Customer Reviews

Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

OK, so the diet is very much like the Dean Ornish program for reversing heart disease. A decade ago, I couldn't follow the diet, but it's funny what diabetes-related eye surgery, plus the wider availability of soy foods, can accomplish.

The basic message is simple: No animal fat or protein, eat all the low glycemic-index carbs you want, and reduce all fats as much as possible. The fat reduction has been the hard part for me, though my fat intake has been greatly reduced.

Results? In one month: Blood glucose average is now what my fasting glucose used to be. I have cut one of my meds in half. My medicated blood pressure is now within a very acceptable range. I have lost more than 10 pounds. I am happier, feel healthier, and I am not hungry all the time!

To make this program work, you need to commit to it. But, I have found this much easier than my Weight Watchers experience five years ago and don't really feel the urge to cheat on this diet.

I bought my diabetic husband this book for his birthday. He read the book cover to cover in 3 days and radically changed his diet (not difficult for me since I'm already a vegetarian). He has lost 12 pounds in 2 weeks and is FINALLY committed to making the kind of changes that will help him live longer. His diabetes has been under control for quite some time, but on Dr. Barnard's new diet, he feels younger, healthier, stronger, and, most importantly, OPTIMISTIC after reading Dr. Barnard's book. Just one note of caution, we have modified the diet a bit since eating all that soy can cause some issues with thyroid medication and hormone levels. We recommend that you speak with your doctor before starting the diet.

My daughter's neurologist suggested a vegan diet when she had two possible MS episodes last year. She became a vegan and has had no subsequent episodes. I read about the benefits of being a vegan in Dr. Barnard's book and in Eat to Live by Dr. Fuhrman. I asked my diabetic husband if he would try it for three weeks; it has now been 10 months. He has lost 40 pounds and his A1C level has gone from 8.3 to 6.0, his doctor has taken him off Metformin, and his neuropathy is almost gone. I have lost 35 pounds and my blood pressure has gone from 140/90 to 110/75, my acid reflux is gone, and I feel great. Four of our friends have become vegans, and they are having similar results. We cook wonderful foods and never go hungry. There are great vegan recipes on the internet as well as some very good vegan cookbooks. We particularly enjoy ethnic vegan food (North African, Ethiopian, Thai, Mexican, Italian). We rarely eat tofu, but have many sources of the nutrients we need to be healthy. In addition, I buy organic or locally grown food almost entirely. I avoid foods with added salt, additives, preservatives, and, of course, things like trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup - and processed foods, in general. I work more than full time, and I manage to shop and cook to keep our healthy lifestyle.

We heard about this book from our chiropractor and we bought it right away. My husband is a diabetic but has been managing it with medication and hoping against hope that he could delay the dreaded insulin shots. Well! After three weeks carefully following the easy program in this book, my husband's readings have been phenomenal. Just as the book suggests, his readings have moved below diabetic level. For example, two hours after lunch, he read 98. This is wonderful and so encouraging! I never thought we'd go vegan, although we've played with it a little, because meat is so pervasive. But now, in our mid-50's, losing weight and getting healed, it's certainly going to be our life from now on.

As a former vegan, I know all the kneejerk reactions against it. But this works! In three weeks, I lost 10 needed pounds and he lost 20. We are still losing. Really, give this a try.

I read this book and put into practice some of his suggestions. My blood sugar was around 129 to 150 each morning before eating. It has dropped considerably to 112 to 108 for the past two weeks. This morning it read 98 which pleased me a great deal. I have never taken insulin and hope to keep from letting that happen. Very impressive book.
Bernard Kuskie

My wife and I have been telling our friends and family that developing diabetes is about the best thing that has ever happened to me, health-wise. Five months ago, I was in poor shape, primarily because of the type work I do (mediation counseling for stepfamilies via the internet and in office sessions). I ate when I got a chance and hardly exercised at all. Then my doctor told me, after a routine blood test, that my cholesterol was twice what it should be and my blood glucose was almost three times where it should be - I had diabetes, he said, get ready for a life of blood checks, medication, and strict diets.

Well, I rebelled and went in search of a way to beat diabetes. I read several books on how to "reverse" the condition, and one in particular, "Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes," spoke so convincingly about the power of diet to correct my body's problems, that I decided to jump on the program wholeheartedly. My doctor reluctantly said he'd let me try it for six weeks to see if it did any good.

At my six-week check up my doctor said (literally) "Wow! I can't believe how much improvement you've made."

Here's the program in three steps:
1) cut out all animal products completely - all meat, milk, cheese, eggs, chicken, fish, etc. Everything. The reason is that cholesterol only comes from animal sources. When you cut out the meat, you cut out the cholesterol.
2) cut down on all oils as much as possible, including extra virgin olive oil.
3) eat a diet heavy in low glycemic index foods - these are foods that are dense in structure so they break down slowly in your stomach and ease into your system.

I thought quitting meat would be hard, but I like to eat, so I dived into alternatives - such as tofu, pasta, vegetables, etc, and I've gotten caught up in experimenting with new options. I quit just eating either chicken or fish or a hamburger at each meal and really got creative. I eat four to five times per day - I stay full! and we were both surprised at how fast I've lost so much weight.

Now, after a full five months, all my numbers are in the "good" range, I feel great, my wife says I look lots better, and I have so much energy I dont' know what to do with it all! And I've lead several other diabetes sufferers to the same program with the same results. I'll never go back.
(BTW, my doctor started the program, too!)

My wife is suffering from diabetes. She has lost most of her hearing, her sense of smell, much of her eyesight and has nerve damage that causes her feet and legs to hurt day and night. After several years of neglect and refusing to see a doctor, she consented to be tested. Her A 1 C was 12.2.
She attended the recommended diabetes education classes at the local hospital. The classes were of little benefit. The counsel given was suicidal at best. I knew a good deal about diabetes from much study of Dr. John McDougall's books. I was searching for information on the PCRM website and found Dr. Bernard's book and ordered it right away. By following the plan that he teaches, she was able to bring her diabetes under control without counting carbs. That is hard to do if you are a vegetarian. After six months her A 1 C had dropped to 6.4. Her blood pressure is usually below 110/70 without medication. Her weight is normal and she does not go hungry. This book is fantastic! It contains the truth!

Sal Salyers

The premise of this book is that animal products and especially animals fats inhibit our cells capability to absorb the sugar in our blood streams. Insulin is no longer effective at causing the cell doors to open and absorb the sugars--they are blocked by the sludge caused by fats and especially animal fats. Barnard has based much of this theory on research studies on mice that shows animal products/fat inhibits cells from absorbing sugar. I did some research and there have been more recent studies to support this theory since the book was written. Normally insulin causes the GLUT4 transporters to come to the surface of our cells and allow the sugar in our blood streams to be absorbed. But, for people who are insulin resistant, it takes more and more insulin to get the GLUT4s to come to the surface and cause the cells to absorb sugar. Barnard believes that animal products inhibit the GLUT4 transporters from functioning correctly and therefore the sugar stays in the bloodstream without being absorbed by our cells. His program is aimed at eliminating the fats that bind the cells from opening up to absorb the sugar and the primary way he suggests to do this is to eliminate all animal products and thereby get the fat out of our cells and make them more effective at operating normally and absorbing the sugar. The small amount of research that support this theory and the testimonies I have read encourages me that this is an approach worth pursuing. I also hope that it can direct scientists to find cures to eliminate the fat build up in our cells and allow GLUT4 to perform properly.

His explanation of this theory is very good and if the rest of the book was as good, I would give it 5 stars. But, in other ways the book is out of date and also not fully balanced in approach. It is outdated, because GI (Glycemic Index) does not include the fiber content of foods. GI is based on the sugar levels in the food by itself, not in our bodies. In the last decade the GL (Glycemic Load) has been favored because it includes the fiber in foods and provides a more accurate measurement. GLs have been determined by measuring the blood sugar levels of people who have eaten the one specific food at frequent intervals to determine how the food changes sugar levels. The results of lots of people who have been tested are then averaged and then the GL for each food was calculated. Since the GL is based on how bodies respond to the actual food, which includes the slowing down of sugar build up because of the fiber content, it is much more accurate than looking at the GI which is based on the sugar only and not how our bodies process and generate sugar from the food. To overcome this I have used the GL instead of GI and this has actually allowed some other fruits to be included in the diet and eliminate some others. A very good book on this is "The Glycemic-Load Diet" by Rob Thompson.

A second concern I have about his program is that he suggests many prepared frozen and packaged meals and packaged soups. But there is no consideration for the sodium these products contain. Amy is a brand he often suggests and when I looked in the store at some of their products, I found one meal would contain close to or more than the recommended daily allowances for sodium. Just one of Amy's soups have 1200-1600 mg of Sodium and the serving of some of the frozen meals recommended have just as much sodium. Too much sodium, more water retention equals higher blood pressure and more stress on our hearts that can cause them to thicken like any other muscle. If you make more meals this is not a problem, but I am reading carefully the labels on frozen foods and pre-prepared foods and find very, very few that allow me to stay under the 2000-2500 mgs of Sodium guidelines recommended per day.

The last weakness in my opinion is that the information on supplements that have been researched and found to help the GLUT4 transporter to function better does not include many of the better ones being used to help reduce peoples blood sugars. Among these are the trace mineral Vanadium and herbs like Banaba which have helped dramatically reduce blood sugars in many people are not even included. To get a better treatment on supplements I would recommend Dr. Julian Whitaker's book, "Reversing Diabetes: Reduce or Even Eliminate Your Dependence on Insulin or Oral Drugs." It was written 5 years before this book came out, so I was surprised to find the supplement section lacking. Together these books should provide a balanced and holistic approach for a person to help reverse their diabetes.

Update August 2011:
The book "Death to Diabetes" is one of the best about reversing diabetes. I found that one of the most important things to do is to exercise about two hours after eating your last meal each day. This is because your sugar levels stay in a good range for 10 to 12 hours each day in contrast to potentially being high for hours when your sleeping. I fully realized the importance of this by taking a lot of sugar level reading at the end of the day and after exercising and came to the conclusion that these are the most important sugar level blood tests to take each day. Taking a reading after exercise helped me to learn just how long I need to exercise to get my sugar in tolerance until the next morning. The morning blood sugar test is no where even close to being as important in my opinion since movement of large muscles is what uses the most sugar and when your sleeping there is not much muscle movement.

Exercising after dinner in conjunction with diet changes has reduced my a1C to the 5.5 to 5.9 range since 2008 (before this on meds it was in the 6.3 to 7.3 range for a couple of years). I have also found by doing this that other side effects I had from diabetes have gone away or been reduced. For example the peripheral neuropathy has reduced dramatically so I no longer feel any burning and only slight discomfort; plus other things that were out of tolerance like testosterone levels are now in the middle of the normal range.

Most doctors have been taught it is impossible to reverse diabetes and want to put patients on meds right away to first reduce sugar produced by liver (Metformin) and next to increase the insulin production, to finally insulin injection. I was on two meds for close to three years and then did some research and learned that the meds cause Type II diabetics to produce more insulin and thus make there cells more and more resistant to insulin and then a lot of bad things begin to happen to organs, arteries, etc. From what I studied it is my opinion that sugar is not the problem, but only a CHEAP means to measure how the insulin in our bodies is processing the sugar. The main problem in my opinion from my research is the excess insulin which is hard to measure. In fact insulin is estimated using a C-Pep test using a correlation between it an insulin to determine how the pancreas is producing insulin. I encourage anyone who reads this to do their own research and learn how to make the changes needed to avoid the ever spiraling road to worsening health caused by diabetes and even the meds used to treat the disease. My doctor thought I was crazy to try the program I developed, but after a year he started to accept what happened saying, "sometimes approaches like what you took work, but more often than not they do not." It takes a lot of determination to make these kinds of life changes and after sharing my approach with some people I have found that the people who do not get results usually are not committed to doing the program. I have a 7 foot tall friend who is very disciplined who went on the program and went from 315 LBs to 245 LBs in 4 months and has had normal a1C tests ever since.

As a research scientist my theory to explain this is based on the fact that most cells are re-newed every 18-24 months (except brain cells) and since the cells are created from amino acids and proteins based on RNA and DNA synthesis (which is always the same) they are initially created as normal cells. If these new cells are allowed to develop in a low insulin environment the GLUT-4 transporters will not develop a resistance to insulin and effectively respond to sugar levels/demand in a normal fashion. This highlights the importance of making life changes that emphasize a diet based on low gylcemic loads and doing appropriate exercise after dinner every day.

A diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes often leads to heart disease, stroke, and other life-threatening complications - but it needn't be a death sentence, with Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes in hand. Dr. Barnard uses clinical research results to describe a new low-fat vegan diet which can help patients cut blood sugars and often eliminate the need for medication entirely. And it involves eating regular meals, using the body's natural insulation to alter what goes on at the cellular level. Add recipes and menus and Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes: The Scientifically Proven System for Reversing Diabetes Without Drugs becomes an excellent key to positive change and the kinds of quick results Type 2 diabetics need.

I don't have diabetes. I won this book as part of a package in a fund raising auction.

I found it to be very interesting.

One current theory for the genesis of food allergies is that "leaky guts", porous intestines leak out proteins from our food before those proteins have been broken down into amino acids. These proteins then get out into the blood where the immune system is alerted to them, thus triggering an autoimmune response.

Infants, whose digestive systems are not fully matured, are predisposed to having leaky intestines. They are vulnerable to developing food allergies if they are fed highly allergenic foods too early ( dairy products, soy, wheat, citrus, meat etc ). The proteins leak into their blood stream and their immune systems are inadvertently trained to see these proteins as hazards.

Type 1 diabetes is believed to happen, in part, when the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the insulin producing cells of the pancreas ( pages 30 - 35 ). The book describes several studies of children predisposed to type 1 diabetes or children who were on their way to getting it. It turned out that these children's immune systems were "on alert" to attacking proteins found in bovine milk. It has been discovered that portions of those bovine milk proteins were nearly biochemically identical to the children's insulin producing cells.

Wow.

Dr. Barnard's dietary program for type 2 diabetes has been tested in several studies in partnership with the National Institute Of Health. In a nutshell, he prescribes eating low fat ( only 20% of calories from fat, preferably 10% ), high fiber, low glycemic index valued, and vegan foods. That is, each bit of food that a recovering diabetic eats has all of these qualities.

The really interesting part is where the book explains why this works. Too much fat accumulating on the inside of cells causes the mitochondria in those cells to stop burning such fat, which leads to insulin resistance. Though a person's pancreas might be kicking out enough insulin, the insulin no longer has any effect on the cells. The cells will not absorb glucose from the blood stream leading to toxic levels of sugar in the blood.

The diet described above has been proven to reduce the amount of fat within cells, restart the burning of this fat by the mitochonria, reverse insulin resistance, and lower blood sugar levels -- without drugs.

Again, wow.

Weight control is an important part of treating diabetes and this book has a lot of interesting facts about losing weight from the studies of Dr. Barbara Rolls who wrote the book "Volumetrics". Unlike the various quack popular diet book authors out there Dr. Rolls is a highly respected scientist who has been researching how to satisfy hunger with fewer calories.

One thing she learned is that for each 14 gram increase of fiber in a diet ( via food, not supplements ) people will eat until they are full, but they will feel full on 200 fewer calories.
200 fewer calories per day is enough to lose 20 pounds over the course of a year.

Her theory is that weight in the stomach triggers satiation.

Interestingly, her studies found that not any weight will set this response off. Having study participants drink a particular weight of water did nothing for triggering early satiation. However taking in the same weight composed of water and food ( stew ) did.

Dr. Rolls recommends eating foods that have natural "bulk" - a lot of water and a lot of fiber together naturally. To encourage weight loss she advises eating food that has the more weight per a particular amount of calories.

A neat trick offered by the book is to focus on eating foods that have an equal number of calories as grams of weight...or less.

Another simple weight loss trick offered by Dr. Barnard is to do a "quick fiber check" when your weight loss seems to be slowing down. He has a set value of points for servings of legumes, vegetables, fruit, and whole grains. You count the number of servings of each you have every day. If your points add up to less than 40 and you want more weight loss you eat more food from those groups of foods.

The book also gave a very clear introduction to the disease of diabetes in accessible, but not dumbed down language that I found fascinating.