A couple of months ago I started to seriously revisit all the prescriptions and medications I am taking, by examining all the fact sheets on each prescription drug, particularly as to their side effects. Oh MY! did I open a can of worms when I did that! I would never have guessed that my doctors are quite supportive of my challenge to my existing regimen of treatment.

My family doctor suggested I get my pharmacist to do a careful analysis of all of them, and make some recommendations as to how I might reduce the sheer number of drugs I’ve been taking, as well as to eliminate those which might be exacerbating some of my side effects. My pharmacist suggested that I could end up getting rid of virtually all my diabetes and related medications by the time we complete this review.

So, far from being discouraged after my initial review, I felt quite enthusiastic about challenging the status quo, and moving towards more control of my health, most particularly my diabetes.

A few weeks ago I wrote about changing how my insulin is administered as well as how it is monitored every day. My endocrinologist prescribed me new forms of insulin, one long acting and one fast acting. I also finally got the new patch, which allows me to monitor my glucose levels on an ongoing basis. Despite a bit of struggling with learning how to use the insulin, without plunging myself into a diabetic coma, it soon became clear to me that I was gaining a huge amount of control of my sugar levels, merely by having an effective biofeedback loop, combined with insulin which could be provided only when needed, and only the amounts needed at the time to control the blood sugar.

Wow! Was I surprised.

Suddenly, in a matter of only two or three weeks I discovered that I could bring my blood sugars down a lot, and not just my fasting sugars, but all of my blood sugars. I discovered that what I put in my body, other than the drugs, has a huge impact of my blood sugars.

Coincidentally, at about the same time, my son Donald, gave me a book, The Diabetes Code, by Jason Fung, MD. This book, which I have reviewed earlier in my blogs, was also a revelation. For the very first time I read about a treatment program which proposes that diabetes is NOT a lifetime sentence to a progressive and destructive disease. Instead, it is a preventable and treatable consequence of lifestyle choices within an individual’s personal control.

And even for someone with long term diabetes, after years of treatment and drugs, with many negative physical problems directly caused by diabetes, diabetes can still be beaten.

Step One. Understand that almost everything we think we know about a healthy diet is simply wrong, and out of date. In a sense, the modern type 2 diabetes epidemic is a creation of modern science in a willing collusion with food manufactures and dieticians. Prior to the last forty years Type 2 diabetes was a relatively rare disorder. In the past forty years, however, it has exploded to becoming one of the number one causes of serious illness and death. Nobody is saying that it is being done on purpose by someone, however, even if someone deliberately set out to destroy public health, all around the world, they couldn’t have done a better job of ruining millions of lives and destroying the health and well being of almost the entire population.

Step Two. Reexamine what Type 2 Diabetes actually is, rather than what health professionals have been saying for the past forty years. Type 2 Diabetes is basically the body overdosing on carbohydrates and sugars, over producing insulin in a vain attempt to force the body to use the excessive amounts of sugars being forced into the system, and systematically creating Insulin Resistance, by trying to get insulin to do a job it is not designed to do – which is to take the constant overdosing on carbohydrates and sugars, and force the cells of the body to use ever more and more of the sugars. Doing this eventually destroys the liver, and packs the liver with excessive stored energy in the form of fat. The fatter the liver, the less effective it becomes at managing the body’s blood sugar levels. Stuff too much sugar and carbohydrates into a body and eventually the body becomes diabetic and obese. Dr. Fung calls the disease Diabesity, combining the words Diabetes and Obesity into one word that describes the condition responsible for the modern malaise that is destroying so many.

Step Three. It is curable, or at least treatable. Not with complicated and expensive prescriptions but with the simplest of instructions, albeit difficult to follow for many. At the simplest level, stop eating that which is killing you. At least stop eating a potentially fatal dose of it every day of your life. It will require a major change in dietary habits, starting with today, and continuing for the rest of your life.

Step Four. Reset the diabetic system of your body. Although simply reducing carbs and sugars radically will bring your sugars (and your weight) down if followed with a certain amount of discipline, what it won’t do, according to Dr. Fung, and his research, is undo the damage done to your body from overeating and overusing carbohydrates and sugar for many years prior to diabetes being diagnosed.

What’s happened, most importantly, is that the body has over-stuffed the critical inner organs, the liver most critically, with fat converted from all the excess sugar and carbs eaten for a lifetime. The fat in the liver is hard to get rid of, even by extremely consistent reduction of carbs and sugars. And it is this fat in the liver that makes you insulin resistant. So getting rid of it as possible is essential for a long term “cure” of diabetes. Dr. Fung believes that intermittent fasting may be the only way, or at least the most likely way, to force the body to eliminate the fat in the internal organs that is most directly responsible for insulin resistance.

So, to make a long blog just a little bit shorter, I’ll get to the point. Fasting is a way to radically improve my health, by busting the elevated fat out of my “fatty liver”. So starting today, with my first 30 hour fast, I am undertaking a systematic program of combining a low carbohydrate and sugar diet with 36 hours of fasting, three days a week.

I’m planning, initially, to pursue this program for three months, in consultation with my endocrinologist and careful planning of my insulin and drug therapies. I’m to monitor my blood sugars all day long with my new meter, and adjust my insulin, up and down as needed to maintain my blood sugar in the healthy target zone of 5.8 mMl t0 7.8 mMl over the twenty-four hour day.

One last point. Do radically reduce carbs in your diet, whether you’re a diabetic or not, because if you are eating too much sugar and carbohydrates, you are now or soon still be a diabetic.

DON’T do this fast without medical consultation and supervision if you are a diabetic on insulin. I have had six dangerously low blood sugar events in the past three weeks, after never having had one in more than twenty years of diabetes. Because I monitor my blood sugars with the Freestyle patch and meter, on a regular basis, I know quickly if my blood sugars are going too low, and have taken corrective steps immediately, which means eating or drinking a high sugar content food, so immediately raise the blood sugars out of the danger zone.

While I am fasting the doctor and I have developed a strategy for administration of my insulin, to ensure that I don’t have any of these extremely low blood sugar events. So please don’t try this without medical advice and support.

So if you’re following me, and want to know how it goes, add follow and I’ll let you know.