So it had a very positive effect on me.”
Some have improved other illnesses: “Asthma doesn’t bother me as much anymore. I no longer take as many asthma medications because I breathe better. I feel that I, a diabetic, now have better prospects, this diet suits me.”
Both groups strictly adhered to prescribed diets. But a vegan diet has shown benefits. Fasting blood sugar was 59 percent lower in the vegan diet group than in the ADA group. The vegans needed less medication to control their blood sugar, and the ADA group needed the same amount of medication as before. The vegans took less medication, but their disease was better controlled. The ADA group lost an average of 8 pounds of weight, while the vegans lost about 16 pounds. Vegans also had lower cholesterol levels than the ADA group.
Diabetes can take a serious toll on the kidneys, and as a result, protein is excreted in the urine. Some subjects had a high amount of protein in the urine at the beginning of the study, and this did not improve by the end of the study in patients on the ADA diet. Moreover, some of them after 12 weeks began to lose even more protein. Meanwhile, patients in the vegan diet began to pass much less protein in the urine than before. Ninety percent of study participants with type 90 diabetes who followed a vegan, low-fat diet and walked, cycled, or exercised were able to go off internal medications in less than a month. 2 percent of patients who took insulin stopped needing it.
In a study by Dr. Andrew Nicholson, blood sugar was monitored in seven type 2 diabetic patients who were on a strict, low-fat vegan diet for 12 weeks.
By contrast, he compared their blood sugar levels with those of four diabetics who were prescribed the traditional low-fat ADA diet. Diabetics who followed the vegan diet saw a 28 percent drop in blood sugar, while those who followed the low-fat ADA diet saw a 12 percent drop in blood sugar. The vegan group lost an average of 16 pounds in body weight, while those in the traditional diet group lost just over 8 pounds.
Moreover, several subjects from the vegan group were able to completely or partially stop taking medications during the study, while none in the traditional group.
Information from open sources