Katerina, this is wonderful to hear You are so blessed.

I wish I could have gotten my mom to change her dietary lifestyle. She was diabetic for 30 years, eventually requiring dialysis. Somehow she managed to contract pancreatitis which was treated with anti-biotics that not only killed her bad bacteria, it had also killed her good bacteria. She developed C-Diff that came very close to killing her. She began to recover from the C-Diff but died 2 weeks later. The dialysis is the suspected culprit since it tends to increase potassium levels. Everything here could have been avoided with some form of low carb diet. She shunned everything I tried to offer her as help. I tried to get her to take vitamin D3 instead of the D2 she was prescribed. If I had my way, my mom would have lived a little longer. Mom was 84...she was just a baby

Well, mom is gone now so I need to concentrate on other family members. Bye mom...miss you.

Black57, sorry to hear about your mom. I bought a copy of the Bernstein book and that is how I got my mom to wake up. When she was in the hospital (twice) with heart attacks, they fed her the worst sort of stuff you can imagine! She had to refuse food. The dieticians counseled her, what a joke! They tried to get her to eat so many carbs. Appalling!

I hear you! I wish I could have gotten my dad to change his diet too - but from 550 miles away I couldn't do much to control it. He was type 2 diabetic for 25 years, had thyroid issues, Parkinson's disease. But right up to the end his preferred diet was still Dunkin Donuts, cake, pie, pizza, etc. He was only 81 when he died in December and I also feel he went *far* too soon and might have been with us still if only he could have changed his eating habits. Alas it was not to be.

I think a lot of the new research coming out shows that people may have genetic markers that may be the reason why some thin people get Type 2. We are not all overweight. I was a vegetarian, eating way too many complex carbs. I exercised in the gym or on the tennis courts for 2-3 hours a day. I was dx'd 3 years ago with a fasting of 240 and HbA1c of almost 10. Before dx I had lost 50 pounds and considered myself very healthy. I now have lost another 28 pounds and am down to my college weight and my bgs are still a little elevated. The biggest thing that has helped me is giving up all grains. I now have a normal HbA1c but I have to watch my carbs like a hawk and take metformin.

Gluttony, sloth and the metabolic syndrome: a roadmap to lipotoxicity Indeed if you are genetically less able to get fat, the problems arising from excess calories occur sooner rather than later.
The interplay between genes and the development of Diabetes are very interesting.
If you follow the links in this thread Melatonin - Good morning to an unexpected culprit in type 2 diabetes you come to a series of 3 presentations that explain how one particular genetic sequence that restricts the ability to shut down melatonin production in the morning affects the ability of the the pancreas to respond appropriately to the first meal of the day.
Understanding how genes may affect the development of Diabetes enables those with a family history of diabetes to take more effective action to prevent, or at least delay, the onset and possibly slow the progress.

Along with other people in my family, my aunt (I believe she's 71 now) was recently diagnosed with it. She's about 200 or so pounds (around the same weight as most of the women in my family). And one day we were talking on the phone and I told her I was eating low-carb again. She said, "oh no, I couldn't do that. I have to eat sugar sometimes to regulate my blood sugar!" Now this is a woman who is a nurse and should KNOW BETTER!!! urg. Of course then there's my sister who's had diabetes and CFIDS for the past 23 or so years and weighs over 400 pounds, and is very sedentary. ("I can't go for walks. I have CFIDS. I eat whatever I want. I just take my insulin shots regularly.") double grrr!!!!

And my mom, who is only half aware of what's going on anymore due to a brain anyeurism a couple years ago, who's also diabetic but just goes by whatever the docs tell her.

I've tried to tell each of these women, all of whom I love, that it's better to keep your blood sugars at an even keel rather than the up and down taht they go through when you eat carbs/fast/eat carbs/fast--etc.... but do they listen? NO. They all know better than me.

Oh well.

Yep, like a knife you can use once and put away forever. Instead of a pill you gotta take for the rest of your life. Whit diabetes type 2, since it's a chronic disease, the cure must also be chronic.

The way I see it, diabetes type 2 is just a symptom of carbohydrate poisoning. If you continue to poison yourself with carbs, of course you'll continue to suffer the symptom that we call diabetes type 2. I mean, would you keep eating arsenic if you knew it was the cause of your "disease"?

Tuberculosis can be cured, but not the scarring that it caused.

Genetics? Like it runs in the family? Well, diet runs in the family as well.

Let's take the example of tuberculosis again because it's clear and contains the aspects we're talking about. Tuberculosis is caused by something which in turn causes irreversible damage if it goes on long enough. Diabetes is caused by something which in turn causes irreversible damage if it goes on long enough. Curing tuberculosis involves removing the causal agent, in this case a bacteria. Curing diabetes involves removing the causal agent, in this case dietary carbohydrate. I think we could go through the list of diseases, infections and injuries and we will find that the term cure always has the same meaning: To remove the cause of the affliction.

Cure doesn't mean "to remove the symptom". The symptom should go away on its own once the cause is removed. Unless, of course, the symptom is irreversible like a scar.

If you have ever seen a person who treated their diabetes with meds, you will realize that making necessary dietary adjustments will not only cure diabetes, it will prevent it in the first place. The best cure is knowledge. My mom treated her diabetes for 30 years with her doctor's help, with insulin. She was able to enjoy her bread, potatoes, rice with the help of insulin. Back to the arsenic analogy, imagine deliberately taking arsenic and thinking that it is perfectly okay as long as I took an anti-arsenic medicine that slowed arsenic's destruction. I enjoy arsenic so much that I would rather combat it with the anti-arsenic med. Then do that for 30 years until your kidneys gave out and it became necessary to live the remainder of your life attached to a machine 3 days a week. The saddest part of this is that the remainder of your life was a measily 2 years of physical and emotional pain. I hate dwelling on the possibility that my mother could have had a better quaility of life if she had tried doing the cure for diabetes instead of using the medication that permitted the use of the poison that caused her demise. I actually discussed this with her several years ago and she was not interested in seeking the cure. She was fine with taking the poison just as she had been for the past 20 something years-at that time. In addition to that, her doctor was willing to just prescribe meds. Her blood pressure went up, she got meds. Her cholesterol went up, she got meds.

Michael Jackson couldn't sleep and he got meds....

Its all the same thing, really!!!!

Because he was a celebrity, his Doctor is going to do prison time....

I think all Doctors who give meds and don't demand a change in diet, exercise and overall lifestyle, should be proscuted, because their medical training has taught them that "just the meds" will not solve the diabtic problem. They shouldn't be let off the hook either, by blaming the patient for not following Doctor's orders...

Diabetic patients aren't thinking clearly to begin with, due to the fluctuations in blood sugar, most out-of-control diabetics are all in some stage of denial and counseling should be mandatory, but not to indoctrinate them on following the conventional current day medical advice, but how to take charge of your health by eating the right way and exercising and losing weight in a healthy way and how to monitor and adjust diet and exercise to improve our health.....

I blame the medical establishment because they know if they just prescribe the drugs, the patient is coming back and it means more business. Meanwhile, diabetes is killing people who aren't being told the whole truth and nothing but the truth......

I think medical negligence should include "apathy by any kind of practioner" and should be a prosecutable offense.....

I know as a diabetic I cannot tolerate carbs. Going on a Bersnstein type diet has allowed me to get near normal numbers most of the day. I have an HbA1c in the very low 5's, better than some non diabetics. I'm hoping to push my triglycerides even lower (75 right now) and HDL higher (85 right now) I do think low carb has changed my life. But I will still be diabetic.

It is a difficult question regarding doctors and prescriptions. I had a difficult time finding doctors who would consider treating my diabetes, and reaching my goals of 70-110 blood glucose levels. So long as it is not done a great expense on someone else's dime, I am somewhat of the view that people take responsibility for their own drug consumption, legal or illegal.

Diabetes is a disease of the failure of the blood glucose regulatory system. Most of the world for most of the last 10,000 years has relied upon grains for the sustenance. About everything the civilization has created (good and bad) is built upon the foundation of agriculture and grains. Most people cope well with grains. Those of us who don't are diabetic. Its surge in the last few decades was not caused by the introduction of grains. It would be of great benefit to discover the exact reasons for the surge.