I am indebted in the following discussion to the late Adelle Davis, a tireless worker for greater human health. While she wrote during a time when many things were not known—the dangers of excess protein, for instance—nevertheless she was able to shed a great deal of light.
The first thing to understand is that diabetes is not primarily a disease of sugar, but a disease of fat. That is, people get adult-onset diabetes (by far the predominant kind) because they eat too much fat.
Here is essentially how it works: Excess fat consumption drastically increases the need for vitamin B6. In the absence of extra B6, the body experiences a deficiency in this vitamin.
When in B6 deficiency, the body converts the amino acid tryptophane into a chemical poisonous to the pancreas, xanthurenic acid. Xanthurenic acid damages and kills pancreatic cells. When this process has advanced too far the pancreas becomes so damaged that it can no longer produce sufficient insulin.
By the way, we can't just take a vitamin B6 pill, because the whole B-complex works synergistically—the different components of the B-complex work together. Thus it's important to get natural sources of the whole B-complex, such as brown rice and whole grains in general.
Another aspect of the problem also revolves around fat. When we become overweight or obese, the body's cells become surrounded by fat, which makes it more difficult for insulin to penetrate into them to do its job.
Because of this, the pancreas produces more and more insulin so that the insulin can get through and do its work. This extra insulin production also leads to more and more retention of fat...which in turn makes it even harder for insulin to do its work...which causes the pancreas to produce even more insulin in a self-reinforcing process.
This latter phenomenon is called insulin resistance and means that insulin is less and less able to do its job, even though the pancreas is producing greater and greater amounts of it.
Paradoxically, diabetes can thus result from either too little insulin (due to a damaged pancreas) or too much insulin (because insulin can't do its job properly). Either way, though, the culprit is too much fat in the diet. And either way, the result is severe and increasing damage to the body.
When the body can't produce enough insulin, sugar in the bloodstream rises to inordinate levels, which over time causes severe problems in the cardiovascular system, including the heart, the kidneys, the eyes and elsewhere.
On the other hand, when too much insulin is present—either from over-production or injection—atheroschelosis (arterial plaque formation) is promoted and the patient is at far greater risk of a heart attack or stroke.
The way out of this nasty dilemma is to drastically reduce the amount of fat in the diet.
Studies done with diabetic patients show that a large reduction in the amount of fat in the diet—down to 10% of calories or lower—causes a stabilizing and reversal of the disease in the vast majority (over 90%) of patients.
This improvement includes being able to eliminate injected insulin. And those few who did have to stay on insulin were able to drastically reduce the amount.
—jim sloman, fall 2000 for Jul 6
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