category : Diabetes

I recently received an e-mail from a woman suffering from Type I Diabetes. She heard me talk about the work we do here at Longevity Medical Clinic helping patients with Type II Diabetes overcome their illness until they are for all practical purposes “cured.” This writer took me to task for using that optimistic term. For her sake and yours, let me explain what I mean, and what we can and can’t accomplish here at the Clinic.

First, regarding Type I Diabetes: many people don’t realize that what we refer to as Type I Diabetes is not actually one disease. Instead, the term refers to a variety of medical conditions which have as their common denominator inadequate or defective insulin production. At this point, there is no well-established cure for the insulin deficiency diseases we call Type I Diabetes. Since each of these conditions has its own unique causes and characteristics, the cures we hope for will probably come piecemeal as physicians find ways to

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With an aggressive cutting-edge program, over 70% of type 2 diabetics can be returned to normal blood sugars; normal insulin levels have no further need for diabetic medications. The question is, are these patients in remission or have they been cured? In my practice, I have found that with a combination of innovative hormonal support, increased physical activity, and significant diet changes, most type 2 diabetics can effectively be returned to normal. I usually tell them that they have been cured. But some physicians prefer to say that these patients are in remission, because if they were to return to their old lifestyle, their diabetes may return. But if all of their tests are normal, how can I claim that they are still

Most people have heard that obesity can be one of the chief causes of diabetes. But it’s equally true that diabetes can actually make you fat. So does the weight problem cause the disease, or is it the other way around? This is not really a purely academic “chicken or egg” question. To understand what’s going on we need to take a brief look at the physiology involved in becoming diabetic. When we do we discover a metabolic conundrum: body fat can increase the amount of insulin you require, while at the same time those higher levels of insulin can make you fatter.

When a diabetic no longer needs medication and has normal blood sugars – do we call it remission or do we call it a cure?

Assume for a moment that you're a diabetic.  Your fasting blood sugar is 214.  Your hemoglobin A1c – the component of hemoglobin to which glucose is bound – is an unhealthy 7.9.  You are taking nine pills per day in an effort to control your blood sugar, but it does not seem to be working.  This means you are a poorly controlled type 2 diabetic, and your risk of experiencing the deadly effects of unchecked diabetes – heart attacks, strokes, dementia, blindness, kidney failure, loss of sensation in your extremities and amputations – is significantly elevated.

Now, let's consider a different scenario.

Since I stopped practicing general family medicine and started dedicating myself exclusively to aging issues, there is one disease process that comes up again and again.  It’s the one on which I probably spend the lion’s share of my time as a clinical physician. That process is adult-onset, or Type II, diabetes. No mistake about it, it’s a killer and in America’s adult population, it’s a full blown epidemic. 

People worry a great deal about cancer, but your chances of getting cancer pale beside the one-in-three shot you have of developing diabetes before you die. People tend to overlook diabetes since the disease has been manageable for decades. But managed or not, over the long term it will still ravage your heart, eyes, and circulatory system. 

The thing that’s so crazy about diabetes is that we still have a tendency to view and treat adult-onset diabetes as a purely genetic disorder. The truth is, however, diabetes is like heart disease