Carbohydrate Intolerance, Institutional Intransigence

It is time for me to share with you the story of Jimmy. He is a respected leader among the Kwakiutl people of Vancouver Island. He is educated and cosmopolitan while also remaining down-to-earth and connected to his home community. He is a bright, intelligent and good-hearted man. I am honoured to count him amongst my friends.

Not that long ago he was also a classic example of the devastation that metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes are wreaking in the Canadian Indigenous population. At 48 years of age he had been taking insulin for 17 years. Even with four shots a day of two types of insulin he was not able to get his soaring blood sugars under control. He was medicated for high blood pressure, which also remained stubbornly high. His lipids were bad and his doctor wanted him to start taking a statin. He was significantly overweight and had already suffered from a stroke. He was definitely on track for a bad outcome and likely sooner rather than later.

At that time, I was speaking out about my own diabetic experience where I had corrected everything in very short order by simply removing carbohydrates from my diet. When addressing a First Nations audience, I would draw parallels between my modern low-carb diet and their ancestral diet which was very low in carbs in this part of the world. Jimmy heard me give this talk a couple of times and then the penny dropped. He decided to try eliminating carbs from his diet.
He went to his health centre and got weighed and measured and then he started sending me email updates. I got the first note after two weeks and he reported that he had lost 17 lbs and was now getting normal fasting blood sugars and had stopped taking insulin. Completely. Consider that for a moment. Years of struggling to control blood sugar with heaps of insulin, injecting four times a day, and failing. And now, after one simple dietary intervention, he is completely free of the needle and running normal values.

A couple of weeks later, he reported a total weight loss of 31 lbs and was now normotensive and free of his antihypertensive drug. At nine weeks, he had lost 37 lbs and was continuing to record normal blood pressure and blood sugar readings. At 18 weeks, his total weight loss was 46 lbs and all his markers were normal on no medications. He had his lipids done and those were also within normal range, now, as well.

More here;

http://www.drjaywortman.com/blog/wordpress/2012/04/27/carbohydrate-intolerance-institutional-intransigence/

Graham