Dr. Michael Mosley gets it right, almost.

First let me start by saying I have nothing against people who write books. For years at a very well known diabetes forum, the mention of people like Gary Taubes, Dr.Malcolm Kendrick, Dr.Richard Bernstein or Zoe Harcombe, would have teeth gnashing, and a high profile, low carb anti cabal bellowing "they're only in it for the money" For some reason, it always put me in mind of the Nazi book burning in Germany before WWII. Public book burning of books written by Jews was a regular occurrence. What escaped the vandals and misfit minds, was the fact many of the worlds leading Scientists and Doctors were Jews, and they had written books. The fact is, very few people get rich by writing books, but thank your God they do, or we would be back in the stone age living in a cave. OK, that's cleared that up and I will move on.

Firing up my computer today and checking out the Daily Mail (please don't hold readership of the Mail against me) I see Doctor Michael Mosley is talking about the 5:2 diet and the reversal of type two diabetes. The Mail is promoting his book The Eight-Week Blood Sugar Diet. "The Eight-Week Blood Sugar Diet: Lose Weight Fast And Reprogramme Your Body by Michael Mosley (Short Books, £8.99). © Michael Mosley 2016. To order a copy at the special price of £7.19 (offer valid until January 23, 2016)

Firstly, don't bother with the "special price of £7.19" it's only special because you can buy the book from Amazon for half the price here, secondly, the 5:2 diet is not going to reverse your type two diabetes full stop. Michael states "So I went on what I called the 5:2 diet (eat normally five days a week, then cut calories to around 600 on the other two days), and found it surprisingly manageable. I lost 20lb in 12 weeks and my blood sugar and cholesterol levels returned to normal" 

Trust me, that will not work for most. Eating 'normally' is what got most people into the diabetes club in the first place, so that will never work. If I had continued to eat 'normally' for five days and starved myself for two days, after my diabetes diagnosis, I know I would have run dangerously high blood glucose numbers for five days of the week and seen a slight improvement in BG on the two days I starved. This would still apply to this day, if I had used the 5:2 diet. Over seven years on from adopting the low carb higher fat lifestyle, I hold non diabetic BG numbers. Also, the key to why this method will fail most, is the word diet. The term diet implies for most, a short term method to lose some weight. To reverse the main symptoms of type two diabetes long term, changes have to be made for life.

Michael also states "The thing about carbs — particularly easily digestible ones such as sugar, but also breakfast cereals, pasta, bread and potatoes — is that they are quickly broken down in the gut to release sugar" He is spot on there, and for most type two diabetics, these foods have to be dumped permanently, if you want to hold non diabetic BG numbers long term. Many believe type two medications can achieve the same, they can't, and many come with dangerous side effects. Also, I am no fan of the Newcastle diet he talks about. 

The Newcastle diet is becoming quite well known, it's obvious why it works. I do not find it surprising people on a starvation diet lose weight. By definition it is low calorie, low fat, low protein and low carb. So people lose weight, they lose fat from the liver, their BG numbers plummet. The same can be said for our low carb higher fat lifestyle. The big question for those on a Newcastle diet, is what happens at the end of the eight weeks of self inflicted torture? Can these people go back to eating 'normally'? No, just as a drug addict cannot go back to using drugs, or the alcoholic go back on the booze after eight weeks on the wagon. The abstinence must be maintained for life to stay healthy, it's the same for a diabetic. In short, diets never work long term, and long term control of blood glucose is what diabetics need to stay complication free.

Until there is a genuine cure for diabetes, there will never be any short term fixes that reverse the symptoms of diabetes. For many type two diabetics, this chronic disease was the result of the wrong diet. Many years of a high carb, high sugar, high starch, low fat diet, the diet pushed for decades by Doctors and Dietitians, the so called "healthy Balanced Diet" we now know was anything but. I recommend you do a Google search of the names I mentioned in my first paragraph. They all have sites that offer great free information, and yes, they also write books, but please don't hold that against them.

You could also check out our humble website here.  This gives a very clear and easily understood method, for the long term control and reversal of the main symptoms of type two diabetes. 

Have a great weekend

Eddie

Link to the DM article here.